Imagining Walls and Gates

Discussion Questions 

1. Read Isaiah 60. Then read the devotional, “Imagining Walls and Gates.” 

2. Can you imagine, with the prophet Isaiah, a place built with reconciliation and renewal? How are reconciliation and renewal built into the life of your church? 

3. Can you catch the vision of a community overflowing with thanksgiving and grace? How do you show gratitude and grace in your relationships? 

4. How do you keep your hopes focused on the promise of Beloved Community? 

Devotional 

No longer will violence be heard in your land, nor ruin or destruction within your borders, but you will call your walls Salvation and your gates Praise. – Isaiah 60:18 (NIV) 

Isaiah’s vision of God’s reality is vastly different from the reality of our everyday experience. Isaiah shows us an environment of such social tranquility that the need to even speak of physical abuse is absent. Isaiah imagines a life in which every iteration of decay and destruction is rendered obsolete. Isaiah presents a human/divine community of communal peace.  

Another visionary from Proverbs tells us: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” People who see nothing better beyond the brokenness of their present circumstances are bound to perish in the futility of desperate despair. 

Isaiah’s vision of God’s new reality of human and divine community isn’t meant to distract us from the present, but to invite us to shape the present into the divine image of Beloved Community. 

Imagine with Isaiah a place where the only walls standing are walls of salvation: Walls fortified in the freedom of conscience given by God. Walls erected with bricks of solid reconciliation and everlasting renewal. Walls anchored on the foundations of forgiveness and amazing grace. 

Imagine with Isaiah a community in which gates only swing open to hearts filled with gratitude: A community steeped in thanksgiving for the blessings of fellowship and creation. A community rich in reflection and in rejoicing for the marvelous things God does with us and through us and for us. 

And imagine God inspiring us to allow the vision of Beloved Community to direct the walls we erect and the walls we respect every day. Imagine grace and gratitude being key to every gate we open or seek to open moving forward.  

Prayer
Thank you, Lord, for visions that invite us and compel us into projects of loving rebirth and creative imagination. Amen.