Cycle of Welcome

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

The First United Presbyterian Church

“The Cycle of Welcome”

Rev. Amy Morgan

June 28, 2020

Matthew 10:40-42

40 "Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.

 41 Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous;

 42 and 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."

I wonder if any of the disciples were still listening. Jesus has been going on and on about the dangers and downsides of proclaiming the reign of God. As he prepares his disciples for their first mission, he tells them they can expect rejection and persecution, division and violence. I imagine some of them, at least, were inching toward the door by the time Jesus finally wraps up his pitch for this missionary endeavor.

I have a little daily devotional I use called “A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants.” Each week follows a different theme, and those 52 themes overwhelmingly emphasize the sacrifices and challenges of ministry over any reward. It contains chapters entitled, “The Cost of Ministry,” “The Cost of Discipleship,” “The Cost of Servanthood,” and, most enticing, “The Wounds and Sorrows of Ministry.” There is exactly one chapter on “The Rewards of Ministry,” and it mainly focuses on how ministry helps us love other people better.

It’s honestly a wonder any of us are here at all. In our instant-gratification, consumer-oriented, self-centered society, who wants to follow a religion that asks everything from us and gives us nothing, save a vague possibility of a happy life after death? While some of us may be compelled by the threat of hell or annihilation, most of us just don’t have the patience to wait until we die to get something out of this endeavor of following Jesus.

And the disciples were no less human than we are. The promise of some far-off eternal bliss was not what encouraged them to endure poverty, rejection, and threats of violence. There was something else that kept them listening through Jesus’ grim depiction of their mission assignment. There was something else that made them go through with it.

And at the end of Jesus’s speech, we finally get a glimpse of what that might be.

After going into great detail about how unwelcoming some people will be towards the disciples, he concludes his remarks by talking about what will happen to those who do welcome them. They will welcome Jesus himself.

And no large gestures are needed. A simple act of kindness – a cool cup of water – is all it takes to receive the same reward as those disciples who have sacrificed greatly and been sent on a dangerous mission.

Christian blogger Debbie Thomas writes that, “Jesus tells his disciples that the people who welcome them will be richly rewarded.  Notice here that the prize is not only for the keynote speaker, the celebrity prophet, or the charismatic star at the microphone.  The prize also goes to the person who serves.  It goes to the one who hears the doorbell and opens the door.  It goes to the one who hangs up the coats, washes the feet, pours the cool drinks, and sets and clears the table. In other words, the hierarchies we cherish within our religious institutions are not the hierarchies that matter to Jesus.  The essential workers aren’t always the people we glamorize.  Rather, the small gesture and the invisible kindness are what please God, who sees everything we do in secret.  What is rewarded is the quiet, unglamorous meeting of basic human need.  Why?  Because it is in the offering of such simple, essential gifts that Jesus’s kingdom announces itself.  Jesus came to bring abundant life, and that life begins with the most elemental of gestures.  “Even a cup of cold water?”  Yes, even that.”

We are keenly aware in this time of the value of those essential workers, those small yet elemental gestures. Sitting by the bedside or holding the hand of someone who is ill or dying. Bringing groceries or prescriptions to folks who need to stay safe in their homes. Providing laundry service or clean water to wash your hands. Simple, basic things have become more important in the last few months than we ever could have imagined. Hospitality once meant we had to clean the house, set out our best dishes, and cook a fine meal with expertly paired beverages. Now it means we set a time and place for everyone to bring their own chairs and refreshments just so we can be blessed to see half of each other’s faces.

If we were ever under the impression that the only people who get rewarded in God’s economy are those who do great things for God, I hope this text and this time have disavowed us of that notion. We don’t need to go on mission trips or give great sums of money, be devout in our spiritual practice, go into professional ministry. We get to ride the coattails of devout disciples, courageous prophets, and sincerely righteous people by delivering care kits, calling someone who is alone and isolated, or giving someone a lift to the doctor. That’s all it takes for us to receive the welcome God extends to us in Jesus Christ.

If you exclusively read the Gospel of John, you might be convinced that the heart of salvation is belief. But if you exclusively read the Gospel of Matthew, you might be convinced the heart of salvation is hospitality.

