I preached on this yesterday and so what better to do with my thoughts that post them on my blog...
Often when we think about welcome in a church context we can forget that it is a two-sided process. There are two sides to every welcome, the one who is being welcomed and the one who is welcoming. When I welcome a person to my house I am the welcomer and the person who is visiting is being welcomed. And I think that there can be the tendency when we read this passage to think of it as instructions on how to welcome, and whilst I think that is an important part of it, I think that we need to recognize that Jesus is talking to the people who will be welcomed. He is speaking to his 12 disciples, who are about to embark on a journey. A journey away from the place they know, away from their family, their community, away from their master and into the unknown. They are to leave the securities of home and become the outsider and I think that gives them a real sense of vulnerability, being reliant on the welcome of the other and Christ’s assurance that they will be welcomed.
In the reading Jesus lists three people who are welcomed: ‘A prophet, a righteous person, and a little one’. I suspect that this is not a descending order, where the most important is first, as we can easily read it, but an ascending order. Let me put it this way. I find it more likely that I might welcome a prophet or a righteous man, than go out of my busy way to do such an insignificant task as offering water "to one of these little ones." But I have a sneaking suspicion that in the upside down structure of the Kingdom that such small ‘seemingly insignificant tasks’ acts actually have an eternal significance. I think one of the inversions of the Kingdom of God is that the greatest glory is found in unexpected places.
The challenge of welcoming is to welcome regardless. Regardless of class, ethnicity, status and the list could go on. Strangely I would suggest that what might seem like the most basic act of welcome to the most insignificant person is where we welcome Christ. I’m sure that last week the Bishop and the MP felt very welcomed by us as the church community, that’s good, but the inversion of the Kingdom says that when we welcome the asylum seeker, the prostitute, the drug addict - we welcome Christ. That is giving the little one a drink of water…
But I think that the real challenge of this text is to put down the securities of being the welcomer and be prepared to be welcomed. To be prepared to leave the comforts of home and move out into a strange land. A land where at times we will feel like the vulnerable and marginalized, where we will be the ‘little one’, where we will be the outsider sent on that mission from God and within that context trust and belief that God will provide people of welcome for us. Jesus is talking to the disciples about the welcome that they will receive, he is not telling the disciples how to welcome he is quite simply reassuring them that when they are sent in mission, to a tough place, they will be welcomed.
It is the relationship between guest and host. We may be good hosts, making sure that we welcome guests into the church, into our communities – that’s great. But I think that part of the challenge of this text is to be as vulnerable as guest. A guest who has no authority, no status, no place of privilege, but is a humble wandering disciple. A guest who is welcomed rather than a host who does the welcoming.
I led a church in the city centre, it was a church community that I set up and hence I knew everyone who was part of that community. If a new person came I would welcome them, I would show them the ropes, show them where everything was, show them how we did things…I like to think that I did those things well and did them to all who came in regardless. Yet, I was always the one in authority, always the welcomer, the host, rather than the person being welcomed- the guest. I was the insider inviting in the outside and that was a comfortable place for me to be.
The call of Jesus in this text is to leave the comforts of home, to move from the inside to the outside, to leave the place of security and move to a place of vulnerability. And when we move to that place of vulnerability to be totally reliant on Christ to provide those people of welcome because in those people of welcome we see the welcome that God extends to us all.
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