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"Welcome"

 

Friday Focus, 3 July 2026

 

Matthew 10.40-42

"Welcome"

Almost a year ago you welcomed Margaret Anne and I. 

In the year that has passed you have welcomed us into your hearts and into your homes. You have shared yourselves; shared the fellowship of your table with us, offered us the fruits of your gardens, sustained us with your prayers.   I have had the privilege of ministering to the sick and the dying, bringing communion to your homes, praying with you in times of need and offering thanks in times of joy, presiding at the funerals of loved ones.   

But more than this - much more - you have ministered to us, offered the cup cold water, and blessed and strengthened us when we had need.

Today's gospel speaks eloquently of welcome: Jesus tells the disciples as he sends them out to announce the coming of the kingdom with acts and deeds and speech.  He tells them and he tells us today:

Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.  Anyone who welcomes a prophet, just because that person is a prophet, will be given the same reward as a prophet.  Anyone who welcomes a good person, just because that person is good, will be given the same reward as a good person.  And anyone who gives one of my most humble followers a cup of cool water, just because that person is my follower, will surely be rewarded.

So - what does it mean to welcome—especially in the present day?  Pause for a moment and think about the world around us with all of its divisions, fear of the other, movements to exclude those we do not understand or who we view as a threat to our well-being and livelihoods; think of calls to send back those already here.  Think of the rise of white Christian nationalism and its exclusionary, racist message.

There may be legitimate and compelling reasons to consider the economic impact or national safety issues in such things, but if an inhospitable, exclusive attitude goes along with these ideas, then they are antithetical to the teachings of Jesus who talked so very much about welcome, inclusion, hospitality.

Hospitality was highly valued in the society in which Jesus lived.  It was a matter of survival and community cohesion—but it was more than that—hospitality, welcoming the stranger—was nothing less than God’s will.  “Jesus said, ‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.’”

Is this what we proclaim? Are our doors open to everyone and when the stranger enters will they feel welcome?  What does the radical hospitality of Jesus—the man who hung out with outcasts and sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes, lepers and foreigners, apostates and pharisees—mean to us today?

Do we greet the people we meet where they are at and for who they are?  Or do we quietly judge and disapprove?  Or do we avoid them altogether, do we look the other way or cross over to the other side of the street because we feel threatened or offended?  Where is our witness to welcoming others, and thereby welcoming Jesus and the one who sent him?

This Friday falls just after two celebrations marked on the Church calendar: the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul on Monday and the celebration of Canada Day on Wednesday.

It is important to note this for a number of reasons.

Firstly, think about Peter and Paul. They did not agree on many things; they often did not get along and finally went their separate ways in the proclamation of the Gospel. Peter insisted that the early believers must follow Jewish ways, must be circumcised, must hold to the Law. Paul’s vision led him to distant lands proclaiming faith in a risen Christ and urging believers to conform their lives to that faith rather than the Law.

What they had in common, though, was the conviction that God had visited humanity in Jesus, and that Jesus had brought something new and remarkable to humankind demonstrated in a way to live, a way to relate and a way to witness to God’s love. And they both understood that the welcome of God was an invitation to a place in God’s kingdom.

Secondly, as we celebrated this Canada Day, as we sang 'O Canada', roasted hot dogs and hamburgers and marveled at fireworks, did we also ask ourselves what Jesus meant in telling us over and over again, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me” (Matthew 10. 40). 

For me the most moving part of Canada Day has been the swearing in of new citizens:  people from across the globe who came here seeking to escape war, poverty, hunger, and persecution.  People who sought new opportunity and fresh starts.  People who very often appreciate all the blessings we enjoy in this land far more than many of us who were born here and take our freedom and good fortune for granted.

We may believe differently about the details of faith, as Peter and Paul certainly did and as Christians are wont to do. We may understand civic responsibility differently. 

But for us as Christian Canadians, the question of the day growing out of this gospel text asks: What does it mean to welcome, and how do we do that? What does it look like in our churches, in our neighborhoods, in our national policies, in our very attitudes? As the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews reminds us, when we welcome strangers, we may be entertaining angels unaware.

Norman+

 

 

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Welcome