Lectionary: Genesis 22:1-14; Psalm 13; Romans 6:12-23; Matthew 10:40-42
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En el nombre del Dios: Padre, Hijo, y Espiritu Santo.
Story: Christ the King Episcopal Church, Valdosta, GA – Fr. Stan White… Y’all will welcome anybody!
Jesus broke bread with Gentiles and sinners, women, and others who were outcast in his culture. His ministry was characterized by humility and hospitality, mercy, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Boldly proclaiming a new revelation of God’s mercy and forgiveness, Jesus freed people from the bondage of their sins, and from the bondage of those who sinned against them, and expanded the boundaries of God’s kingdom to include the least and the lost, the outcast and the outsider.
But it cost him dearly. Living out God’s call can – will - cause us some discomfort, insecurity, even fear.
But seeing the effect of the good news we bear on those who need to hear it is worth whatever it costs. Have you ever seen that- the moment someone is “struck by grace” as theologian Paul Tillich calls it?
It’s that moment, we realize that God loves us with an incomprehensible love… and suddenly, Tillich says, "…a light breaks into our darkness and it is as though a voice were saying: 'You are accepted…accepted by that which is greater than you'
…After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe better than before. But everything is transformed."
That is our good news! We are accepted, loved, and entrusted by God to be bearers of this good news as light that breaks into the darkness of the world.
And so we gather each week for Holy Eucharist, holy food for holy people as theologian Gordon Lathrop said. By this nourishment of Word and Sacrament we are strengthened for our work which, is to spread the unity we enjoy, to enlarge the boundaries of God’s kingdom; or as our Catechism says: "to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ."
But this certainly isn't something we can do on our own – it's something we must do in community. Theologian and Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright says, there are no individual Christians. Christians are by definition, a body – the body of Christ in the world.
Our gifts are meant to work together to bring the will of God as it is in heaven also on the earth. What we do and how we do it has an impact in heaven and on earth.
Why? Because, as Jesus said, “The Father and I are one.” This reflects a basic tenet of our faith: that God is Trinity in Unity.
God is not just one in substance or person, but also one in activity. What Jesus is doing is what God is doing is what the Holy Spirit is doing.
We believe that by his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus reconciled us to God. That means we and God are one in Jesus, the Christ. So what Jesus is doing -- is what God is doing -- is what the Holy Spirit is doing -- is what we are doing…
In today’s gospel, Jesus says: “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” Since we are eternally in the presence of God, heaven is here on earth – in us! Therefore, whoever welcomes us welcomes God into their lives.
This is a powerful truth, which is why St. Paul cautions us to remember that we have been set free from the power of sin and live as instruments of right relationship. Every little mercy we offer, “even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones” matters because we are offering the “free gift of God” to them, and that gift is “eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
And so, we take our nourishment of holy food, and go to those people in the places to which they’ve been banished by culture, places we may not find warm welcome; but we go anyway because the gift we bear is so great and so motivating, that we can’t help but share it.
Share it – not force it. That’s an important difference. The word Jesus uses is welcome. To welcome is to receive with pleasure not to acquiesce out of fear or force.
There’s enough of that in our world already. Our world is replete with people who need the good news we have to share.
Think about someone who has been criticized or abused to the point that they can’t see their gifts anymore? We, who are the body of Christ, must go to them, meet them where they are, and be willing to walk with them from that darkness into the light of truth.
Or someone who sees themselves as so useless, or ugly, or unimportant that they believe they have no purpose? We, who are the body of Christ, must go to them, meet them where they are, and be willing to walk with them from that darkness into the light of truth.
Or someone who has become so filled with hate and contempt that they no longer care that they have no hope? We, who are the body of Christ, must go to them, meet them where they are, and be willing to walk with them from that darkness into the light of truth.
It’s a hard thing to do – entering someone else’s nightmare – and it’s scary at first, until you witness the power of God’s redeeming love. Then nothing is ever scary or impossible again.
When we live like we believe in the power of God’s redeeming love, then every darkness becomes a place where the light and the truth of Christ that lives in us can shine.
We are the place where heaven illumines the earth! We as individuals, and we as the church, and everyone, including the least and the lost, the outcast and the outsider – everyone is welcome. Amen.
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