World Day of Prayer International Committee Meeting
Seeking wisdom to care for God’s creation (Genesis 1)
Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, August 20-27, 2017
Closing WorshipReflection
Corinna Harbig, Chairperson 2012-2017
Bible text: Matthew 28, 16-20
The Commissioning of the disciples
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Dear sisters,
Reading and listening to these words of the risen Christ, the so called commissioning of the disciples, I can see Ulrike Bechmannlifting up the quotationmark card:
-Be careful with this text!
In the history of Christian churches, these words were often misused to force people to come into Christianity. Misused as an argument to have the right to rule and to govern and oppress other people.
We have learned by listening toomany of our World Day of Prayer writer countries that they are still always struggling with the impact colonialism has made ontheir original tradition, ontheir original way of life and ontheir self-consciousness. The feeling as second or third class people is still always there.
When I visited the Philippines,our ecumenical partner sister of the Fellowship of the Least Coin, Corazon Reyes, told me – Corinna, you have to knowthat since colonialismwe have a deep ground feeling inside that we are women and men who have to serve the others and have no right to complain. So,nowadays many Filipinosare working abroad under very hard and unjust conditions, being underpaid in hospitals or households while cleaning or caring for ageing people.
No! That is not what the text says.
Let us listen to these words as women of faith.
What does it mean today to our reality as Christian women?
I would like to highlight three aspects:
- We as women of faith are called and empowered to follow the footsteps of Jesus.
During this week of “seeking wisdom for God’s creation” we learned and assured one another with the Suriname sisters that “All God’s creation is good.” And we mean all God’s creation. We, as women, as God’s creation are valued and we are wisdom in the household of God.We, as women, regardless of the color of our skin, our denomination or religion, or if we are young, a mother or grandmother, married or single, lesbian or bisexual, we are valued and we are wisdom. We are God’s creation!
The women in the gospel were the first one who got the message:Jesus has been raised from the dead.
The women were the first one who met the risen Christ and they were the first one who spread the good news.
It is not only men’s privilege to preach, to lead a Christian community.
We as women are valued,and we are wisdom.
We as women of faith are called and empowered to follow the footsteps of Jesus, to spread and teach his commands and he has given us examplesof how a community of justice and peace is meant to be - the household of God, a household of wisdom and love.
In our sisterhood of World day of Prayer we have tools of empowerment. One tool is to share the Bible from our women’s perspective. We experienced it this week when listening and sharing withone another, opening our eyes, minds and hearts to a deeper understanding of the biblical text.
Another tool is to share our stories. Listening to one anotherstory generates awarenessabout our sister’s joy and sorrow, their opportunities and needs. It increases our sympathy and leads us to accompanyingone another.
The second aspect of our text is:
- We as women of faith are empowered to pray together.
As the World Day of Prayermovement our prayer is an informed prayer, as it is rooted in listening to God andto one another.It is a powerful prayer as we know it every first Friday in March. It is the prayer of an uncountable number of women all over the world.
And it is a powerful prayer, as it leads us to conversion like Ulrike Bechmanntaught us about the conversion of the one who invites to a feast and nobody came.
It is a powerful prayer because it leads us to changeour view, open our eyes towards the world.
Our informed prayer leads us to see the destruction of creation, the injustice, the gap between the rich and the poor, the violence, the chaos in God’s good creation.
And this leads us to the third aspect:
- We as women of faith, as World Day of Prayer women are empowered to act.
We are empowered to reconstruct communities, empowered to form new communities, empowered to act together for justice and peace. This may sound like a too big and heavy goal to reach, butI like the truth in the words of our former executive director Eileen King, who used to say, World Day of Prayer is a global movement because it is local everywhere.
We are here gathering as International Committee because we are all coming from regional and local World Day of Prayer groups.
And we will bring back to the women at theregional and local levels of our movementthe experience, the information, the spirit we have shared here.And you have already decided, which kind of action you want to initiate when coming back home to your region.
One action we can bring back home could be launching and joining the campaign against Rape and Violence - “Thursdays in Black!”
From here, we are called and empowered, as women of faith, to follow the footsteps of Jesus. We are called to share, pray and act to care for God’s creation. We are empowered to share, pray and act for inclusive communities of justice and peace for women, children and men.
In the name of Jesus Christ, who empowers and unites us, amen.
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