Weekly Devotion
July 6, 2025
Jesus’ Feast is BIG
Today’s culture wars have become increasingly bitter and harsh. We used to gossip person-to-person about people and ruin their reputations. Today we can do that exponentially by painting someone as totally evil by continuous social media posting. The results can be very harmful.
The sword attack on a Nigerian Brandon high school student has been shown to come from ongoing and persistent racism – seemingly focused on Nigerian background students. This hasn’t been reined in for some time, now spilling over into terrible violence.
Cultural divides always have existed. St. Paul wrote extensively to bridge the gap between the two main cultural bodies he hoped to unite: Jews and Gentiles. He gave that divide a summary title: “circumcision versus uncircumcision.”
He got that vision from Jesus who came to redeem all people; all cultures. Jesus, God among us, wanted to liberate humanity from its undying hatred of the other – century after century, culture after culture, and incredibly – religion after religion.
When Jesus met to bridge the divides, he ate with them and called them to participate in the kingdom. Yet it seems Jesus didn’t please anybody by breaking rules to make a bigger table. Notice how his contemporaries accused Jesus: one side criticized him for eating with tax collectors and sinners (see Matthew 9:10–11). The other side judged him for eating too much (Luke 7:34) or dining with the Pharisees and lawyers (Luke 7:36–50, 11:37–54, 14:1). Jesus ate with all sides. He ate with lepers (Mark 14:3), he received a woman with a poor reputation at a men’s dinner (Luke 7:36–39), and he even invited himself to a “sinner’s” house (Luke 19:1–10).
Even though Jesus set the direction we still must have our “other”! It appears we don’t know who we are except by opposition and exclusion. The ego refuses to see this in itself. We have some great political examples of ego unchecked; it specializes in othering, threatening, and destroying. And this is supported by religious zealots!
To follow Jesus and refuse to “other” those who are different (be it immigrant, culture, identity, whatever) requires a full conversion that includes the conversion of our ego. Much Christian conversion is simply assent to a “truth” – not the conversion of our inner ego. That conversion requires commitment, practice and persistence.
As our ego – our sense of superiority to every “other” – is converted, we can follow Jesus more completely toward a big, inclusive table. “Come and dine” says the Master, and we slowly will be able to say that too as he changes us into his likeness.
Written by
David Wiebe