All Means All will be our theme this week as we continue our worship series, This Christian Life. Our worship series is inspired by the story telling curated by Ira Glass on National Public Radio’s This American Life. Each week we’ll look at a theme related to the Christian life through the lens of several stories. The stories will vary each week. Some will be rooted in our own community’s story and some will come from people far away. Some will be humorous and some will be challenging. Many of our stories will come from the Book of Acts. Here is a list of our themes for the series:
▪April 12: Weighing What Matters (Acts 4.32-35)
▪April 19: Inside Job (Book of Esther)
▪April 26: Crossover Tactics (Acts 4.5-12)
▪ May 3: Unexpected Guides (Acts 8.26-40)
▪May 10: All Means All (Acts 10.44-48)
▪May 17: Waiting Sucks OR Forcing It
▪May 24: Birth Stories
This week, All Means All. Jeffrey D Peterson-Davis writes, “Ours is a world full of boundaries. No-trespassing signs warn the uninvited to stay out. A floating rope separates the shallow and deep sections of a swimming pool. Lines painted on a gym floor delineate the playing area from “out of bounds.” Railroad tracks divide one part of town from “the other side of the tracks.” Mighty rivers, mountain ranges, or even carefully negotiated invisible borders partition the land into nations. From fenced yards to fenced borders, our boundaries seek to keep the insiders in and the outsiders out. Whether visible or invisible, boundaries not only segregate but also function to reinforce our identities. We learn and know who we are by both our identification with “our people” and our differentiation from those who are not. Families, groups of friends, cliques at school, departments at work, denominations and religions, nations and alliances, and countless other groupings and associations depend on various boundaries to create and sustain themselves”
(Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 2 Kindle Locations 16805-16813).
Where in your own life are you feeling like boundaries are seeking to keep you as an insider in? Where in your own life are you feeling like boundaries are seeking to keep you as an outsider out?
Read Acts 10.44-48. This is a monumental moment in the life of the early church. Peter and Cornelius were given visions to see God’s love for all and All Means All. Who might God be calling us to welcome to The Table? Who might God be calling you to welcome to The Table? How might you act on this prompt this week?