Morning Meditation: Interfaith Dialogue

Dear God of every nation and tongue,

This morning I sat across a table from a Muslim neighbor, sharing coffee and silence before either of us had prayed. She told me about her grandmother in Beirut, who kept a candle burning in the window during the civil war — not because she thought it would stop the shelling, but because she believed someone walking in the dark deserved to see that a human being was still awake, still hoping.

Revelation 11:18 reminds us that You will destroy those who destroy the earth — and yet You do not ask us to be the destroyers. The Anabaptist tradition has always understood this. When Conrad Grebel and his companions chose baptism over the sword in 1525, they wagered everything on the belief that following Jesus means sitting down with the stranger, not standing over them.

Lord, forgive us when we mistake loudness for faithfulness, when we confuse certainty with love. Teach us the holy art of listening — truly listening — until we hear Your image speaking in an unfamiliar accent. Give us the courage of those early Anabaptists who believed that the Gemeinde, the gathered community, was never meant to have walls.