Obligations and Privileges
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June 29, 2020
Scripture
“Your eye is like a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is unhealthy, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!
(Matthew 6:22,23 NLT)
Obligations and Privileges
As we’ve done in previous years our Monday Thoughts will take a break until September. But unlike other years we will offer occasional reflections and podcasts with no particular schedule as the wind blows and the Spirit leads.
In the 3rd century Emperor Constantine embarked on his ambition to make his empire a Christian one. He received advice from Lactantius, his spiritual director along these lines: There is One God who gave being and life to all, who wished us all to be equal, and to be alike in our moral dignity as we are in our moral inadequacies. Human beings had the same terms of life, and an equal longing for eternal fellowship. No one was excluded from the benefits of heaven, or from a place in the daylight. It was the one power that nurtured the earth for the benefit of all, and sustained us, not as slave or master, but as free and worthy. Within the divine providence, no one was exempt from the obligations of the moral life or from its privileges. (Lactantius, referenced in Disciples for All Nations. Lamen Sanneh)
Although the Christendom era has passed the gospel continues to express itself in many ways and forms. When one reflects on the current day, the wisdom of the 3rd Century still shines true today on the flaws and gaps in our history. I love the idea that no one is to be excluded from the daylight. The daylight of truth, forgiveness, reconciliation and justice.
May you have a safe and blessed summer. Our annual “Prayers for Deck and Dock” is available for your summer contemplation. Watch for our next video conversation with a second generation friend of Touchstone.
A Prayer for Today
We awake this morning in the presence of the holy angels of God.
May heaven open wide before us, above us and around us.
That we may see the Christ of our love
and his sunlit company in all the things of earth this day
