Walking by the Light of Saints
On October 6, 1683, the first Mennonites arrived in what would become the United States. Francis Daniel Pastorius, a German lawyer and teacher, founded Germantown in Pennsylvania. After eating with a group of Native Americans, Pastorius wrote that they “have never in their lives heard the teaching of Jesus concerning temperance and contentment, yet they far excel the Christians in carrying it out.” In 1688, he wrote to slave-holding Quakers in Germantown, urging them to free the people they were enslaving — the first formal abolitionist protest by European immigrants in the American colonies.
Like to conservative Mennonite families who were a part of my life growing up, Francis reminds me that as followers of Christ, we are called to see and celebrate each person around us as a child of God, even when, maybe especially when, they seem foreign or strange to us in every way. My conservative Mennonite neighbors seemed very strange at first glance.
Let us pray throughout this week with hands, voices and heart:
Open my eyes, God of all people, to my neighbor who needs my support, not judgment in this moment. Open my mouth, Holy God, to speak up for them and with them today. Open my heart, loving God, that my speech and actions may be healing to all, and destructive of none.
Pastor Alan