Whaley Bridge Parish
Mark 9: 30 – 37
James 3: 13 – 4:3; 7 – 8a
In my twenties I worked for a summer In Palestine, teaching English in the occupied West Bank, just outside Jerusalem. Silwan had been a refugee settlement since 1948 and conditions of life were basic. English visitors to Silwan were a very rare thing, and Bridget, my fellow teacher and I were treated to the most incredible hospitality. As we walked back home at the end of the morning’s teaching, the street was lined with people hanging outside their front doors shouting to us, ahlein! Welcome! And beckoning us inside their home. Once inside we would be sat down with a drink and a plate of fresh fruit – ripe figs, slices of melon, apples – and our hosts would not be satisfied until we had eaten and drunk and had some kind of conversation which sometimes consisted mainly of smiles and nods due to our lack of Arabic. And then we would be let go and would generally only make 20 yards progress down the street before being invited into to the next home.
Ahlein. Welcome. The practice of hospitality is an important part of Middle Eastern culture, and so it’s not surprising that hospitality is deeply rooted into the Jewish and Christian traditions that grew up there. It’s a theme that runs through the Bible from start to finish. To practice hospitality and welcome, both as host and as guest, is a grace and a virtue: failure to do so is part of the sin that separates us from God.
I have an abiding memory of the day Steve and I moved into Whaley last year. Rodney from the town council came by to say welcome to Whaley, neighbours Jamie and Sophie came to say hello, and Beryl and Stella came on behalf of the church family bringing a stupendous meal and a bottle of wine. What a wonderful welcome that was.
In our gospel passage today Jesus welcomes a child by taking her into his arms and tells us: “Whoever welcomes a child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me” – that is the God whom Jesus calls his Father.
It’s easy to think of hospitality as being part of basic courtesy and politeness. But in these words of Jesus make us think again. There’s something much deeper going on here. Whoever welcomes a child in my name welcomes me says Jesus. Jesus is identifying himself with the child in a very immediate and surprising way.
Just imagine it: a runny nosed kid looking grubby around the edges, playing in the dirt at the side of the road. This child is no-one of any consequence. In the eyes of the world this child has no attractiveness, no status. He’s another mouth to feed. In a world of politics and power games, this child has no power at all.
This is the child Jesus picks up, and in a very deliberate move, places right in the centre of the group of his disciples. Of course, they have been too pre-occupied to even notice this child until now as the disciples have been having their minds, a very important conversation. How can they function effectively as a group if there is not some clearly defined hierarchy? Who is in charge around here after all? And it degenerates into an argument, as Mark the gospel writer puts it, about who is the greatest.
An argument about who’s the greatest. How pathetic we think. But actually this putting down of markers about who’s got power and influence and who hasn’t is the way the world works. He’s in the boss’s inner circle so I’ll be sure to keep on good terms with him. No one listens to her, so I won’t waste my time cultivating her. It plays out in workplaces and community groups and on the international stage.
It’s the way the world works. But the kingdom of God is different.
In his sermon last week Steve was telling us how Peter began to realise that Jesus was the Messiah but misunderstood what that meant. For Peter a Messiah meant a winner, a powerful leader who would boot out the Roman occupiers. So when Jesus starts talking about suffering and death on a cross, Peter can’t compute it. That’s not winning talk. And this “who is the greatest “talk shows that he and the others are still not getting it now. They are caught up with their personal power games, arguments about what the pecking order looks like in their group.
Jesus needs to model for them how God’s way is not that of avenging power, but self-emptying love. How in God’s kingdom, it’s the unimportant people who are at the centre. Whoever wants to be first, must be last, and the servant of all. So Jesus looks around for the person who, in the world’s eyes, is least important, least powerful, least visible and fixes on the child.
“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”
What is striking is how Jesus matches his words with his action. He demonstrates welcome of the child by lifting her up into his arms in a hug, an expression of love and care. And he demonstrates a valuing of the child by placing the child right in the centre of the group of disciples.
We demonstrate hospitality by our welcome of people into our homes and into our churches. It was good to be able to welcome Bishop Sam, our new Bishop of Stockport this week to Holy Trinity. I had a lovely card from his thanking us for making his welcome. But there is more to hospitality than welcoming someone over our threshold, important thought that is. Hospitality is also about our demeanour. It’s about the quality of our listening, it’s about the extent of our openness to the other.
I remember that at one parish I was in the local millionaire’s son got married. I took the wedding service and was invited to the reception. Once I got through the security gates no one spoke to me, probably because I wasn’t smart and well-connected enough to merit anyone’s attention. A different experience was back in the West Bank, as Bridget and I were walking down the hill towards the Kidron Valley for our afternoon teaching session. There was an open sided tent and music and dancing – it was a wedding party. There was no way we were going to be allowed simply to walk past. “Ahlein! Welcome! “came the shouts, and we were ushered in, introduced to the bride and groom and invited onto the dance floor where sinuous middle eastern music was blaring out of a speaker and ten year old girls in were belly dancing in a practised manner.
It was wonderful experience of hospitality and a small glimpse of heaven. When I read the gospel stories about the kingdom of heaven being like a wedding feast, this is always the picture that comes into my mind.
“Whoever welcomes a child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
When I started out in social work I worked as a care assistant in a mental health hostel. It was next door to an Anglican church. In the three years I worked there, there was never any contact from the church, not a word, not a single visit. We all assumed it was closed but it wasn’t. It was a church that functioned in effect as a gated community.
A closed and locked church door is a powerful symbol of exclusion. How inclusive are we?
The call of Jesus is to openness and undefensiveness in our relating to other people. This call to hospitality helps us understand what it means to love our neighbour. We are not called to love our neighbour from behind our security gates, so to speak, but with the openness of the open-sided tent.
We love, because he first loved us.
We welcome, because he has first welcomed us.
“Whoever welcomes a child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
Amen.