Friday 3rd May 2024   Matthew 16: 24 – 26 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.  For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? Reflection There should be no doubt that the call of the Marks of Mission to “expose, subvert and transform” the practices of Empire is a deadly earnest endeavour. Empire always responds forcefully to resistance and Jesus’ words in Matthew 16 makes clear what to expect when we follow Him. We acknowledge the history of physical martyrdoms that have resulted from Christians refusing to deny Jesus’ name or stop preaching the Gospel, but when we respond to the call to “hear the groans of creation”, do we have the same expectations regarding the consequences? Put bluntly, do your endeavours to protect and nurture God’s world bring you into conflict with Empire? Litter picking, wild meadow planting, organising eco-fayres and recycling are necessary and responsible things to do. But they stop short of the radical call to challenge Empire’s destruction of the world through its sin-driven, cynical and vicious exploitation of resources for profit. The climate crisis is no accident.  “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19) and all that opposes God wants to silence that witness of our physical world to the existence of an omnipotent, loving creator. The climate crisis is, ultimately, a spiritual crisis.  Whatever your view of groups involved in acts of non-violent civil disobedience and protest against the climate crisis, they have understood the depth of the problem and that nothing less than full-blooded opposition to the powers of Empire will do.  The arrests, fines, imprisonment, the increasingly draconian laws they face and the vitriol of the media against them are all Empire’s response to their challenge. If our opposition to the continued exploitation of fossil fuels at the expense of millions of species and human lives doesn’t cost us inner tension regarding the extent to which our own lives continue to be embedded within the values and practices of Empire and create issues between us and that powers that are pursuing that exploitation, have we really understood what the fifth (first?) Mark of Mission really means? Prayer  Father, give us the insight to understand  the spiritual depth of the climate crisis. Give us repentance for our contribution  to the destruction of your world. Thank you that we have the wonderful privilege and terrible responsibility of living in such immense times. Give us wisdom to understand how each of us individually  must respond and the courage to play our particular part,  no matter what Empire will. Amen.

Today’s writer Kate Chesterman is a member of Christian Climate Action   Copyright New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Thursday 2 May 2024   Joel 1:6-7, 10-12, 2:25b A people have come up against my country, a mighty and innumerable people; their teeth are the teeth of a lion and he has the fangs of a lioness. He hath made my vineyard a desolation and he has torn my fig tree to pieces; he peeled them to the ground and felled them, and their branches are turned white… The field is devastated, the land mourns, for the wheat is laid waste, the new wine has failed and the fresh oil has run out. Grieve, ye husbandmen, mourn, you vinedressers, for the wheat and the barley, for the harvest of the fields is lost. The vineyard is withered and the fig tree withered; pomegranates, palm trees and apple trees, all the trees of the field are withered… …my great army that I have sent against you.  Reflection In Argentina we have our own musical “Evita”.  Not the one by Rice and Lloyd Weber, but a film shot in 1984 with music by Mignona and Nebbia. There, in one of the songs, you can hear the following: “If history is written by those who win, that means that there is another history, the true history, whoever wants to hear should hear”. Graham reminded us on Monday that God’s mission has unfolded prophetically within larger systems, which we have called Empires. From the perspective of Latin American theology we often feel that many biblical texts were not only written in these imperial contexts, but were also co-opted by the Empire. In other words, the texts that finally reach us today are the texts of the scribes of the Empire, the history of the victors, and it is our task to discover between the lines the true history, that of the vanquished for God operates in the margins of that history. Take the book of Joel, which seems to equate an invasion of locusts and other pests with the actions of an army. What if it is exactly the other way around? What if what is actually being described metaphorically is the actions of the imperial armies?  This is how empires operated and operate: destroying everything in their path, including nature.  An army requires a lot of resources to move, provide food and fuel; that’s why military campaigns were timed to the beginning of harvests. Armies consumed everything in their path, and what they had left over or did not need, they destroyed, so that others could not make use of it.  Scorched earth is what today’s economic system leaves us with, sacrificing everything for quick profit and trying to eliminate competition. God’s economy, on the other hand, invites us to eat the fruits, but not to destroy the trees that give them to us, so that they can continue to feed us and others for much longer (Dt 20:19-20). (In memoriam J.S.Croatto) Prayer  My prayer today comes in the form of a beautiful song by the Brazilian theologian Simei Monteiro: I sing a new song on earth of all who love and hope, Lord, to see your reconstruction. I speak in the new language of the people words that taste, Lord, words of the heart. I live a life that is different, that wants to see my people, Lord, to love you and be like you. I want to change the face of the world and give it deeper love, Lord, than it is used to giving. Amen.

Today’s writer Nicolás Rosenthal is the Executive Director of the Protestant Foundation Hora de Obrar, Argentina   Copyright New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Copyright © 2024 United Reformed Church, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you have subscribed to the Daily Devotions from the United Reformed Church. You can unsubscribe by clicking on the link below. Our mailing address is: United Reformed Church 86 Tavistock Place London, WC1H 9RT United Kingdom Add us to your address book Posted in Daily Devotions | Tagged daily devotions, united reformed church | Comments Off on URC Daily Devotion 2 May 2024