June 26, 2005 - Sixth Sunday After Pentecost - Father Andrew Green

FIRST READING: Jeremiah 28: 5-9
PSALM: 89: 1-4; 15-18
SECOND READING: Romans 6: 12-23
GOSPEL: Matthew 10: 40-42

(Audience participation will be noted in bold print and italics)

Welcome; welcome; welcome; welcome!

We spend a lot of time talking about it, and, today, in the Gospel, we got welcomed six times. When somebody welcomes one of Jesus' disciples, whom are they welcoming?

Jesus!

Jesus! When they are welcoming Jesus, whom are they welcoming?

God!

God! Good! I said there was going to be a test!

When they welcome a prophet because it is a prophet, they will participate, and they will share in the reward that comes to that prophet from speaking all that God has asked that prophet to speak.

Now, this is one of those mixed messages, because, remember: Jesus, when He was lamenting over Jerusalem, how did He describe Jerusalem? He said "Jerusalem; the city that stoned the prophets". So, the rewards, on the one hand, are participating in God's plan. On the other hand, it might lead you into a place where you are opposed to some other folks. That is a part of Jesus' teaching to His disciples as they are getting ready to go out.

For the last six chapters, Jesus has been teaching them about the mission that He has in store for them. He has accomplished, I believe, ten miracles - healing the sick, casting out demons, raising the dead - and then He told them, "Now, I want you to go and do the same thing". He let them know that it might be difficult. He talks about how it might turn fathers against sons and daughters-in-law against mothers-in-law, and then He talks to them about a different side of it. He says, "Remember; when you go out in My Name, you are doing more than just being in My Name; you are going as My ambassadors and My representatives. You are going as if I were going". Jesus is letting His disciples know that, when they go out on the mission that He gives them, it is just as if Jesus, Himself, is going out; and, when Jesus is going out and giving His message of Good News to the people, it is just as if God is present in a new and real way with everyone who hears Jesus speak.

Now, that is a challenge for us. Jesus' Gospel is about welcoming. It is about welcoming people. We do welcoming pretty well. Every Church thinks they do welcoming very well. Every Church thinks they do it well, but what you usually have to do is that you have to kind of change your definition of who you are welcoming. We set up lots of layers to try to help welcome people in, but, eventually, we hear from newcomers that, if you have been here a long time, and you already have a group to hang out with, you feel very welcomed; because you see them all, and you hook up, and you feel very good about it. On the other hand, if you are brand new, if you look different, if you are not from around here, or if, God help you!, you sit in one of the wrong pews, you may not feel too welcomed. We actually had a newcomer come in one time and sit down (and I won't tell you which pew!), and the person whose name is on the pew came up to them and said, "That's my seat". We are a very welcoming place, when we think about it and when we pay attention to it. So, you are going to hear more and more about it, because it is not enough to just welcome the people we know and are friends with; it is about how we take Jesus' message seriously so that our welcome is most intense for the people who would expect it perhaps the least.

Now, in the Epistle today from Romans, St. Paul has an incredibly welcoming message. Let's skip over the part about members going to sin and away from sin and not get into that whole thing, but Paul has a message of welcome that is incredible. He is talking to a group of people, the Jewish Christians in Rome, who understand their connection to God as having been defined by how well they did all the things that God expected of them, and they look askance at this non-Jewish group of Christians who didn't have that track record or history. So, they weren't being very welcoming of one another in the Church in Rome, and Paul was trying to remind them that, if you want to play the game of doing it right as a way of getting God's acceptance, you have to do it all right, because even making one mistake is as good as doing nothing right if you are going by the Law. The Good News, the welcoming message that Paul has, is that those Christians in Rome, and all of us, are not under the Law, but are under Grace. We are not in a position where our relationship with God is characterized by how well we have done everything we have done in our lives. It is not characterized by how faithful we have been to God at every step of our journey. Our relationship with God, at the very root, is characterized by God's gift to us. It is God's desire - it is God's somewhat crazy desire! - to excessively and abundantly welcome us into the Kingdom, just because God wants to; and God has promised that God will never stop wanting to care for us. Now, that is a welcoming message, and, if you are one of the folks who think that St. Paul never has anything good to say, this is a good message from St. Paul.

Jesus, as I said, was talking to His disciples, giving them the mission to go out. He has been training them, and now He is sending them out. And now He is sending us. He is sending us out on our mission for God. Do you know what our mission for God is? I told you there would be a test! God has invited us to share the abundant life of Jesus Christ by serving Christ in others and by gathering to praise and thank God in worship. That is our mission. Every week, at every service, we, together, say that is what we are about here at St. Paul in the Desert. We are about letting people know of the Grace-filled, abundant life that Jesus has for everybody. We are about letting people know that it is not about the rules that get you there; it is about God's Love and God's Grace. We are about serving other people, because we know that, when we serve them, we serve Christ; and it is about gathering here, week by week, to thank God, because we are built up and inspired and encouraged when we give thanks to God.

Instead of being a people who are constantly trying to sort out - Did I do this right? Did you do this right? Did she do this right? - we are a people who gather not to keep score, but to give thanks to God for all of the great things that God has done for each of us.

Now, in everything that we do, we have an opportunity. The opportunity is not to figure out how we can find fault or how we can pick at something that isn't quite right, but how we can give thanks for what is being done well and figure out how to do more of it. I think that that is our mission as a community, as a Church, and as a people.

I am excited, because, today is the 20th anniversary of my being ordained a deacon! It seems kind of unreal to me that it has been 20 years, but, if I look back on that time, perhaps even more than any of the rest of you, I am aware of my failings. I am aware of things that didn't go as I had planned them, or things that I missed out on, or times when I just turned my back and didn't do what I knew I should do. But I am inspired to continue the ministry that God has given me, not because I can say that my score card looks like I am past 70%, so I am O.K., but because the Grace of God that called me into ministry when I was 11 years old still calls today.

The Grace of God that invites everyone of us to be welcomed in God's House still calls to each one of us today, and it seems like, to me, the ministry that all of us have together, the mission that God has placed us here to do, is about keeping that before our eyes - keeping that radically-inclusive welcome of God before our eyes.

How do we make sure that we welcome people who aren't exactly like us?

How do we welcome people whom we don't think we would naturally want to welcome?

How do we welcome people who are most in need?

That is what we need to keep in the top of our minds. That is the mission that God has called us to, and, if we want to be God's disciples, if we want to be received as Christ in the work that we do, that is the kind of vision that we have to have for our work.

The last piece - the last line of today's Gospel: "Anyone who gives even a cup of cold water to these little ones (and He is talking not about children, but about the disciples) - anyone who gives a cup of water to these little ones won't lose their reward". God is doing two things. He is encouraging us that, if we don't see ourselves as front-line evangelists, we should know that we have a role. He is also letting those who are on the front lines know that they are not alone, that everyone who does ministry - whether it is the Caring Ministry, whether it is volunteering outside of the Church, whether it is doing Liturgical work here in the Church, whether it is counseling, whatever it might be - that every one of us has a network of support within this community. We have people who are constantly offering us cups of cold water and supporting us as we do all the various ministries that get done here at St. Paul in the Desert.

So, we have been given a very difficult challenge. We have been asked to keep in mind God's Grace and Love as we welcome people into our midst in everything that we do, and we have been promised that we will never be alone - that all of us working together will receive that reward that comes from fulfilling the mission that God has given us.

AMEN