As Thanksgiving approaches, we set our tables for family, friends, and neighbors — people who feel familiar and safe. Yet in Acts 10, God invites us to a much wider table — one that stretches across every boundary we’ve built.

Peter and Cornelius could not have been more different.

Peter was a Jew, raised within the covenant promises of Israel — devoted to the Law, shaped by centuries of tradition, and defined by belonging to God’s chosen people. Cornelius was a Roman centurion, a soldier of the very empire that occupied Israel — representing power, privilege, and the authority that had crucified Jesus. Peter embodied the oppressed; Cornelius embodied the oppressor. Their worlds were divided by ethnicity, politics, and religion.

And yet, God spoke to both men. Cornelius received a vision to send for Peter; Peter received a vision that shattered his understanding of what was clean and unclean. When Peter entered Cornelius’s home — a Gentile’s home, something no devout Jew would have done — he accepted hospitality from the very sort of person he’d once been taught to avoid. There, as Peter spoke of Jesus, the Holy Spirit fell upon everyone listening, Jew and Gentile alike. Peter could only exclaim, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”

In that moment, centuries of separation dissolved. The kingdom of God broke through not in sameness, but in shared faith and humility — through two men willing to meet where God led them.

As United Methodists, we echo that same truth every time we gather for Holy Communion. Ours is an open table — not reserved for the perfect or the like-minded, but for all who seek to follow Christ. The bread and cup are gifts of grace, not rewards for righteousness. In them, we remember that Jesus still calls us to sit down with those who are different from us, and to discover His presence there.

This Thanksgiving, as we gather around our own tables, may we remember that God’s invitation list is always longer than ours. Be thankful for the other — for those whose stories challenge us, whose presence widens our sense of grace, and whose friendship reflects the kingdom to come.

Prayer: 

Gracious God, You call us to a table that knows no walls. Thank You for welcoming us when we were strangers, and for teaching us to welcome others in Your name. As we give thanks this season, open our hearts to those we might overlook or avoid. Help us to see Christ in every person, and to live as citizens of Your kingdom of grace. Amen.

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