Radical Welcome
“So many churches, so many spaces claim to be ‘welcoming.’ The word can be meaningless. But what would it mean to be radically welcoming?”
Have you ever lived in an entirely different culture? By the time I went to seminary, I had lived in a couple of different countries, had traveled in more, but I think of culture shock I think of the experience of moving south of the Mason-Dixon line, to Virginia Seminary.
The culture-shock for me centered on values. I’d never seen so much value sunken into college football teams. I learned that Ole Miss and LSU fans do not get along. I also learned how to wear a jacket and tie. I grew up out West, and thought of a suit as overly formal. In my family, you wore a suit to court, maybe for graduation, but not for much else. In Virginia, I learned that you dress up to show respect. If someone showed up in their best seersucker to your party, between Memorial Day and Labor Day, it was a high complement. I also learned down South that not all words that sound nice are nice, “bless your heart.”
I’ve been thinking about culture and values this week, and about our parish’s stated value of “Welcome.” What do we mean by “Welcome?” Is it simply being nice to folks? Are you welcome if you fit with our culture? Are you welcome if you think like we do, behave like we do, look like we do? What do we mean by “welcome?”
The Letter to Philemon
Welcome plays a big role in Paul’s letter to Philemon. At the heart of the letter, Paul tells Philemon to welcome Onesimus, a runaway slave, a fugitive, a criminal, to “welcome him as you would welcome me.”
The letter to Philemon is unique in a couple of ways in the Bible. It is Paul’s shortest, consisting of just one chapter, about 335 words in Greek. It is also one of the most specific texts in scripture. Philemon is the only letter, generally accepted by scholars as to have been written by Paul, addressed to an individual person. Paul pleads not with the Romans or Colossians generally, but with Philemon, a wealthy Christian, maybe even a bishop of the early church.
Paul is wrestling with the very heart of the question “what does it mean to be a Christian in a world which does not share our values?” Paul asks Philemon to understand that Christians treat their fellow human beings in a very distinct way. Paul is asking for mercy for the fugitive enslaved person’s behalf. He is saying to Philemon, “you have a choice here, a choice about how you are going to treat the person in front of you.” Paul has something to teach us about how we treat one another, as followers of Jesus.
Scholars tell us that economic slavery in the New Testament and the chattel slavery we knew in America were different in many ways. It may not have been legally possible for Philemon to cancel Onesimus’ debt. There may have been no workable legal mechanism for emancipation, but Paul asks Philemon in practice to treat Onesimus not as property, but as a beloved brother. Baptism is tantamount to emancipation. This is the politics of jubilee. This is the politics of Christian Welcome. Paul calls Onesimus, the enslaved man, “my heart,” and “my child.” Shocking names for one who was enslaved. Paul says “welcome him as you would welcome me.” This is radical.
Radical Welcome and the Cost of Discipleship
The word radical, in Latin, comes from radix: root. To be radical is to ask, where are your roots? Where do you draw deep sustenance? What is the deep meaning?
Paul’s letter allows us to understand a bit better what Jesus is ranting about in the Gospel this morning. This chapter of Luke is often given the title “the cost of discipleship.” If you ask me, Jesus is speaking in hyperbole. Jesus is exaggerating his point, so that those large crowds understand that following Jesus will cost more than we may be ready to offer.
My husband tells me that I am prone to hyperbole. I can exaggerate a point. I think this is probably true of many preachers. For those of you who are less prone to hyperbole, let me translate. I don't think Jesus wants you to hate your family. I don't think you have to give away all of your possessions. I don’t think Jesus wants you to hate life. But I do think Jesus wants his followers to re-evaluate their values. I do think Jesus is inviting you to reconsider your relationships, why you relate to certain people over others. And I do believe Jesus is asking his followers to be radically generous. Jesus is inviting us to let go of all of the control games. Jesus is asking us to open our hands, open our wallets, and open our hearts.
Let me return to the central question between Paul and Philemon. “What does it mean to practice Christian welcome?” Christian welcome is costly. Christian welcome asks us to give something up, to give up our sense of comfort. To give up our false sense of control over others.
