The Conference Anti-Racism Team sometime in mid-2016 enlisted the Rev. Dr. Steven Tuell, Kelso Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, to produce a devotional that addresses God’s love for all people. The results is a resource for the individuals or groups to use during the 2017 Lenten season.
“The content of the devotionals does address our current situation—but by stressing the positive: the Bible’s emphasis on God’s love for racial and cultural diversity,” Tuell said.
Each week, the devotional for the 40 days of Lent considers passages, mostly from the Hebrew Bible, that stress God’s love for diversity. Each weekday the devotional reading will look at one particular aspect of that week’s Scripture readings, concluding with a prayer.As pointed out in the introduction: “Our emphasis throughout will be not so much on the negative—that racism and exclusion are unacceptable (although of course they are!)—but on the positive: that God has created us in all our racial and cultural and sexual diversity, and that God loves and values us in and for our differences, not in spite of them.”
Each Sunday, the Gospel for that day from the lectionary is presented without comment. “You are invited to meditate on the Gospel readings by observing the spiritual practice of Lectio Divina,” the author explains. “This Christian discipline involves reading the Gospel slowly and carefully, attentive to what is said, and also striving with a Spirit-inspired imagination to be present within the narrative.”
The devotional is available on Amazon in paperback for $5.40, but it can be downloaded free from this website. There is no restriction on its use, but Dr. Tuell should be acknowledged as author.
Download devotional in PDF book format
Download devotional in Word