Feb
8
2011

Learning from Egypt: Bringing Shalom to our Context

An article by Matt

Late last week I was quite taken by a photograph that has gone viral. On February second the picture to the right was part of a tweet by a young lady named Nevine sent out via twitter with the following tweet: A pic I took yesterday of Christians protecting Muslims during their prayers#jan25 http://yfrog.com/h02gvclj. A follow up tweet made this even more powerful: Bear in mind that this pic was taken a month after Alexandria bombing where many Christians died in vain. Yet we all stood by each other.

I can not help but think that this is something that would make Jesus smile… if not weep. In the face of evil, the body of Christ stood in the gap and said “no, you will not attack our countrymen while they pray.” Putting aside religious differences, the recent suicide bombing, and years of mistrust they held hands and resisted the angry mob.

All of this has caused me to wonder about our current cultural climate. While we are not in the midst of a revolution and there are no angry mobs coming at us with rocks and guns, our current climate is pretty charged. While physical violence against those we disagree with is not currently commonplace; angry, violent, hateful rhetoric is. As civil discourse seems to have been thrown to the wayside, I wonder at what point we as the church will set aside our mistrust, prior misdeeds, and religious differences in order to be agents of shalom in our society. At what point do we as the church set ourselves apart from the Westboro Baptist Churches of the world and instead engage in redemptive, civil conversations with those that disagree with us on matters of abortion, gay marriage, and other hot button topics? Matthew 9:10-13 makes it clear that Jesus had room at his table for those whose lives were different from his… I think it is time that we do the same.

How will YOU make room at your table to bring shalom to your context?

Tags: christian, context, culture, egypt, religion, shalom

About the Author: Matt Steen

Over the last fifteen years I have been a Church Planter, Youth Pastor, Executive Pastor, and now I serve as a Church Concierge with churchsimple.net. I love Jesus, my wife, the Redskins and Capitals and am currently living on Long Island striving to properly pronounce the word G'island.