URC Daily Devotion for Wednesday, 13 May 2026 Scripture and Faith 3
Reflection
We are in the Book of Judges, chapter 12.
“The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim, and whenever a survivor of Ephraim said, ‘Let me cross over,’ the men of Gilead asked him, ‘Are you an Ephraimite?’ If he replied, ‘No,’ they said, ‘All right, say “Shibboleth”. If he said, ‘Sibboleth’, because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time.” (verses 5-6).
“Shibboleth” means ‘an ear of corn’ or ‘flood.’ Correct pronunciation became life and death. It is one of the Bible’s horror stories. The word has lived on, being applied to words and phrases used as passwords and ways to identify loyalties and belonging amongst people. Its horror lives on as history fills with times when one group has tested the identity of another in order to defame, abuse, limit, control and destroy. Think of the Nazis getting Jews to wear the star of David, Rwandan genocide growing from the test of being Hutu or Tutsi, a child in school having to know the latest in thing to avoid bullying.
Colombian artist, Doris Salcedo, often creates work focussed upon mourning growing out of trauma and loss. Some of her family disappeared during Colombia’s brutal recent past. She hopes that her work invites contemplation and empathy.
Shibboleth was a 548-foot crack up to two feet deep running down the entrance hall of London’s Tate Modern for six months. It was created by casting Colombian rocks in fresh concrete across Tate’s floor. A visible scar remains there to this day. Of this piece, Salcedo said: “It represents borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation, the experience of racial hatred. It is the experience of a Third World person coming into the heart of Europe.”
Prayer
How we love to police the categories that we create;
the insiders and the outsiders,
the accepted and the unacceptable,
the good and the bad.
Then, to confound our thinking and undo our divisiveness,
you walk along arm in arm with untouchables,
party with notorious sinners,
promise paradise to convicts.
Jesus, be relentless with us;
unpick our partisan ways.
Teach us the hospitality you embody.
Amen.