Readings
Jeremiah 28:5-9
Psalm 89:1-4,15-18
Romans 6:12-23
Matthew 10:40-42
Today’s Gospel is all about hospitality. Written specifically about the kind of hospitality the disciples might receive as they were sent out, it nonetheless raises questions both about how we receive and how we share in the welcome and hospitality of God.
I recently read about a Yale University researcher who went and traveled through Northern Ireland studying the peace process at work there and the deep social realities. While there visiting a Presbyterian church, she was pleased to be greeted at the door by two women, who at first seemed to invite her into friendly conversation. It became clear that these women were ushers, whose job it was to stand at the door of the church and interview newcomers as they arrived. They quietly asked her name and the first names of anyone else unfamiliar who approached wishing to join in worship that morning.
At first this seemed like engaged and friendly welcome, but what quickly became clear was that they specifically were looking to find out the cultural and religious identity of each person they met. Those with Protestant names were welcomed warmly and shown their seats. But those with apparently Catholic names, were told that they were surely in the wrong church and sent packing. According to the researcher this is a practice that continues to this day.
Now this may seem foreign and offensive to us. But I want to ask the question if we, in our own subtle ways, do the same thing without thinking about it? How are we discriminatory without conscious intent? Our issues aren’t necessarily protestant versus catholic, but what about the myriad other social dynamics that shape our sense of who is in and who is out, who belongs and who does not, who is safe and who is scary?
The Episcopal Church, on the whole, has worked hard to claim an identity that is welcoming and affirming of those who our larger society has marginalized and oppressed. We publicly affirm that in our Church there are no outcasts. We publicly and privately state that ours is a home for people of color, the poor and dispossessed, and the LGBTQIA community. And yet, if we look around this room, most of those communities are only marginally represented among our ranks.
I know that many of us dismay at this reality. We would love to see Christ Church be a more diverse community that reflects the diversity of the area in which we reside. But I wonder, not just about us in general, but about each of us individually – myself included, do we really want to be that diverse?
To participate in the welcome and hospitality of God is a dangerous and scary thing. What we’re talking about is welcoming the stranger. That means that we are welcoming someone who is alien to our culture, someone who is different than us, someone who might change who we are and disrupt our comfortable reality.
The truth is that, when confronted with such a person, I, more often than not, immediately withdraw and defend. It is a natural response born out of my fight or flight instinct. I find that while my rhetoric remains that of hospitality, my behavior in subtle yet significant ways sends those who do not look, or act, or speak like me somewhere other than here. I invite you to join with me and reflect deeply and look upon yourself, for this is not the welcome and hospitality that the Gospel calls us to.
Friends, we are called to trust in God and in God’s reward for faithful service. We are called to trust that when we practice the welcome and hospitality of Jesus we will be blessed, even in the midst of our fears and anxieties. We are commended to recognize that when we welcome the stranger we welcome Christ himself. And when we welcome the prophet we receive the prophet’s reward. And when we welcome the righteous one we will receive the reward of the righteous. And when we give a cup of water to the least we can be assured we will not lose our reward.
Yes, when we practice the welcome of Christ, we might find that the one we encounter is the living presence of Christ. We might discover them to be an apostle or a prophet with a word of challenge and/or comfort. We might be surprised to have within us stirred up a living and abiding sense of the Kingdom of God in our midst. We might just discover that what was once so scary becomes beloved, and a source of love for our own hearts.
So, what might it look like for us to practice such welcome? What does it require of us? Simply put we must shift our focus from ourselves to the other. We must trust in God for our safety and our ultimate end. We must resist the ways in which our fight or flight instincts subtly direct us to welcome deeply only those who look, or act, or speak, or love like us. We must practice the radical welcome and hospitality of God in this place and with those who cross our threshold. We must make room for them and for what they bring. only then will we receive the reward we so desperately desire. And as Jesus says, when we welcome one of these little ones we will not lose our reward.