God's Welcome

Matthew 10:24-39

June 25, 2023

 

This is the end of the pep talk that

Jesus and His 12
Ed de Guzman

Jesus gives the disciples before he sends them out.

We heard some last week and we’ll 

hear more next week.

I have to admit that I swapped next week’s

readings for this week’s readings.

This one was just too appropriate for our

worship today: the theme of the Gospel is Welcome.

 

Welcoming is a hard word to explain.

We’ve talked about it a lot lately,

but if you asked me to define it, I don’t know if I could.

“You know, not unwelcoming.”

The dictionary definition is

“to greet someone in a glad or friendly way”

but like a lot of definitions, it doesn’t quite get there.

Welcoming is a lot of unspoken things together.

Basically, we know when we’ve felt welcomed,

and we know when we haven’t.

 

When someone’s face

lights up when we enter a room.

That can be welcoming.

When someone gives us a hug, that can be welcoming.

 

And when we come into a room,

and a group of people abruptly stop talking.

Or when people look away and avert their eyes.

Those things can be unwelcoming.

 

But then again, sometimes a hug isn’t welcoming at all.
Sometimes those lit up faces can seem false.

In some situations, silence when we enter is respectful

And sometimes it’s more welcoming for someone to avert their eyes.

 

I’ve been to parties where I knew lots of people

and have felt like I was intruding on something.

And I have been to parties where I knew no one,

and the people there made me feel like I was their oldest friend.

I think we’ve all probably had experiences like that.

 

Welcoming is more than just a few identifiable actions.

Welcoming is a feeling that we have for one another

It’s conveyed in our actions, but goes beyond our actions.

Really welcoming someone is for us to make room

for another person in a conversation, in a moment, or in our life.

 

Christ Lutheran is a place of welcome.

We do a good job of welcoming new people.

We try to make people feel at home.

There are things we could do better,

and Christianity, in general, could do a better

job of being welcoming.

 

Many Christians churches have the best intentions to

welcome everyone and they believe that they’re welcoming.

They say that they’re “friendly” and “welcoming”

But lots of them are friendly to the people they know,

but to strangers they are less than welcoming.

When you walk in, you feel like you’re interrupting a private party.

 

When I was on Sabbatical about four years ago,

On Sundays that I was in town, I went to church at congregations 

that my friends were pastors of, since I never usually get to visit them.

I probably went to five different churches,

and at four of them, the only person that talked to me

was the pastor that I knew. The other people were all talking to their friends, 

laughing, hugging one another. I was sitting by myself.

Walking in and out unfettered by any conversation.

That was not welcoming.

 

There was another church I went to while I was on my sabbatical

I was visiting another city, it was a large church, a very large church

and there were a lot of people who talked to me and every person

that talked to me, asked me to come back. It was noticeable to me.

And then when I told them that I lived in another city and I couldn’t,

they dropped me and moved on. It felt a little like a car salesperson

when you tell them you’re not interested in buying.

That was not welcoming either.

 

And I was a pastor. I knew my way around churches.

I was a straight, white woman going to majority straight,

white churches. And those were still going to be tough hurdles

to jump over to get me to feel comfortable or at home.

Just imagine someone who isn’t at home in a church, or

who isn’t straight, or isn’t white. Think of the hurdles they might 

need to overcome just to get inside. Letting people know they’re welcome

and then following that up with an actual welcome can help.

 

Alternately, when I was in seminary, and I wasn’t otherwise 

occupied on a Sunday, I went to a Roman Catholic church

that was near the neighborhood where the seminary was.

People talked to me, they were genuinely interested in me.

When I told one person the first time I was there

that I was going to the Lutheran seminary,

they made sure to tell me that I was always welcome to take

communion with them at this church.

I really went only sporadically one Summer and several people 

remembered my name and would ask me how things were going.

That place was welcoming.

I cannot remember the priest or anything that he said or did,

but I remember that congregation fondly.

 

Real welcome requires honesty.

To really welcome someone is to genuinely

want to know them and to enjoy their presence with you.

It’s not just about adding numbers to the roster,

it’s about genuinely liking and wanting others to be involved.

 

Welcoming requires vulnerability too.

When we welcome, someone could reject our welcome.

Someone could take advantage of us.

To welcome someone in – to really welcome them

into our churches and our lives –

means that we will allow them to change the things

that we like, and to ultimately change us.

To welcome means to be open to change

 

Jesus values the spirit of welcoming.

Jesus says, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me,

and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”

Jesus is talking to the disciples about how other people

may or may not welcome them.

But he’s also teaching the disciples how to act towards others.

He’s telling them to treat others how you would like to be treated.

 

Welcome is the first step to know others

the first step to allow them into our space

to bring them into our circle

to intertwine them into our lives

and make the stranger a part of our new families.

Brothers and sisters in Christ.

 

Welcome is the first step at the heart of the gospel.

How can we meet new people?

How can we help people? How can we understand them?

How can we give them that cup of cold water?

How can we tell them about Jesus?

Unless we first welcome them?

 

The religious leaders at the time of Jesus and

lots of religious leaders, now and over the years,

try to make Christianity into something more complicated:

following rules, repeating rituals, or following certain,

narrow definitions of purity.

 

But true Christian spirituality is as simple as welcome.

About being willing to open ourselves up and giving

someone what they need, a cup of water on a hot day.

 

Everyone can be a part of this.

Even the least among us,

just a simple cup of water is enough.

Not a bathtub. Just a simple cup.

 

And Jesus doesn’t tell us to make sure they really

need the cup of water,

or if they’ve led a good life thus far,

or to ask whether they will use the cup of water

for good things or not.

Jesus says to give it, to share it.

No questions asked.

 

Jesus’ way doesn’t get much more complicated than that.

No elaborate systems, no checked boxes,

no obsessions with keeping every code or law.

 

Because one small welcome can snowball into others

and eventually the world is a place of welcome,

and that place of welcome becomes the Kingdom of God.

 

Bishop Desmond Tutu,

The bishop of South Africa during and after Apartheid,

gave this in a sermon in Washington DC

in November 2001, two months after 9-11.

He said:

 

“God says, I have a dream, that all of you - my children -
will realize that you belong in one family.
This is a family in which there are no outsiders; all are insiders.

All.
When Jesus spoke about his death, he said,
If I be lifted up, I will draw all - he didn’t say I will draw some.
He said, I will draw all –

black, white, rich, poor, American, Iraqi,
Afghanistan, gay, lesbian, straight.
All belong in this family: Arafat, Sharon, George Bush, bin Laden.
And God says, I have no one except you to help me realize my dream.
Will you help me? says God.  I have no one except you.”

 
God dreams about us.

We might dream about wealth, or romance,

or fame, or grandkids, or security, or that next big trip.

 

But God daydreams about us, reaching our hands out

to someone new, someone different,

and giving just a cup of cold water to them in God’s name.

God has no one but us.

 

God dreams about us welcoming others

and us being welcomed by them.

Until we, all of us, share God’s welcome together.