When the disciples want to know who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, Jesus points to the nearest kid and tells them that “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” Later on, he tells them that whoever takes care of the basic needs and welcomes “the least of these” is caring for and welcoming him. Those are the ones who inherit the kingdom of God.

There is a cycle of welcome in Jesus’s ministry that is at the heart of the whole gospel. In Christ, God welcomes us all into the family of God. When we receive that welcome, we are sent out to share that welcome, to welcome others. When others welcome us, they receive the welcome of God that has been extended to them. And so the cycle continues.

This is the cycle the disciples are participating in. They have been welcomed into the fellowship of Jesus and experienced how life-giving and transforming that fellowship is. So even when Jesus lays out for them the many costs of sharing that welcome with others, they are willing and eager to do it. The hospitality of God is a reward in and of itself. It is tangible in the here and now, and something we want to continue in the hereafter. It is something money can’t buy, accomplishments can’t earn, and accolades can’t offer. There is no trophy, prize, or medal that comes with it. And though I joke often about us getting starts in our crowns, the payoff is more real and immediate than that.

I’d wager that most of us didn’t figure out how to log on to online services or put on masks to sit in a blazing hot sanctuary today because we are scared of what happens after we die. Heavenly rewards are all well and good, and I wouldn’t for a moment discount our sincere hope in the eternal life promised to us in Jesus Christ. But the thing that makes that life something we’re eager to be a part of is the welcome we have felt, the welcome we have shared, and the welcome we have received. The cycle of welcome is what has drawn us here. It’s what keeps us together, even in the midst of a pandemic that has physically distanced us. 

And it’s what will continue to draw others into this fellowship.

Diana Butler Bass, in her book Christianity After Religion, writes, ““Christianity did not begin with a confession. It began with an invitation into friendship, into creating a new community, into forming relationships based on love and service…Jesus did not begin with questions of belief. Jesus’ public ministry started when he formed a community.” In other words, Christianity began with welcome.

Each of us have been welcomed into God’s family, into that community of Jesus. Our reward, the welcome we have received, is not because we have earned it or achieved it. The welcome of Jesus is a free and gracious gift offered to everyone. And it is in small acts of kindness and hospitality that we receive it as much as through any great and honorable work. 

Our experiences of that welcome may be unique, but at some point, we recognized God’s desire to be with us, a sense of belonging to God and to a community of God’s people. Bass also says that “If we think of belonging only as membership in a club, organization, or church, we miss the point. Belonging is the risk to move beyond the world we know, to venture out on pilgrimage, to accept exile.”

Jesus sent his disciples on a mission, a pilgrimage, beyond the world they knew, telling them they would have to accept exile and even worse to share the welcome they had experienced. And that is still the call of the church today.

Through this pandemic, we have welcomed lots of new folks into our community. Family members and friends from all across the country, folks who couldn’t physically be with us before the pandemic are able to worship with us online now. Folks who wouldn’t feel comfortable setting foot inside a church have worshipped with us from the comfort of their homes.  

And today, as we welcome folks back into the building, we are mindful to continue our journey, our pilgrimage, in the online world that might be unfamiliar or uncomfortable to some of us.  We are mindful to continue sharing the welcome of Jesus with our neighbors in downtown Loveland and our neighbors all over the globe. This pandemic has accelerated our adventure with Jesus, sent us into places we hadn’t anticipated we would go, and brought us together in ways we couldn’t have imagined.

And we have been welcomed, cared for, by so many people in so many ways, great and small through this time. Grocery clerks and package delivery workers. Police, firefighters, EMTs, doctors and nurses. Ordinary people doing ordinary acts of service, offering us the equivalent of a cold cup of water when they help us with technology, call to check in on us, or send us a caring note.

For many of us, receiving welcome, receiving care, is a difficult thing. We’d much rather be the one helping others than receiving help. But that’s not the way the cycle of welcome works. If we refuse to receive welcome and hospitality, we are breaking the cycle of welcome, denying others the rewards that welcome brings.

We are called not only to share the welcome of Jesus but to accept welcome, to receive that cold cup of water, so that we can invite others into that cycle of welcome, so that all of us can receive that reward – life now and always in the fellowship of Jesus, the family of God.

To whom be all glory forever and ever. Amen.