The Unexpected Welcome

Gospel Reflection Matthew 10:40-42

“Whoever gives even a cold cup of water to one of these little ones…truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

When I taught school, there were these special awards the children could earn called Rainbow awards. If you were caught being especially kind, if you had a birthday party that collected donations for the SPCA, if you donated your hair for locks of love, if you asked your mom to buy donuts for your teacher and the classroom and your mom did, or if you were thinking of others. It was a way of modeling, teaching the kind of behavior that was expected in “the Kind Zone” (which was what we called ourselves). 

Were these actions that got noticed by teachers, the ones that earned Rainbow awards, purely altruistic? There were times I had my doubts. But maybe it didn’t matter. They were learning how it felt to do these “good deeds,” how to think about others, and how to share the resources available to them. That was enough. 

All my life I’ve been a giver, the one who shares my toys, my clothes, my life, my friends, my car, my money, and even my goodness. I don’t say this because it’s some kind of great thing — far be it from that! It’s not always been out of my goodness that I’ve shared. Lots of times it was because of silly things — I wanted someone to like me. I didn’t want to be left out. Someone guilted me. I felt like I had to even though I didn’t want to and I couldn’t say no. 

But there’s good news this morning. It doesn’t even matter. In fact, our gospel teaching this morning isn’t about us. It’s about you or me, and what a blessing that is. 

We’re church people and so we walk through the world doing. We volunteer. We have our ministries. When things aren’t the way we want them to be we pray and then we act. Yet the world and the world’s salvation does not rest on our shoulders. It can and does go on without us. 

I don’t say this because you don’t matter or because your work doesn’t matter — you and your work in this world matters deeply — yet we share this work of the gospel with so many, thanks be to God. I’m asking you to consider accepting and not just giving, the good gifts of hospitality and welcome, of cold cups of water, and even hot cups of coffee, 

“Whoever gives even a cold cup of water to these little ones in the name of a disciple, truly none of you will lose your reward.”

Water is all around us, here in the Episcopal Diocese of the Great Lakes, more than we can imagine. We water our lawns with wild abandon. There are lakes, rivers, and even bigger lakes! And water is almost free these days, at least a cup of it is.  

So when someone offers you water, it’s a good thing to accept it with grace and with thankfulness. 

Do you know what I mean? 

My babies were born right on top of each other; they call it Irish twins when you have two children born within a year. Their father was super busy in grad school, my 2nd born wasn’t sleeping and only wanted me. I was tired, grumpy, disheveled, and thirsty all the time; I felt embarrassed to be myself. It was hard to go anywhere. But then the same family who first invited us to the Episcopal Church, asked us for lunch at their house. She took one look at me, brought me upstairs, and I nursed quietly in their bedroom, drinking the glass of water she brought me. Her children took my babies and played with them. I ate my first meal without a baby on my lap in months. They welcomed me. 

A pin here, for a minute. The reason I’m Episcopalian, the reason I became a priest, the reason I’m here today is because this family invited us to church and then to their house. It was a welcome that changed me from the inside out. 

Our world is not an easy place. Being a Christian is hard business. It takes valor, courage, energy, wisdom, grace, humor, and so much love. We’re not playing around. Yet even in the midst of this hardship, there is welcome, in the midst of all of this world, there is gift.  

These days, it’s usually me doing the welcoming; it’s not often anymore that I go to a place where I’m a complete stranger. But when I’m the stranger, I get uncomfortable and awkward. I went alone to a dance class on the blue bridge, one of those free summer ones. No one welcomed me or said ‘hi’ to me the whole time. No one welcomed me. Whether warranted or not, I felt so embarrassed. 

In the fall of 2017, and I got to go Tanzania really last minute. The other priest couldn’t go; so there I was getting all the speciality vaccines, collecting gifts for the church, making sure I had the right clothes (you must cover your knees) and the solar battery pack. The plane ride from Dulles went straight through to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and then to Dar es Salam; they woke us up every four hours for breakfast, dinner, lunch, I didn’t even know what was it, then a night in Dar and then a day on the bus up to Dodoma in the hill country and then a two hour bumpy drive on dirt roads to the village (We didn’t do it all in one day of course). But then when we got to the village, that’s when the singing, dancing, and music all started. It felt like the whole world was there, dancing, playing drums, with signs, with ribbons, all dressed up. We didn’t speak the same language. They spoke Swahili and the language of their village and a little English. But we understood. The people were delighted we were there. They welcomed us.

“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” 

I needed that welcome. I needed to be reminded of my own belovedness, of my priesthood, of my connection to the great world, of the way that I could be known by a community even before I was known to them. That time with the village in Mwitikira was the greatest welcome of my life; it was for me akin to being welcomed yet again by God. 

Notice that I didn’t do anything there but go. It was me that was receiving the gift, freely offered by that village. It was their welcome, their welcome that graced me, that changed me. 

I know many of you attended Sunday’s joint service with St. Mark’s, which was part of Grand Rapids Pride. Pride is one of those wells of deep welcome and prophetic energy. There’s no person who isn’t welcome, there’s no person who isn’t invited, as long as you come and you accept the welcome that’s offered. Pride is a giant welcoming table. Have you ever noticed that it’s those who’ve been excluded, it’s those who know what’s it’s like to be on the outskirts, the outside, the bullied, the hated, it’s those who know even better how to welcome, how to love, how to enact God’s welcoming table to the rest of us? It’s so beautiful and heartbreaking to see the very folx that the Church rejects prophetically offering a welcome that looks strangely like God’s welcome to everyone who is searching for it. 

Beloved people of God, of St. Andrew’s. You all give so much. You give so much all the time. I see and know and feel it. Don’t worry; you’re enough already. But it's not always about giving. It’s also about receiving and accepting. It’s about recognizing the gift when it is offered and being grateful, maybe even being overwhelmed with gratitude. It’s about saying yes to the offered water or coffee or even beer sometimes. It’s about seeing yourself as part of the kindom of God, the ones who have been brought from death to live, instruments of righteousness — to quote our beloved St. Paul’s letter to the Roman. 

One thought. 

Let the unexpected welcome extended to you change you, so that you might become more tender, more loving, knowing yourself to be beloved even more deeply. Let it help you see rightly so that we might become even more like our early Christian siblings, who welcomed the orphan and the widow, who called women apostles, who opened their arms to the uncircumcised and the eunuchs, the ones who had before been spit out. 

And let this beautiful welcome, one offered to us in the most unexpected of places by the most unexpected of people change our hearts, our minds, and our lives. Accept those cold cups of water. Drink them with joy. The Church needs it.