“Welcome one another just as Christ has welcomed you”: St. Mary’s Welwyn: 9/12/07: Susannah Underwood

Early yesterday morning, one very tired and bedraggled daughter crawled through our front door. She and other young people from St. Mary’s had spent a rather cold night sleeping under the stars at St. Albans Abbey in aid of charities who support the homeless. I’m not sure what the neighbours made of James Finlay or Coralie sliding home in the early hours of the morning. I suppose it was a night out on the tiles of some sort though. Just tiles of the rather hard and cold variety.

A couple of years ago, I spent a rather warmer night helping in a church in London, which opens its doors up to people who would otherwise sleep rough on the streets. They are cooked a hot meal, there is a television and various activities for the evening as well as plenty of people to talk to. The pews in the church have been permanently arranged to enable private spaces for mattresses to be placed down, where the guests and the volunteers sleep. Clean clothes and packs of toiletries donated by other churches were available, someone stayed awake all night in order to unlock the door for those who wanted to go outside for a cigarette, and all around the walls of this church, which was not unlike St. Mary’s in style and tradition, were signs that said in a dozen or more languages “welcome”. “You are welcome”.

In the New Testament lesson this morning we hear Paul exhorting the church in Rome which consists of people from very different backgrounds, both Gentile and Jew to live together in a way that speaks of God‘s kingdom and reflects the grace they have been given in Christ. “Welcome one another” Paul says “ just as Christ has welcomed you”.

I hope we can all recall a time when we have felt most welcome, when people have made the effort to invite us in, shown an interest in who we are and helped us feel that we belong, made us feel at home so to speak. And I expect we all know too the uncomfortable, sometimes painful feeling of not being welcome, of standing on the outside of a group, of feeling misunderstood, unknown, isolated. We can often feel more lonely when surrounded by others than when we are on our own. Paul is certain, that our Christian communities should be places where a welcome for all should be part of its distinctiveness. But before we explore what it may mean for us to welcome one another in this place, I think first we need to reflect a little on what Paul means when he says “just as Christ welcomed you”.

The importance God places on welcome can be traced back to the times of the Israelites, when holy laws were put in place to ensure hospitality to the stranger. Yet it is in Jesus that we see the ultimate fulfilment of what welcoming means, as God welcomes us home to himself.

The welcome that Christ offers is gracious; it comes before we attempt at all to welcome him. The welcome Christ offers is all inclusive; available for all people - for those who sleep in palaces and for those who sleep on the streets.

The welcome Christ offers is enduring. It is not a token smile or handshake, but committed to us even when other people may find us difficult to be around or to love. And the welcome that Jesus offers is costly. We only need to see the wounds on his hands as he stretches them out to us in the East window to be reminded of that. As we approach the altar this morning, for communion or a blessing, that image stands as a reminder to us that he calls us to himself and welcomes us there. This is my table, he says, this is my life given for you, you are all invited ,you are all welcome.

And so the welcome that Paul exhorts we give each other is the same that we receive in Christ. Our welcome should be gracious, not assuming that we would receive in return. Our welcome should be all inclusive; for this holy community, this house of God belongs to all his children, regardless of how we might be tempted to judge one another. Our welcome should be enduring; a long term commitment to serve one another’s needs over our own. And if we do it properly, if it truly reflects the welcome we receive in Jesus, our welcome will involve an element of cost to ourselves.

I spoke before that one of the signs of a good welcome is being able to be made to feel at home. And I am sure that for some of us, being at St. Mary’s, is like being at home. We feel we belong, we are among people we love, we are comfortable with the surroundings, we know the routine and we come here, after along week sometimes, ready to be refreshed for what lies ahead. In many ways this is good. But there is a danger that in the satisfaction of our comfort we miss the needs of others who don’t feel quite so at home.

A simple illustration is of where we choose to sit each week. I am guilty, like many of us, of having a preferred spot, on a preferred pew where I mostly choose to sit. A friend of mine who comes only occasionally to church commented a little while ago that it was easy to spot in St. Mary’s when she had sat in someone’s usual seat, because a certain look was traceable on their features. Not a deliberately rude or unkind look I am sure, but maybe a hint that she had pushed someone out of their comfort zone. That her presence in that pew was forcing a change upon someone’s routine that wasn’t especially welcome. Perhaps it may be appropriate for some of us, I think the choir could be exempt here, to throw caution to the wind, to live wildly and abandon our pew hogging habits as a physical reminder to ourselves that we are open to be moved and changed for the sake of the inclusion of others and for the sake of the gospel.

For being changed is at the heart of this. When we welcome others into our lives or into this community, the risk is of course that we open ourselves and our surroundings to being changed. For a true welcome will make space for them. For their needs, their gifts, their views, their flaws, their personality. But I would like to change the word change to that of transformed, which describes far better the mutual possibilities that a welcome that is Christ-like offers one another.

Our welcome may be to those who visit our church over this Christmas period, it may be to those who have been coming for years but whom we give little time. It could be that rather than gravitating to those we are familiar with after the service, we keep an eye open to see whether there are those who are standing outside of the chat and hubbub whom we could invite in. It may involve an invitation to a group that we are part of, or to invite someone for a drink or for lunch. It may involve truly listening to someone whom we tend to limit to polite chitchat. It may involve challenging our feelings and behaviour towards those whom we see as different or difficult. These are mere starters and activities of a much deeper task, for to welcome as Christ has welcomed us will involve the risk of real relationships and the making space in our lives and in this community. That may require of us a change of attitude or habits. It may mean we have to leave the safety of the familiar for a while. But it will also open us and this church up to greater possibilities, to the chance of transformation in small ways and maybe in large. It will also mean that we may show to each other something of the welcome that Christ has for each one of us.

And so as we continue this Advent in our preparations to welcome the Christ child, may we make room in our hearts to welcome all, whom he came to transform and bring home. Amen.