Daily Devotional for Small Group Discussion: Repair
Discussion Questions
- How does wealth disparity show up in your community? Which neighborhoods and professions, for example, are given a higher financial value?
- When has your craft or time felt undervalued by others? When have you sought out a bargain on someone else’s craft or time?
- The writer says, “It’s time to renovate our ideas about money, prophetically.” What might this look like?
But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country.” – Mark 6:4 (NKJV)
We were in a less glamorous part of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where I was serving a church for a short residency. The street was clean, modest and beautiful with flowering bushes and trees. A garage sale appeared, as they do throughout town.
My husband asked the proprietor of the sale about two stained-glass ovals. Blue, pink, a little yellow. They were rough but striking, replete with hooks by which to hang them. She said 20 pesos ($1.17 US). We doubled the price for each to 40 pesos and took our bargain home.
Our faces are still turning red. The shame was deeper than the color on our face and harder to find. Seriously? Did we really do that? We had and we did. We were without honor while gifted in someone else’s country.
This story lingers in my mind as a prophecy. We may learn what we need to know too late for it to do any good. We may not even know what we are doing while we are doing it.
We who have so much are still looking for bargains. What we pay those who clean our houses, care for our children, tend our gardens, wipe our butts in nursing homes is the opposite of what they deserve.
It’s time to renovate our ideas about money, prophetically. Are some better than others? Are some more human than others? Do the wealthiest 6% deserve everything while the rest get a crumb?
Prayer
Deepen the red in our faces, O God, into an expensive, costly prophetic grace, not just for us but for all. Amen.
Donna Schaper is Interim Minister at the United Congregational Church of Little Compton. Her latest book is Remove the Pews.