“The
Episcopal Church Welcomes You.” This tag line represents our church’s commitment
to welcome all who come seeking the Lord.
This tag line also challenges us to remember that there is no asterisk
next to the word “you.” You are welcome
– no if, ands, or buts about it.
This
past week St. Paul’s welcomed about 20 youth from the Diocese of Olympia, which
includes the western part of Washington state.
They were traveling through the South on a Civil Rights pilgrimage. And I am proud to say that St. Paul’s gave
them a warm welcome because that is who you are. St. Paul’s has a lot of gifts to offer and
high on that list is hospitality and welcome.
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| Stained Glass Window as you enter St. Paul's |
This
church embraces new comers and visitors in ways that other churches only dream
about. Most of the churches I’ve been
associated with have had official welcoming committees with meetings and
trainings. But not at St. Paul’s,
because welcome and hospitality is what you do and you do it well.
In
today’s gospel lesson, Jesus says, “whoever gives even a cup of cold water to
one of these little ones in the name of a disciple-- truly I tell you, none of
these will lose their reward.” A quick
exegetical note tells us that the term “little ones” in this passage does not
translate into “little child” like you might see in other places of the
gospel. Rather, “little ones” in this
passage can be better translated as “itinerate disciple” – a pilgrim.
With
no advertisement, I receive phone calls from all over the country asking if St.
Paul’s can host itinerate disciples or pilgrims. Again and again, St. Paul’s welcomes these
pilgrims warmly. And I’ve learned that
there is no such thing as a “simple” meal or welcome in the St. Paul’s
vocabulary – you go all out! Clint and
Jill Wilkinson hosted a feast at their river house this past week for the group
from Washington.
You
may remember several years ago when the President visited Selma. And St. Paul’s, who is located smack dab in
the middle of the city, was able to accommodate about 150 pilgrims in the courtyard. You handed out bottled water. You had snacks. You had phone chargers on hand. You even pulled out the TV so the crowd could
watch the President live.
Next
month, a group who is on a nationwide bicycle ride in the name of homelessness
is making a pit stop in Selma and will be staying on our campus. Yet another opportunity to welcome the
itinerate disciple or pilgrim.
In
March of next year, St. Paul’s will host an Episcopal Youth Ministry called
Happening. You will be asked to prepare
meals for the group. You might also be
asked to invite these youth into your homes so they can take showers over the
course of the weekend.
Whether
you like it or not, St. Paul’s is known for her incredible hospitality and
welcome. Every year St. Paul’s is asked
to host a meal for the Sawyerville Day Camp staff. And every year, the staff looks forward to
the meal we provide the most because again there is no such thing as a simple
meal at St. Paul’s.
The
posture of welcome might seem commonplace for us at St. Paul’s but welcome is a
radical gift that Christianity gets to offer to the world. Our Christian faith is grounded in the truth
that ours is a God who welcomes us home every time – no matter what – through our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Of
course, the posture of welcome is challenged when we start expanding the circle
of who exactly we are welcoming. Our
country is in a heated debate about how to welcome refugees. The Episcopal Church continues to lead the
conversation on how the Church can further welcome and include members of the
LBGTQ community. And of course, this
church, St. Paul’s, after a few contentious vestry meetings, welcomed Jonathan
Daniels and others who came to Selma for the Civil Rights Movement.
In
many cases, extending welcome comes at a cost.
Jesus said as much in last week’s lesson – “members of one’s own
household will be divided.” Today’s
lesson concludes Jesus’ Missionary Discourse in Matthew and we have heard again
and again in this discourse that living into the gospel message often comes at
a price, for Jesus that price was death on a cross and for most of his
disciples that price was persecution.
Whatever
the cost of our welcome, Jesus says, “you will not lose your reward.” This is one of those sayings from Jesus that
is easy to scratch our heads over. What
kind of reward will we not lose? I’ll
give you a hint – it is not a monetary reward.
But I suspect you already knew that.
Instead of trying to explain what Jesus means, I’ll tell a few stories.
One
of the many rewards for welcoming the youth from Washington came in the form of
a blog post from Ari. Ari talked about her
experience of crossing the bridge – the same bridge that was crossed 52 years
ago by the likes of Dr. King and John Lewis.
Ari said she had a very specific idea of what this crossing should be
like – somber and reverent.
As
she crossed the bridge in silence, Ari noted that cars were whizzing by
blasting music like it was just a regular day.
At first, she was frustrated because her expectations didn’t match
reality. But then this occurred to her,
she wrote, “I saw how that state of mind could harm a place. Because there was
more to Selma than Bloody Sunday and if we want to make change in the world we
cannot look at any place as simple a historical landmark but a place that lives
and moves forward.”
Perhaps
the greatest gift of welcome is that the very act of welcome builds
bridges. Acts of generous hospitality
open us up to relationships that once did not exist – even relationships we
thought couldn’t exist. And these
relationships, which center on the grace-filled welcome of God through Christ,
are the relationships that have the power to bring healing and wholeness to a
world that is broken by suspicion and ignorance and violence.
A
few years ago, St. Paul’s welcomed a group of pilgrims who were contemporaries
of Jonathan Daniels. These pilgrims were
remembering the 50th year since Daniels’ death in Hayneville. We hosted the group for lunch in Parker
Hall. The program included Miller
Childers, Harry Gamble, Celia Alison, and Alston Fitts.
As
the group listened to Miller and Harry and Celia and Alston, you could see
bridges being built. For 50 years, these
pilgrims held some over-generalized ideas of what Selma and St. Paul’s were
like. One of these pilgrims emailed me
to tell me what an impact these talks had on his understanding on what God was
up to 50 years ago. He closed the email
by saying, “I shall have quite a different story to tell about St. Paul’s and
Selma – one that is filled with beauty and hope.”
As
we prepare to celebrate our nation’s Independence Day, I would like to remember
the words of welcome that thousands of immigrants received on Ellis Island when
first coming to this country. A poem on
the Statue of Liberty reads, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled
masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send
these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
In
a world that is devastated by division and suspicion, the gift a welcome is
desperately needed. Of course, there
will be a cost to our welcome – Jesus says as much. But the good news is that we will not lose
our reward. If we commit ourselves to
the grace-filled welcome that God in Christ grants to us all, then how can we
lose our reward? Ours is a God whose welcome
took his only Son to the cross. And ours
is a God whose reward lives beyond death and the grave.
In
the coming weeks and months and years ahead, I can’t wait to see how God continues
to use St. Paul’s as a place of welcome – a place of generous hospitality – a
place that continues to welcome Jesus Christ in the face of all people. As Frederick Beuchner famously said, one’s
vocation or calling is at the intersection of your greatest gift and the
world’s greatest need. For St. Paul’s,
this intersection is welcome and hospitality.
As
we grow in our identity as a church who welcomes all, may God give us the grace
and courage to risk more and more for the sake of the gospel. May God give us the grace to be convicted of
the truth that when we welcome other’s in the name of Christ, we will never
lose our reward – no matter the cost.
Amen.
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