19.01.2018
‘When We Build a Wall Against the Vulnerable It Is God We Shut Out’ – Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2018
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity began yesterday (Thursday January 18) and in Dublin & Glendalough the inaugural service took place in the Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Johnstown/Killiney.
Organised by Dublin Council of Churches, the service was attended by many Christian church leaders from Dublin including Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. Archbishop Michael Jackson was represented by his ecumenical advisor, the Revd Norman McCausland. Dean William Morton of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, was also present.
The theme of the service, as for the whole week, was ‘That All May Be Free’ and was based on material from the Church in the Caribbean which has focused on Exodus 15.
The address was given by Dr Jessie Rogers, a scripture scholar from St Patrick’s College. She observed that the celebration of the Hebrew slaves when they realised they were free, as depicted in Exodus 15: 1–3, was only the beginning of the journey of the people of God. “They have been set free from bondage, yes, but also set free for something: to be the people that God has created them to be, a community of people with value and dignity,” she explained.
Dr Rogers continued that the story of Exodus, celebrated in the Song of the Sea, was the story that shaped Jesus. “It is the story of the God who hears the cries of the oppressed, and who reaches out to save them. It is the story by which story Jesus lived – and died,” she stated.
It was easy, she said, to misinterpret the Exodus story and reduce it to a story of ‘us versus them’ – God saves us because God is ours and destroys our opponents because they are ‘them’.
“Terrifying things are being said in Europe and in the United States, suggesting that our Christian heritage is only protected when we exclude the other, as if God loves us and not them. There is so much rhetoric about ‘walls.’ But when we build a wall against the vulnerable we will discover that it is God we have shut out,” she said.
Dr Rodgers added that we also misunderstand the story when we replicate the system of Pharaoh, where the wealth and security of the few is secured at the cost of the more vulnerable.
In relation to Christian Unity she said that when communities are turned in on themselves and caught up in their own agendas rather than their common faith and when they take their eyes off God’s work to focus on their own comfort, then the unity that God is building begins to fall apart.
“It is when we reach out beyond our comfort zone, when we work side by side, joining in God’s work in the world, that we are drawn closer together. When we try to encounter God in our worship but close our hearts to those to whom God’s ear is attuned and for whom God’s heart bleeds, we will end up praying to ourselves. But when we reach out, we will encounter God. And when we reach out together, we will encounter God together. And when we encounter God together we encounter each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, as beloved family,” she said.
You can read Dr Rodgers’ address in full here.
Week of Prayer for Christian Unity continues until January 25. Check your local area for events.
