Welcome

Pentecost 17B, 9/20/15
Mark 9:30-37

God of gentleness, wisdom and understanding, help us listen to your word and do the things to which you guide us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Over the past several months, we’ve been watching a new building going up across the street. The apartments in that building are now available for rent, and that means we’ve got a whole bunch of new neighbors either already living there or getting ready to move in.

We need to be prepared to welcome these people to the neighborhood, and welcome them if they ever choose to walk through our doors.

It’s just the good neighborly thing to do.

Our congregation’s leaders have been brainstorming ideas of how to make the residents of these new apartments feel welcome both in our neighborhood and in our church building.

When we welcome new neighbors like this, there’s a level of equality assumed.

We’re both in this neighborhood, so we have something in common, so let’s start there and build on it.

This is a critically important ministry, and I hope that we keep brainstorming and following through on our ideas about hospitality to our new neighbors.

It is important to be able to welcome newcomers to the area – to get to know other people in our community, to build new relationships, and find new ways of partnering with one another.

That’s what we do with our neighborhood church partners, and with our mission congregation in El Salvador.

We have built ongoing, mutual relationships with those communities, and our relationships with one another help define who we are.

These relationships are good, but you know, they’re not the only way to be in relationship with other people.

There are other ways to be welcoming.

Whether it’s a connection with a new neighbor, or a partnership with another faith community, sometimes a ministry of welcome is lopsided.

Sometimes that lopsidedness is intentional.

Yesterday my cousin was driving through Starbucks for her morning coffee. When she got up to the window, she was surprised to learn that her Saturday caffeine fix had been paid for by the person in front of her!

The only way she could pay back the stranger for their kindness was to pay for the coffee of the next person in line.

In other words, she couldn’t pay back the person who paid for her coffee at all. He or she would never know how my cousin responded.

But in response to the grace that she had received, she chose to do the same thing for the next customer, and so she paid for their order. And she will never know what their response was.

It’s lopsided.

It’s grace.

It’s true hospitality.

This is the kind of welcome that Jesus is talking about in today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark.

When we welcome someone without the expectation of receiving something from them, we are assigning that person inherent value as a human being.

We are telling that person,    you matter to me,    whether I matter to you or not.

You have value simply because you are a child of God.

You don’t have to do anything or act a certain way – you have value, just by being you.

Jesus took a little child in his arms, and he said to his disciples, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."

That child couldn’t do anything for Jesus.

By showing love to that child, Jesus did absolutely nothing to advance his standing or reputation – it wasn’t like today when politicians have to kiss babies to gain popularity – kids at that time were seen as less than human until they grew up enough to be contributing members of society.

But Jesus gave value to that child by recognizing her as a child of God.

And whoever welcomes a child like that, welcomes God into their midst.

The take-home lesson today for the disciples, and for us, is to value the least important people in society.

Welcome people who the world says don’t matter at all.

Recognize – and help them recognize – that they also were created in the image of God, and our understanding of God is not complete without them.

Value people who are unwelcomed – a small refugee child trying to flee to safety with his family.

Value people who are persecuted – a teenage boy whose hobby is to invent things, but who is arrested when he brings those genius inventions to school.

Value people who are victimized – a young woman who was attacked, raped, and left for dead a week ago on a bike path not far from here.

Value those who are invisible to society – the homeless people who continue to get pushed further from our vision as rules are enforced that shrink the number of places they are allowed to sit or sleep or spend their time.

Value people who are marginalized – the elderly church member I visited last week who is just bored, because her body and her eyes don’t work the way they used to, she can’t get around, she can’t do anything to help remind her of the child of God she was created to be.

Following Jesus’ instruction, our job is to show that woman that she does still have value as a child of God.

And so do those homeless people, and the woman who was attacked, and the teenage inventor, and the refugee child. 

When we welcome these people into our hearts, our lives, and our building, we are welcoming the creator of the universe, Godself.

For whoever welcomes one of the least of these welcomes Jesus, and whoever welcomes Jesus welcomes the one who sent him.

One of my colleagues has a story about her family during the Great Depression.

They were a farming family, with 10 children, living in Texas, near a railroad line.

Often, the father of the family would encounter men who were riding the rails, looking for a place to stay for the night. He would invite these strangers home, and they’d find some way to stretch the stew to feed another mouth, and the stranger would stay in the barn for the night.

Obviously, with 10 kids, there wasn’t a spare bed or couch in the house.

This man acted in faith that God tells us to welcome even the least important person in society to be part of our family.

This is the point of the story in today’s Gospel reading.

So how do we welcome the powerless, the forgotten, the least?

How can we show the refugee, the teenage boy, the young woman, the homeless people, and the homebound members that they are still valuable to us and our community?

I’ve been having conversations with the folks who come here on Thursdays looking for assistance, and with Ann, who is our office volunteer on Thursday mornings and gets to meet all these people.

Folks who are unemployed, underemployed, homeless or housing insecure, know that we are sometimes able to give out gift cards to the local grocery store. When we have the money in the pastor’s emergency fund, we give out these cards on Thursdays.

Sometimes the folks who come for assistance have some really deep insights to share with us.

When you have a prepaid cell phone with limited minutes, for example, it doesn’t do you any good to call 211, which will keep you on hold and just give you more phone numbers for other places to call to ask for help.

One of the more practical issues that these folks have brought to our attention is the fact that homeless people have a need for storage space. Even though they don’t own much, if they’re able to obtain a winter coat, it would be great to have someplace to store that coat during the summer until the weather turns cold and they need it every day.

Do you have a spare room in your house? Would you be willing to let a homeless person store their belongings there?

I know, it’s a huge step outside of our comfort zone. But that is the kind of welcoming that Jesus expects from us.

Will you advocate for our government to take in refugees? Will you speak out against racism? Will you protest violent crimes and support organizations that help survivors of sexual assault?

Can you help a homebound member get to worship, and sit with her, and help her follow along with worship when she cannot read the bulletin?

This is how we show people that we value them as children of God.

Not because we expect something in return, but because they can’t give us anything back – and Jesus tells us to honor them anyway.

Whether it’s our new neighbors in the apartments across the street, or a refugee from a continent away, or a local woman assaulted in our own neighborhood, or a homeless person we’ve never seen before – when we welcome these beloved children of God, we welcome Jesus into our midst.

And may Jesus, who taught us and showed us and convinced us of the need to welcome others, give us the courage and means to do so, in his name. Amen.