Welcome Home

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
November 16, 2008

Welcome Home
Matthew 23:1-15
1 Peter 4:7-11

If you’ve ever read any of the wonderful books
written by Anne Lamott
you’ve read of her experiences in her church,
a small Presbyterian Church just north of San Francisco.
It is most definitely not a church peopled by “the frozen chosen,”
as we Presbyterians sometimes think of ourselves.
No, when Lamott writes of the people
who are part of her church,
she uses every color in her box of crayons,
the big box, the one with 64.
In the process, she makes them saints
by making them real,
as real as you and me.
They are her family and she is part of their family.

Her writings help us to understand what church is:
church is home, our home.
We often call this building “God’s house”, and it is.
What makes Lamott’s church, this church,
any church of any denomination God’s home,
is when the people within the church
give life to love and grace,
the love and grace each of us has been given
by God through Jesus Christ.
It is love and grace brought to life,
not the architecture of the building,
or the extravagance and exuberance of the worship service,
but simply the warmth we share with one another,
the simple act of how we welcome one another,
friend and stranger alike.

As Lamott colors in each person in her church,
she reminds us that we all come to God’s house
well short of perfection;
and yet we all come equally equipped
as a dwelling place for God’s love.
Each of us is part of a construction team,
called to the continuous work
of building God’s house,
with Jesus our foreman, the general contractor.
We build by welcoming,
we build with a smile,
a hand extended in greeting,
an embrace;
words offered to a visitor,
“come sit with me.”

We each walk through the doors
knowing that we will find a smile that is genuine,
a welcome that is sincere.
We know that there is sign hanging over every entrance to the building
that says so simply, “welcome home.”
For that is what a church is:
it is home, home for all of us.
Home from the very first time we came into this building.
And every one of us walked through the doors
of this church as a first time visitor,
a stranger.
We came hoping to find a welcome,
a smile from someone;
we came hoping to find a church home.

It is that silly little rhyme many of us learned
in Sunday School, “here’s the church, here’s the steeple,
open the doors, and see all the people.”
“See all the people”
“all the people”…
that’s church, that’s home.

Lamott is a gifted writer and she shows herself
and everyone else she writes about
with all faults, all foibles.
She speaks freely and frankly of what she sees
when looks at her own reflection in the mirror:
recovering addict, with too many years of her life
lost to alcohol and drugs.
It is her wonderfully honest appraisal of herself
that allows her to see in the members of her church family,
angels every one, saints all,
each called to touch one another with grace,
in countless ways,
ways as often unintended,
as they are intended.
She knows she is loved,
she knows she is welcomed.
She knows she is with her family,
when she walks through the doors of her church.

She reminds us of how God calls us together in community
with a lovely little story in which she finds herself frustrated,
and pleads with God, “I need help”.
And God’s response is, “Well isn’t that fabulous.
I need help too.
So you go get that old woman over there a glass of water,
and I’ll figure out
what we’re going to do about your stuff.”
(Traveling Mercies, 120)
And isn’t that how it works as God works through us?
God needs our help in bringing his love to his other children,
and when we turn to God,
God turns right around and says,
“okay, we’ll do this together
and in the process expand the house,
and broaden the welcome.”

Our Membership Ministry team is the group
that helps us build community.
Last year our Session combined our Fellowship Ministry Team
with our Evangelism and Assimilation Ministry Team
to form the Membership Ministry Team.
We were trying to do more than just be good stewards of resources,
going from two ministry teams to one,
and a total of 59 letters to 22 in the name.
We combined the two teams to remind us
of the importance of community and welcome,
and hospitality and fellowship,
and how it all begins when a stranger walks through the door
for the first time.
We wanted to have a seamless ministry
in how we embrace one another,
look after one another,
nurture one another.

Our Membership Ministry Team has, as you heard,
three areas on which it focuses:
First is welcoming visitors and conducting the Inquirers class.
Second is Fellowship,
all those activities that we do throughout the year
that strengthen the bonds that tie us together.
We do this in ways that are not only faithful,
but also fun: barbeques, Heritage dinners, game nights,
ski outings, camping,
anything that brings us together.
Of course, we are Presbyterian, so that means
that food will probably be prominent
in whatever it is that we are doing.
But what could be more appropriate:
gathering together as family
at the table to share a meal?

The third area the Team concentrates on is looking after members.
This the Team does jointly with the Board of Deacons.
We want to be especially attentive to members
whom we may not have seen in a while,
those who might be drifting away.
Quite often we find that when we have not seen someone
in a while, it is because something has been going on in their lives,
generally something that isn’t good: a job loss,
a divorce, illness, or some other concern.

Both of our lessons focus on the importance of hospitality.
Jesus was ever the consummate host, always eager to meet,
to welcome, to listen, to learn, to share a meal.
It was the great preacher Peter Marshall who described Jesus
as standing at the door of every church
with his “big carpenter hands”
opened wide in welcome.
I think this is my favorite image of Jesus.

So it should come as no surprise that Jesus was as harsh as he was
with the Pharisees, condemning them as hypocrites.
They put more effort into closing doors,
and barring the way to faith
than they did to opening doors,
and welcoming all.
They seemed to stand at the entrance of the Temple,
and instead of arms open wide in welcome,
their arms were folded,
as they glared at all who tried to enter:
“let’s check your credentials
and make sure you’re one of us
before we let you in.”

It is something we are always in danger of doing in church.
Closing doors, covering up the “welcome home” sign
to someone who doesn’t look like us,
think like us;
Someone whose skin is a different hue,
whose accent is from another country.
We’ve done this with dreadful effectiveness
the past decade questioning those whose
sexual orientation we think somehow does not
line up with a few verses of the Bible.
Whose life does line up perfectly
with every verse in the Bible?

Hospitality requires empathy,
that ability to put ourselves in the shoes of another person.
Not to say, “I understand how you feel”
but instead to listen, to learn,
really learn, about another’s life.
The empathetic life is the life Jesus calls us to,
where we put others first,
ourselves second.
But oh hard it is to do.

Last week, Kenyatta Gilbert reminded us that in hospitality
there is always hope.
When we take away hospitality, we take away hope.
We keep hope vital,
when we keep hospitality vibrant

In joining this church, we have not been admitted to a private club.
No, each of us has been called by God to this church,
called by God not because of anything any of us has done,
but solely by the grace of God,
to be part of this community, part of this body.
All of us here called to build up,
called, as Peter reminds us, “to speak as though
we speak the very words of God,
glorifying God in our words and our deeds.”

Two months ago I challenged everyone
to identify someone each Sunday you did not know,
someone who was a stranger to you,
and go up to that person after worship
and introduce yourself.
I said then that if everyone did this every Sunday,
by Thanksgiving we’d have no strangers at all in the church,
everyone would know everyone else.

So, here’s the question:
How have you been doing?
Are there still folks you do not know?
The Thanksgiving date was not a deadline,
just a target.
Keep working at it,
keep working at extending hospitality to all:
member and visitor alike.

With every greeting,
every handshake,
every embrace,
every welcome, God is working through you
and you are glorifying Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
With every greeting, every handshake,
every embrace,
you are making sure
that the sign above every entrance to this church
says, “Welcome”;
“Welcome Home”.

AMEN