Prayerful Racial Reconciliation

Dear God of Every Nation and Tongue,

Peter stood on that rooftop in Joppa, hungry and certain — certain about who was clean and who was unclean, who belonged at the table and who did not. Then You tore open the sky with a vision that shattered every wall he had built. "What God has made clean, do not call common." And before Peter could argue, Cornelius's messengers were already knocking at the door.

That is how You work, Lord. You do not wait for us to sort out our theology before You send the stranger to our doorstep.

The Anabaptist martyrs knew this. They gathered in barns and basements, breaking bread with people the state church had discarded — and they paid for that welcome with their lives. They understood that reconciliation is not a program or a committee. It is the dangerous practice of seeing Your image in the face that makes us uncomfortable.