Author: Bellshill Central

Day 1 Reconciliation

• Acts 27: 18-19, 21

“We were being pounded by the storm so violently that on the next day they began to throw the cargo overboard and on the third day with their own hands they threw the ship’s tackle overboard… Since they had been without food for a long time, Paul then stood up among them and said, “Men, you should have listened to me and not have set sail from Crete and thereby avoided this damage and loss.”

• Psalm 85
• Luke 18: 9-14

Reflection

To live an untethered life means that we may well find ourselves at the mercy of wind and wave. Besieged by storm and circumstance, carried by the tide, thrown off course, we can find ourselves run aground, clinging to the hope – that we might loosen our grip of individual claim and right, and hold to a shared ownership of this rock of truth.

Fissure cracks unearthed by seismic change, fresh and raw – now open to the elements – make it easy for fracture and the heartbreak of division and disunity to split our truth apart.

But as we find each precious piece, like flotsam and jetsam washed up on distant shore and held safe in the hands of someone else, might we come together and re-form?

As a new picture emerges a re-seeing re-imagining reconciling of ourselves and each other.

We are all at the mercy of the storm regardless of where we stand.

Port or starboard, aft or stern it’s the same boat, traversing the same waters.

Whether we sink or swim might well depend upon who or what we cling to or let go of.

Prayer

Reconciling God, as we feel the pain of past mistakes, shy away and retreat to individual strongholds; help us surrender a false sense of who we are, all that tethers us, and all that we hold precious.

Bind us to humility and compassion, as we learn together, to receive from You, abide in You and Your love. Amen.

Questions

• What are the important things we need to carry with us as we journey together towards unity?
• What things might we need to let go of as we journey together towards unity? What challenges does that bring?
• What are our shared hopes for our community? What might our common prayers for our community be?

Go and Do

(see www.ctbi.org.uk/goanddo)

Global: Be inspired to unity by the churches of South Sudan and their work for reconciliation.

Local: How might the churches in your area dialogue around the issues affecting your wider community?

Personal: Seek reconciliation for a broken relationship in your life.

We invite our Christian Brother’s and Sister’s in our town and local area to join together in the unity of prayer, during the Week of Prayer of Christian Unity.

Details of these services, all held in Bellshill Central Parish Church, are listed in the poster and we encourage everyone to come along when they can, regardless of race, age, background or faith as we come together to pray.

Each day during Week of Prayer for Christian Unity – #WPCU and #WPCU2020 – we will post daily readings and reflections to help you in this week’s prayer journey if you are not able to join us in person each day.

Our prayer for Christian unity is deeply rooted in the Bible. We pray for unity because Jesus prayed that His disciples would be one, that the world might believe (John 17:20-21). St Paul also urged the churches to which he wrote to recognise their unity in Christ, even though there was much diversity within them (1 Corinthians 12:12-27).

For the churches in Malta, the Bible has special relevance for the shared life of the churches there, for the Gospel first came to Malta in the events that are told in the Acts of the Apostles, where St Paul and those with him encountered unusual kindness from the inhabitants. Many people in Britain and Ireland will have visited Malta on holiday and seen the place where these events are believed to have taken place. This is a reminder that Christianity is not merely a spirituality, but a faith rooted in events in human history: the redemption of humanity and the whole of creation. The unity for which we pray therefore serves to make Christ known in the world.

The story of St Paul’s being shipwrecked on Malta in Acts 27 and 28 leads us, during this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, to reflect upon many aspects of our own lives and the lives of our churches. As we approach one another, seeking unity, we recognize that we sometimes carry baggage from history, tradition and cultural expectation, which can weigh us down and threaten to overwhelm us. There is the danger that, in the face of that experience, we might lose sight of the hope which first called us and so give up reaching for the light which Christ offers us.

St Paul challenged his fellow travellers, sailors, soldiers and prisoners to keep up their courage. In the face of apparent desperation and hopelessness, we are challenged to put our trust in God and allow ourselves to be held and carried through the waters. There will be times when we are broken, as individuals and as churches, and looking back we shall see not just the one set of footprints in the sand, but hundreds, as we are surrounded and supported by those who love us. There will be times when, standing in the storms of our own making, we are challenged to demonstrate unusual kindness in the face of worldly indifference.

To demonstrate unusual kindness is to see the sister and brother in the monster’s shame and know that they too are children of God. To demonstrate unusual kindness is to give without counting the cost, and to allow ourselves to be given unto without questioning worth. As we reflect upon, and pray for, Christian unity, we acknowledge the injury that we have caused, the pain that we carry, the baggage that we must jettison. We pray for Christian unity as the place from which we can move onward in faith and in hope for the redemption of the world and the restoration of creation.

For this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, we accompany the churches of Malta, praying with and alongside them, praying also for them in their Christian journey as they seek the unity for which Christ prayed. And we rejoice with them that Malta traces its Christian origins back to the time of the Apostles. And in so doing, we enter into the drama of St Paul, those that travelled with him, and the inhabitants whom they met, to discover our shared unity, and in so doing recognise the importance of unusual acts of kindness that bear witness to the Gospel of peace and reconciliation.