SLAVE AND FREE MAN

PRAYER MOMENT  

Wednesday 9 September 2015, Peter Claver

SLAVE AND FREE MAN

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “And in the image of God there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, slave and free. There is only Christ: he is everything and he is in everything.” (Colossians 3;1-11)

Reflection. As we read through the letter to the Colossians the broad sweep of Paul’s developed vision grows and grows. He is no longer saying slaves should be obedient to their masters but that they are totally equal in Christ, which is another way of saying there is no longer any room for slavery. Today we remember Peter Claver, a man who laboured as “a slave of slaves” in Cartagena (Colombia) in the seventeenth century to relieve the suffering of men and women caught up in the terrible slave trade. There was a programme on the BBC recently about bonded labour in Nepal today. Slavery is still with us. And when we read of migrants herded into ships and locked in the holds we again touch the enormity of crimes committed against the vulnerable. The gospel still cries out: break the yoke laid upon people.

Prayer. Lord, wherever we sense discrimination or stigma help us to be alert and sensitive to what goes on in our own hearts. May we rise to see all our brothers and sisters as you see them.  Amen.