Interfaith-Inspired Reflections

Recently, some Muslim friends of ours invited us over to share in their iftar.

Iftar is the fast-breaking meal during Ramadan, occurring at sunset, and a warm and joyful occasion.  We were honored to be invited for this special meal, and even more so because we are known to our hosts as Christians.  And here is what I want to tell you about that meal: it was a gift, and it has made me reflect at great length on my own faith.

I could tell you that the food was good (and it was amazing).  I could tell you that I was delighted to meet the sundry guests at the meal, many of us from all sorts of places coming together for the first time (and how kind and inviting everyone was).  I could tell you that I learned so much about the culture and the home countries of these friends (and I did).

But what I want to tell you, instead, is about the gift that these friends gave us when it came to our own faith.

After breaking the fast with us initially with dates and water, they left to pray on their own and encouraged us to pray in whatever fashion we chose or to do whatever we would like.  After, sitting down at the meal, I found myself startled when my host turned to me: “We have prayed to our god, but we want to invite you to pray to yours.  Will you lead a blessing for us?”

They explained their traditions and culture as we asked.  And they asked us with genuine curiosity and good faith about ours.  We stayed at their home almost until midnight talking about everything under the sun, and laughing, and eating.  And I left marveling at how, despite not sharing a faith, we were able to meet and share in openness—to come together and talk about what mattered to us. 

I’m so accustomed to, in secular contexts, being asked to leave my faith “at home.”  I’m even accustomed, in my own Christian circles, to have to watch what I say or share at the risk of running across a denominational or political line that will shut conversation down.  Somehow, at the iftar meal, I found myself freer to speak honestly about my faith than I have in quite some time to people willing to listen.

I have to say I came away more than a little ashamed at my own failings.

To open one’s door and one’s heart to the stranger is a Christian exhortation.  This is how we minister; this is what we should be doing. And yet having received that hospitality from these friends last night, I realize how very little I do of it for others.

I mean, I serve.  We invite people over for meals and I go out with people for coffee and I try to take resources to people who need them, but it’s not like what I experienced with this particular meal: that full-throated, warm, throw-the-doors-open-and-give-your-best hospitality.  The kind of hospitality that comes from genuine curiosity and kindness.  The kind of Biblical hospitality that says, “There is no stranger here: my time is your time and I’m not watching the clock.”

And that convicts me strongly.

Because the truth is, I believe with my whole heart that Christ is shared when we spend time with people.  When they get to see us as we are.  When we get to talk with them.  Saying hi at church, meeting up for coffee—whatever that looks like—are all fine things to do, but they’re not, individually, enough.

Real engagement with people takes time and energy.  It takes sacrifice.

But that’s not all I’ve been thinking about.  I’ve been thinking, since I left my friends, about how apparent it was to me that their faith is the heartbeat of their life.  And I ask myself: when people look at me, do they see Christ to the extent I wish they would?  As the force behind all I do and say?

And if not, how do I want to change that?  How might I ask God to change that?

These all feel like good and rich things to me to be thinking about as Easter.  At dinner, as my friends asked about Lent and Easter and Good Friday, and we talked about the different ways different denominations observed these things, one of them leaned forward eagerly: “Well?  And how is it you are changed, after the Easter day?”

How, indeed?

This is the question I must answer to myself—and to have the Spirit answer in me, as He leads.  I am grateful to these friends of mine, whose hospitality led me to ask it.  And I pray that I can offer that same sense of warmth and invitation to others moving forward. 

Easter is coming.  And who will we be, after we recognize that beautiful truth again?