I had turned into the wrong entryway, but helpful men in Islamic tunics waved me across the road to their mosque. A giant electronic billboard overhead probably shocked the Atlanta traffic on I-85 as much as it did me.

“The Messiah Has Come,” it said. Its image was a bearded man in a turban who, I would learn at the Iftar interfaith dinner, died in 1908.

I had seen a lot of “Jesus is coming” signs on Georgia pine trees in my youth, but the claim that He had come in the Victorian age’s India, then died – this was disconcerting.

This branch of Islam was new to me. But as a former religion editor, I recognized that the Ahmadiyii Community hosting this interfaith dinner during Ramadan was fully Muslim in every way that I recognized. Men at a microphone on the dais chanted Koran verses and spoke beautifully of peace for all.

A world in turmoil was held up to calls for justice – Western style, it seemed to me. A Pakistani lawyer associated with Harvard Law’s Human Rights Program spoke about the “genocide” of Ahmadiyii followers in Pakistan, the original home of the sect. An elderly woman in Islamic dress approached our table, where we were eating delicious Mideastern food following the day’s fast. She asked if we were aware of the unconstitutional rendition of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate school alum who led pro-Palestinian protests there. “His wife is eight months pregnant,” she said.

Yes, we know the case. She moved on to another table.

I ate at a table with a Jewish lawyer with Atlanta Interfaith, a Sikh salesman, a Muslim and his Lutheran friend, both with Hewlitt-Packard, and a Lutheran “vicar” with a clerical collar and ponytail.  Our conversation was remarkable in its range: we learned details of one another’s faith traditions and talked of life, death, the soul, the body, and whether artificial intelligence would be good or bad for these verities.

We didn’t solve any mysteries or conflicts. But I left with the same conviction that had brought me to this meal. It was my understanding of the Bible’s deepest message, summarized for me in four little words: “Fear not,” was half of it. Then, “Come, eat.”