Disrupting Hostility
Rev. Dr. Corey Fields
Ephesians 2:14
“He himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.”
I was playing a card game with a group of people when I looked across the room and saw Gary and Ken playing chess. I took a moment to stand up and snap a picture. To most people, it would have looked just like two guys playing chess. But just a year earlier, Ken was raging about Gary, who is unhoused and has many health problems. Ken didn’t like him sleeping in public, he didn’t like how he seemed not to be trying. He wanted Gary out of sight.
A year later, they’re playing chess together.
Both Gary and Ken have experienced transformation. But it wasn’t because of what denomination their church is a part of. It wasn’t because they made sure we checked all their theological boxes. It was because they found a group of Christians who said, “You are part of the body.” “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you’” (1 Corinthians 12:21 NIV).
The New Testament stubbornly seems to put grace, welcome, and community first before anything else. Jesus broke bread with a group of people who largely didn’t understand him, even including one whom he knew was going to betray him (Matthew 26:20-21). The apostle Paul urges us, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18 NIV). At the end of the Gospel of John, Jesus invites the one who denied him to come back into a relationship of love and feed his sheep (John 21:15-23). In Acts 10, that same Peter gets up and goes to that centurion’s house after first saying, “Surely not” (Acts 10:9-48).
It’s almost as if Jesus is saying, “When in doubt, meet me at the table.”
We don’t create a community for ourselves out of convenience. We do not, by the power of our own goodwill or by some self-righteous patronizing pity for our neighbor, create sacred space where we encounter the other for our own edification should we so choose. No, the “beloved community” is God’s idea, God’s creation, even God’s very being (as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). It is woven into the existential fabric of this world, giving us two choices: we can engage and live in this reality, or our souls and our institutions can wither and die slowly. The beloved community is not a perk. It is the very agent of our transformation into the image of Christ.
Let us pray
God of the big table, hate, division, and exclusivity have reached a fever pitch and threaten to tear at the fabric of our communities and institutions. Remind us that we belong to one another. Remind us that perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18), and teach us that kind of love as only you can. In a time when too many know the church for what we’re against or for priorities and practices divorced from the real lives of our neighbors, make us the headlight of grace and the burning fire of justice.
In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Rev. Dr. Corey Fields is senior pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Newark, Delaware, and a member of the ABHMS Board of Directors.
“I could easily have created [humanity] possessed of all that they should need both for body and soul, but I wish that one should have need of the other and that they should be my ministers to administer the graces and gifts that they have received from me.”
— Catherine of Siena, an Italian mystic in the 14th century, writing as the voice of God
“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” April 1963
“The kingdom of God is not a geographic domain with set boundaries and settled decrees, but a set of relationships in which Christ is sovereign. At the table, Jesus moves us from ideas about life and love to actual living and loving. Martin Luther was right. Theology is table talk. [38] Jesus didn’t sell the food of his Father. He issued invitations to the table. In fact, Jesus’ favorite image for the kingdom of God is a banquet where everyone is sitting around a table.”
— Leonard Sweet, “From Tablet to Table: Where Community Is Found and Identity Is Formed”
Additional Resources for Engagement and Education
A video: “Voting So All Will Flourish,” Nikki Toyama-Szeto, executive director Christians for Social Action
Two articles in The Christian Citizen by Rev. Dr. Greg Mamula, executive minister, American Baptist Churches of Nebraska, and author of “Table Life: An Invitation to Everyday Discipleship,” Judson Press: “Unity Through Diversity,” and “Fostering Deep Community, Strong Spirituality, and Rigorous Discipleship.”
Disrupting Hostility
Rev. Dr. Corey Fields
Ephesians 2:14
“He himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.”
I was playing a card game with a group of people when I looked across the room and saw Gary and Ken playing chess. I took a moment to stand up and snap a picture. To most people, it would have looked just like two guys playing chess. But just a year earlier, Ken was raging about Gary, who is unhoused and has many health problems. Ken didn’t like him sleeping in public, he didn’t like how he seemed not to be trying. He wanted Gary out of sight.
A year later, they’re playing chess together.
Both Gary and Ken have experienced transformation. But it wasn’t because of what denomination their church is a part of. It wasn’t because they made sure we checked all their theological boxes. It was because they found a group of Christians who said, “You are part of the body.” “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you’” (1 Corinthians 12:21 NIV).
The New Testament stubbornly seems to put grace, welcome, and community first before anything else. Jesus broke bread with a group of people who largely didn’t understand him, even including one whom he knew was going to betray him (Matthew 26:20-21). The apostle Paul urges us, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18 NIV). At the end of the Gospel of John, Jesus invites the one who denied him to come back into a relationship of love and feed his sheep (John 21:15-23). In Acts 10, that same Peter gets up and goes to that centurion’s house after first saying, “Surely not” (Acts 10:9-48).
It’s almost as if Jesus is saying, “When in doubt, meet me at the table.”
We don’t create a community for ourselves out of convenience. We do not, by the power of our own goodwill or by some self-righteous patronizing pity for our neighbor, create sacred space where we encounter the other for our own edification should we so choose. No, the “beloved community” is God’s idea, God’s creation, even God’s very being (as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). It is woven into the existential fabric of this world, giving us two choices: we can engage and live in this reality, or our souls and our institutions can wither and die slowly. The beloved community is not a perk. It is the very agent of our transformation into the image of Christ.
Let us pray
God of the big table, hate, division, and exclusivity have reached a fever pitch and threaten to tear at the fabric of our communities and institutions. Remind us that we belong to one another. Remind us that perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18), and teach us that kind of love as only you can. In a time when too many know the church for what we’re against or for priorities and practices divorced from the real lives of our neighbors, make us the headlight of grace and the burning fire of justice.
In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Rev. Dr. Corey Fields is senior pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Newark, Delaware, and a member of the ABHMS Board of Directors.
“I could easily have created [humanity] possessed of all that they should need both for body and soul, but I wish that one should have need of the other and that they should be my ministers to administer the graces and gifts that they have received from me.”
— Catherine of Siena, an Italian mystic in the 14th century, writing as the voice of God
“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” April 1963
“The kingdom of God is not a geographic domain with set boundaries and settled decrees, but a set of relationships in which Christ is sovereign. At the table, Jesus moves us from ideas about life and love to actual living and loving. Martin Luther was right. Theology is table talk. [38] Jesus didn’t sell the food of his Father. He issued invitations to the table. In fact, Jesus’ favorite image for the kingdom of God is a banquet where everyone is sitting around a table.”
— Leonard Sweet, “From Tablet to Table: Where Community Is Found and Identity Is Formed”
Additional Resources for Engagement and Education
A video: “Voting So All Will Flourish,” Nikki Toyama-Szeto, executive director Christians for Social Action
Two articles in The Christian Citizen by Rev. Dr. Greg Mamula, executive minister, American Baptist Churches of Nebraska, and author of “Table Life: An Invitation to Everyday Discipleship,” Judson Press: “Unity Through Diversity,” and “Fostering Deep Community, Strong Spirituality, and Rigorous Discipleship.”