Christians Are Called To Justice

From ‘Strangers At Strange Tables’

From the Swedish-accented tones of the formidable Greta Thunberg and her call to environmental responsibility to the political dilemmas in more nations than we care to count — uncertainty and controversey sit everywhere like kegs of gunpowder with wicks. Here, at the end of this decade, there are whispers of revolution and uncertainty in the spaces and corners of the neighborhoods that make up our globe. None of us know how peace and freedom sleep together, but, oh how we wish that they could and we pray that they would.

To this question of peace and freedom, theologian Christine Pohl offers a glimmer of insight, “Where communities of hospitality exist, we are signs: we are signs of hope that love is possible, that the world is not condemned to the struggle between oppressors and oppressed, that class and racial warfare is not inevitable.”

Pohl advocates for the power of hospitality to bring healing as we come to the same table, break bread, and share in the ancient habit of eating together. There is a beautiful grace here, an ancient mystery that we have need of rediscovering in our present uncertainty.

The question is how do we practically offer hospitality? We are busy people and having a stranger over for dinner seems anything but transformational. As…