Sarah Dylan Breuer maintains a wonderful lectionary commentary site and weblog. She also has an article up at The Witness, a progressive Anglican publication – it’s a meditation on the readings for today:
That, Jesus showed us, is God’s perfection and true holiness, the perfection and the holiness to which we’re called. Far from being fragile, that radical hospitality and indiscriminate love is the most fundamental, powerful, and lasting force in the universe God made. When that comes into contact with anything else, anything less, it’s that holy love, and not impurity according to anyone’s scheme, that proves contagious. Lest we think that only Jesus could show that kind of powerful, contagious love, this Sunday’s gospel teaches us that all who welcome prophets and righteous people share their reward, any cup of water given to a little one brings the reward of the pure in heart, and those who welcome any of Jesus’ flawed followers will be received as herald of God’s Messiah.
St. Paul got that; for as much as some want to read his letter to the churches in Rome to find out who to shun, it teaches instead that those who belong to righteousness live under grace, not seeking to impose the law (Romans 6:14), and they receive even enemies with cool water to refresh them (Romans 12:20), as Jesus taught his followers to receive his “little ones” (Matthew 10:42). — The Witness | Sarah Dylan Breuer
We are called to offer radical hospitality, even to those we’d be inclined to shun. We’d have to come out of our comfort zone to do this (Warning: comfort zones may vary. Please check your individual owner’s manual, and welcome accordingly).
Fr. Ted’s sermon today expanded on the theme of giving welcome also. The starting point was from an column in Sojourners magazine (Sojourners is a Christian social justice organization).
June 30: “When You Need Something, Just Talk to Me”
Jeremiah 28:5-9;
Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18;
Romans 6:12-23;
Matthew 10:40-42“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me” (Matthew 10:40).
Clarice South welcomed everyone, and God has welcomed her.
She died last October in Santa Clara, California, at the age of 90. I had known Clarice South since the 1950s, when her daughter Claire and I went together. In my boarding school years, Mrs. South and her family opened their home to me. The warmth of their lives in my young life was a sustaining, enduring presence.
Decades later when I periodically returned to Santa Clara, it was always a gift to wait expectantly at the door of 936 Fremont Street for what I knew would be Mrs. South’s warm welcome. I was never disappointed. She knew how to love.
Claire gave the eulogy at her mother’s Mass of the Resurrection last fall. She sketched simply, beautifully the portrait of a woman who to the end of her life loved and served others down to the smallest detail in their lives. God then gave her a wisdom of faithful love that she shared with the group of family and friends gathered around her hospital bedside.
Claire recalled: “Mom exhorted us, ‘Keep your faith. Stay close to each other.’ And then she said, ‘From now on, when you need something, just talk to me.'”
Like Mrs. South’s always welcoming smile at the door, I shall remember especially, through her daughter’s eulogy, those final words echoing Jesus.
Keep your faith.
Stay close to each other.
From now on, when you need something, just talk to me. — Sojourners magazine, May/June 1996 | Clarice South
The entire column is quite short, but opens doors in our minds to pictures of people who welcomed us and taught us how to welcome. Who do you see?
I see Helen Johnson, a lady from Trinity Episcopal Church, Seattle. She welcomed all and sundry to Trinity, and after the service she would gently lay her hand on the arm of the visitor and ask for assistance down the church steps and over to the parish hall. There she would introduce the visitor by name to several people, and ask if they would help set out cups of coffee and tea. Once you did that, you were hooked but good. It was my first visit to Trinity, but wouldn’t be my last.
I had been raised in the Congregational church in Salt Lake City, but I had a curiousity about the Episcopal church, and Anglicanism in general, stemming from a visit to England the summer before. Helen Johnson had a wonderful collection of hats, was somewhat hard of hearing, and felt it was her personal mission to welcome everyone. It was the quality of Helen’s welcome that solidified my intention to become a part of Trinity parish and be received into the Episcopal church. I didn’t know it at the time, of course; I was completely beguiled by her hat, and trying desperately to remember names as I handed out cups of coffee. Clever old girl, that Helen. She’s gone now… it was a sad day when I ran across her obituary online, several years after I’d moved from Seattle to Illinois. But the writer of the obituary captured the essence of Helen, who was remembered as “the hostess with the mostest” and as “De Colores Helen” for her “rainbow-like faith embracing all people.” I guess I’m lucky to be counted as someone Helen Johnson welcomed to the Episcopal Church. She would have pooh-poohed the phrase “radical welcome,” but she practiced it just the same.
And if I’m ever stumped for an idea of how to welcome someone, I’ll just ask Helen.
