Here are four stories from Danielle, Mike, Anthony, and Rachel about equity and justice, and how we translate ambition into action in this area.
Link to dialogue Equity and Justice – Red Letter Christians UK
(Faith, Helen and David wrestle with the complexities of inclusion; a summary is on p295-300)
Questions
- What approaches does your church bring to interpreting Scripture? How has your own engagement with Scripture changed?
- What do the red letters of Jesus teach us about how to re-read scripture? How might your community incorporate new lenses for hearing how God is speaking through the Bible?
- Whose table have you shied away from? Where might God be calling your community to accept a humble invitation as guest—to learn from rather than teach?
- Read 65:25 together with your faith community. Pray for God to reveal how you can faithfully participate in this vision
Creative response:
Create a collage bringing together the images of the wolf and the lamb: how does this land in your community, neighbourhood, bringing disparate, often suspicious groups together to seek unity and common goals?
Action: be a guest by visiting a local Gurdwara, attending a community event run by a particular ethnic group different from your own, attend a pride event as an ally, anywhere where you are not in charge. Journal about how you felt in this space, the welcome you received, your encounter with the Spirit.
Bible
Psalm 99
1 The Lord reigns,
let the nations tremble;
he sits enthroned between the cherubim,
let the earth shake.
2 Great is the Lord in Zion;
he is exalted over all the nations.
3 Let them praise your great and awesome name –
he is holy.
4 The King is mighty, he loves justice –
you have established equity;
in Jacob you have done
what is just and right.
5 Exalt the Lord our God
and worship at his footstool;
he is holy.
Isaiah 65:25
The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
and dust will be the serpent’s food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,’
says the Lord.
2 Corinthians 8:1-15
And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. 2 In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. 3 For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, 4 they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. 5 And they exceeded our expectations: they gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us. 6 So we urged Titus, just as he had earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part. 7 But since you excel in everything – in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you – see that you also excel in this grace of giving.
8 I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. 9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.
10 And here is my judgment about what is best for you in this matter. Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. 11 Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. 12 For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.
13 Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. 14 At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, 15 as it is written: ‘The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.’
What is God saying through these verses that inform your thinking about all this especially about equality? What call to action do you discern here? How will you answer it?
Shre what you've discovered and created Doxology: Radically Unravelling – Red Letter Christians UK
