PHILADELPHIA (BRN) – Four Jews, four Muslims, and one Christian sit down at a round table — is what sounds like the start to an off-color joke. But being the lone Christ-follower at that table on April 10, a joke couldn’t be further from the truth.
It was a warm spring day when nearly 200 Drexel students gathered under Behrakis Grand Hall’s vaulting, chandelier ceiling. There, advisors and undergrads of Jewish, Christian and Muslim organizations managed a wonderful feat in our COVID-normalized world: bringing college students from the three Abrahamic faiths together to not finger-point, mock or argue about why the other doesn’t believe the truth, but rather to discuss the mutual practice of fasting.
The fact that Ramadan, Passover and Easter all fall on the same month was a fitting occasion to give seats at this table.
Mine launched easily into the difficulties of learning how to fast and sharing its significance in our lives. I hoped sharing that I usually break my fasts with Halal food trucks would get curious glances or a chuckle from the Muslim students (unfortunately no success). But I did explain the fasting Christians practice can be more than from food and drink, such as fasting from media or anything seen as a significant sacrifice, all to draw closer to Jesus.
I too enjoyed learning the seriousness of fasting from this eclectic table, that Jews will even avoid water along with food from sunup to sundown, and that Muslims use part of their fasting time during Ramadan to do good works like charity.
There was of course a general discomfort with this setting; the awkwardness of meeting new people, talking publicly about religion when our culture encourages the opposite, let alone representing one’s faith well.
But the only way to be comfortable with discomfort is to practice. While I’ve been a Drexel alumni since 2018, saved and well-practiced in discussing my faith since 2015, for any student not used to talking about their faith beyond fellow believers and the walls of their house of worship this would be a challenge. I found this was a disarming, inviting first step to receive that practice.
Throughout the night, I noticed several touchstones between the highlight of honing how I talk about my faith, my very life, with people from very different faiths of their own: The booming voice of Rev. Brian Musser silencing students mid-eating and mid-conversation to give final instructions for the night (and the impressed smile and claps of his colleague, the Muslim organization’s advisor). A tap on my shoulder from my Rabbi friend in greeting as the night began. The Turkish student community reminding us to focus our prayers and resources to Syria and Turkey as they recover from horrific earthquakes.
At the end of it, we came away with understanding each other’s faith a little better and, for me, learning to better live out Christ-likeness in God’s wide world.
Did anyone come to faith in Jesus that night? Not that I could tell. Were any seeds planted? Perhaps, and I would hope so. Was it at least an opportunity for a Christian to mimic his Savior like the day He talked to the woman at the well, seeing and respecting her as a person made in God’s image first? Without a doubt.
Lingering afterward in my memories will be the beautiful call to prayer by a Muslim student to break their fast before we ate, the wonderful aroma and spread of Halal, vegetarian and Kosher foods, the bubbling conversation of new connections forged at those tables and the Rabbi’s voice leading our scattered chorus of Batya Levine’s: “May I be empty and open to receive the light/May I be empty and open to receive/May I be full and open to receive the light/May I be full and open to receive.”
