A Word of Welcome--April 8, 2021

A Word of Welcome--April 8, 2021

"Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ Jesus has welcomed you, for the glory of God." [Romans 15:7]

Last evening, I witnessed something holy and beautiful, and it took me by surprise.

I was watching my daughter playing at the local playground, and within a few minutes of her trying out the zip line herself, a girl she had never met came up to her, out of the blue, and just said without any other introduction, "Would you like to be my friend?"

It was so earnest, so guileless, and so plainspoken that at first my daughter was a bit taken aback.  But maybe when you are eight years old, things are not so complicated as the world of grown-ups can be, and so she simply took the question as a sincere one and replied, "Sure, I'll be your friend." And with that, they started playing together.  Eventually names were exchanged, and turns were taken on various pieces of playground equipment, but it all started simply with the brave invitation, "Will you be my friend?" and an equally brave acceptance.

I watched this moment unfold, and to me it felt like God was giving me a glimpse of the fullness of the kind of life that is worth living, worth nurturing, worth tending to, and worth cultivating.  It was like Jesus himself had walked up and said, "I'm not just going to tell you a parable about what the Reign of God is like--I'm going to have these two young humans enact it for you so you can catch on more easily, Steve."  This--this instant of unpretentious, agenda-less creation of connection and welcome--this is what we are offered the chance to build as people who strive to live the Jesus way of life.  We are offered the opportunity to welcome one another, just as those others are, and to be welcomed ourselves, just as we are as well.  And there is something profoundly holy about that kind of community, one that is built on the unconditional, no-strings-attached kind of welcome we have been given by Jesus himself.

As I witnessed this act of budding friendship, I was struck that there were no ulterior motives.  It wasn't about the new girl wanting to use the playground equipment where my daughter was playing already--they had two of the thing she was playing on at the time, and the spare was open.  There was no inquiry or test first to see if my daughter was likely to be a worthy or acceptable friend--no questions about whether they liked the same music or TV shows, and no insistence that one comply with the other's tastes.  And there was no checking, "What's in it for me?" from my daughter in response.  They were simply offering one another a genuine welcome and receiving a welcome back from the other.  Differences between the two girls, as obvious as some may have been, did not stop a friendship from being forged.  The fact that they were only going to be on this same playground for an evening and then might not cross paths for a very long time didn't matter, either.  All that mattered was the chance to speak friendship into being, like God's voice calling the light into existence at creation, and these two girls, both less than a quarter of my age, brought a community into reality.

And it occurs to me that the followers of Jesus have been invited to let something just as beautiful and blessed be created among us from the very beginning--something without pretense or agenda, without strings or uniformity of appearance, that is grounded in the wide welcome of God.  As Paul wrote it to the Romans, the welcome starts with Christ Jesus, who has drawn all kinds of people to himself--and therefore, we are called to welcome those whom Jesus has already said belong.  If you read on a bit further into Romans 15, Paul makes a point that he's not just talking about people with different favorite foods or different favorite colors, but people across the divide of Jewish and Gentile identities.  And even though that was a boundary that LOTS of folks thought could never be crossed, Paul just says, "No, you can do this--welcome each other the way you know Jesus has already welcomed you all."  Even though Jewish Christians would easily have looked at Gentiles as unclean and unacceptable (and without any hope of changing that--because unlike, say, being covetous or stealing from your neighbor, you can't "repent" of being a Gentile--it's who you are), Paul just said, "No, you are to receive these people who are beloved of God as siblings in Christ, just as they are." And even though it would have been tempting for the Gentile Christians to want nothing to do with those peculiar, parochial folks who were Jewish, Paul tells them as well to receive them with grace.  It doesn't need to be any more complicated than that: as simply as walking up to a kid you've never met before and saying, "Will you be my friend?" the followers of Jesus are called to welcome each other just as we are.  There don't need to be prerequisites of sameness--you don't have to look like me, speak like me, love like me, have the same family pattern as me, or fit my categories or expectations.  There is simply the pre-existent welcome Jesus has extended to each of us--and when we find ourselves welcomed by Jesus, we can welcome each other the same way.

Religious folks spend a lot of time finding ways to complicate what God and eight-year-old girls recognize is simple:  there don't have to be tests of worthiness or demands of cookie-cutter sameness, only the invitation, "Will you be my friend?"  And since God in Christ has already done the risky part of going first and saying, "I already choose you all as my friends," all we need to do is be brave enough to recognize we have already been drawn into a love that includes us and the person in the pew in front of you... the person who is waiting to hear our word of welcome... the person who is aching to see us mean that welcome beyond just words.  Today, let us be brave enough for that kind of beauty to happen with you and me.

Lord Jesus, help us today to welcome faces into our lives and to be welcomed by those who speak your love into our lives as well.