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Advent in The Upper Room Chapel
As we journey through this Advent season, Rev. Beth A. Richardson leads us in a moment Read More
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Regina M. Laroche | Read Psalm 114:1-8
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Sign Up TodayPsalm 114 is a praise song of remembrance to be sung at Passover. Passover itself is a festival of lived remembrance, embodied for several days. This holy day is memory experienced through careful preparation, story, song, prayer, blessing, feast table, and children.
Today’s psalm sings the story of freedom gifted...
Promise-keeping God, may your freeing spirit sing in our remembrance and in our day-to-day living. Amen.
Again this week, Exodus tells a story about Moses that is retold in the psalm. The angel of the Lord protects the Israelites and allows them to cross the sea on dry ground, but their enemies are swept away. The psalmist recalls this glorious event. The forces of nature tremble and bow before the presence of God, and the people are delivered. Paul recognizes that there are matters of personal preference or conscience that are not hard and fast rules. Some will feel freedom in areas that others do not, and we are not to judge each other for these differences. Jesus tells a parable in Matthew that highlights the danger of hypocrisy. We who have been forgiven so generously by God have no right to judge others for minor offenses.
Read Exodus 14:19-31. When has the path of faith seemed risky? How have you trusted God and others’ wisdom along the way?
Read Psalm 114. How do you listen and act to repair the story of God’s love for the whole world?
Read Romans 14:1-12. When have you recognized something as more important than your being right? How has that recognition shaped your faith?
Read Matthew 18:21-35. How do you recognize your own wounds—or those you have inflicted on others—in this parable? How might this parable help you to repair these wounds or the relationships attached to the wounds?
Respond by posting a prayer.
I could not have found The Upper Room Moments of Prayer (on Facebook Live) sooner. For it is during these moments of centering spiritual practices, meditating on the words of scripture, praying with and for the world, that I find moments of transcendence, hear whispers of peace and hope, see glimpses of truth and justice, behold visions of love and beauty amid all the stark realities that are around me.”
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