By Kurt Rietema
“Bienvenidos!” Olga called out enthusiastically from her front door as a group of middle schoolers and I stumbled out of a van. Olga was as bubbly as she usually is volunteering at Youthfront Neighborhood’s food distribution, but tonight there was an extra note of effervescence. This time, the tables were turned as she hosted dinner for volunteers from out of town.
Olga migrated to the U.S. in the late 1980s with her husband, trading the slow pace and subsistence living of a small Honduran fishing village for steadier wages and a modest home in Kansas City. She pulled chairs from every corner of the house so we could gather around her table, where she served one of her favorite dishes—Honduran baleadas. They were magical: hand-pressed tortillas, slow-cooked beans, carefully sourced cream and cheese. Olga’s love and labor transformed humble ingredients into something precious.
As she shared her story—losing a son, then a husband, and just that week a brother randomly struck by a passing car—I sensed that though she now lived in a more affluent country, nothing about Olga came easily purchased or conveniently delivered. Deep loss, stirred with deep faith, had shaped her into the luminous person before us.
Olga wasn’t the only neighbor who hosted dinner that night. So did Ruben. So did Marta. We call these dinners Shared Tables—meals that bring together people who, under normal circumstances, have neither opportunity nor reason to meaningfully know one another. Around these tables, the elderly and the young, foreign- and native-born, wealthy and working-class, suburban and urban, Spanish-speaking and English-speaking, the overworked and the underworked share a simple meal in spite of all that divides. And we sit back to watch what the Spirit does—how God weaves together a new people through doors we never would have entered on our own.
I mean that deliberately. This isn’t putting a spiritual gloss on what could be seen as neat cross-cultural encounters but secondary to the “real” work of the church. In Acts 10, Peter finds himself crossing the threshold of a door he never would have entered apart from the stop-you-in-your-tracks intervention of the Holy Spirit. There, Peter enters the house of Cornelius, a Roman centurion. For those of us who paid attention in Sunday school, we know this encounter broke a deep taboo. Peter was a Jew; Cornelius was a Gentile. That had been a well-established no-no in the Jewish imagination for centuries.
But we miss something if we forget Cornelius was also an officer of the occupying army—the one that terrorized Peter’s people and executed his dearest friend. And God sent Peter to Cornelius’ home in Caesarea, Herod’s seaside vanity project built with the tribute extracted from Jewish peasants and fishermen.
Everything in Peter’s upbringing shouted: Not him. Not here. No way. This wasn’t only ritual impurity; it was fraternizing with the occupier. But the voice of God beckoned Peter out of the past and into God’s new future. And in Cornelius’ house, Peter discovered that Cornelius was not an enemy but a brother. Though Cornelius didn’t yet know the full revelation of God in Jesus Christ, Peter could see a man stumbling toward God and caring for the neediest of God’s children in the best way he knew how. Peter realized he was no better than Cornelius. He saw that God shows no favoritism. Nothing stood in between them but the walls that people chose to build.
Peter should have seen it coming. Jesus had a habit of inviting the wrong people to dinner. He not only welcomed tax collectors, sinners, and prostitutes to his table—he told his followers to do the same: “When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed.” In a world where meals signified status and purity, Jesus’ tables overturned the rules, desegregating a segregated society, unmaking their world and remaking it as one where everyone belonged.
In today’s world, we’re not as blunt as Peter, who greeted Cornelius and his guests by saying, “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile.” Rude, right? But if we’re honest, while we don’t have laws against associating with those unlike us, we have unconscious habits, preferences, systems, and geographies that quietly whisper: not them, not there, not safe. What would happen if, like Peter, we let God’s voice hush the voices of our past and lead us into God’s new future—crossing thresholds and stepping through doors we never would have chosen on our own
We had so much fun at Olga’s that night (just look at that picture!). I began to worry that maybe the other Shared Tables weren’t quite as magical as ours. Earlier in the evening, I told the other translators not to rush: Whenever it feels like it’s winding down, feel free to head home. Hours later, Elizabeth texted, “Do I need to get the kids back? They’re living their best lives,” along with a video of them rocking out to Ruben’s overpowered subwoofers in his SUV. I laughed and told her to enjoy it. A little while later came another text: “We’re on our way to the WWI overlook. Lol.” The next morning, I woke to an audio recording Elizabeth had captured. One kid suggested they could go to college in KC so they could hang out more. Another said maybe they’d fly back from Colorado to see their “amigo” Ruben.
Do you see what happened? It was just one night. Just one meal. But the Spirit showed up—when my neighbors opened their doors and strangers dared to step inside. Jesus invites us to tables where suspicion once sat. God is weaving together a new people, making a world where everyone belongs.
About Kurt Rietema: Kurt is the Senior Director of YF Neighborhood at Youthfront. He holds a Master’s in Global Development and Social Justice from St. John’s University. Kurt is also an adjunct at MidAmerica Nazarene University and at William Jewell College. Kurt and his wife Emily live with their sons, Luke, Perkins and Leo in an under-resourced neighborhood of Kansas City, Kansas called Argentine.