A Story from the House for All Sinners and Saints
One of the pastors I have looked up to for a long time in the church is a Lutheran pastor you may have heard of, Nadia Bolz Weber. I first met Nadia when she was just starting a new church plant in Denver. The folks who came were scraggly. They had lots of visible tattoos, baggy dark clothes, brightly colored stark haircuts. When I visited, I knew her parishioners wouldn’t fit well in most of the Lutheran or Episcopal Churches even in my hometown.
Not long after I visited her church, Nadia was invited to preach at the Easter sunrise service at Red Rocks amphitheater. 10,000 people come to this service, and Nadia is one of the most compelling preachers I know. She is compelling because she is real. She is gritty. She curses and lets you see her tattoos. The Denver Post ran a front page story about her sermon and her little upstart Christian community.
Nadia said her church doubled in size overnight, and they were excited because they were really struggling to grow, but she said, “what happened was it was like the wrong kind of people. I mean, it was the wrong kind of different for us...some churches might freak out if the drag queens show up, but these were like bankers wearing Dockers, right? I freaked out”
Nadia called her friend Russell, a pastor in Minnesota with a similar kind of church and said, “have you ever had normal people [try and] take over your church?” — She expected her colleague to agree with her, to lament, instead he reflected back that one of her church’s values was “welcoming the stranger.” He told her “Yeah, you guys are really good at welcoming the stranger when it’s a young transgender kid, but sometimes the stranger looks like your mom and dad.” Nadia wasn’t pleased with this advice.
She held a meeting and had her veteran members tell their stories, explain to these new Dockers-wearing people why this unique space had to stay uniquely welcoming to people who didn’t fit elsewhere. She was hoping the khaki crowd would get the message and leave, and then a member named Asher spoke up and said, “Look, as the young transgender kid who was welcomed into this community, I just want to go on the record as saying I’m glad there’s people who look like my mom and dad here, because they love me in a way my mom and dad can’t.”
There’s a reason Jesus wanted us to reevaluate what we mean when we talk about parents and siblings, Jesus wanted us to reimagine family. Listen again to the words Paul uses to describe Onesimus: “my child, my heart.” Paul tells Philemon to welcome the fugitive, the outlaw, the enslaved person, the most marginalized of the marginalized, to welcome him as you would welcome me. That’s what it means to follow Jesus. That’s what it means to have Christian values. We stand ready, always, to widen our family.
Radical Welcome
Sometimes welcome feels just like a nice word that we put on a brochure or a flyer for the church. I have to say, sometimes the word “Welcome” can seem trite. It seems simple. So many churches, so many spaces claim to be welcoming. The word can be meaningless.
But what would it mean to be radically welcoming? What would it mean to take welcome down to our roots? Welcome for followers of Jesus, is meant to be costly. Welcome, for Christians, can cause a culture-shock. Gods welcome shocks us. God invites us into a community so wide it makes us a bit nervous. God sees all the people who don’t seem to fit and says, they’re your family. Go. Embrace.
To follow Jesus means to make room people who speak differently, dress differently, love differently, think differently than we do. It means seeing the person who is new, the person who doesn’t fit, and having the guts to get over ourselves and reach out, to learn their story. Trusting God’s welcome means if you’re new, hanging back a bit; and letting people you don’t know get to know you too. Daring to trust there could be space for you. Jesus got in trouble with the authorities because his table’s welcome was so wide.
Christian welcome also has a political dimension. The people who are being made to feel the most unwelcome in our country at the moment are our immigrant neighbors. Our immigrant siblings are living in fear, fear that they will be picked up by masked agents, detained without due process, removed from their families, their work, life as they know it. As followers of Jesus how do we engage?
We engage by refusing to allow humanity to be stripped away from our siblings in Christ. We engage by going beyond our comfort zones, crossing the borders that divide us. We engage by breaking bread together, praying together, offering places of safety and comfort. We engage, as always, by visiting those who are in prison, clothing those who are naked, feeding those who are hungry. We engage with a radical value of welcome.
Paul in his letter to Philemon asks us to risk something of ourselves so that others know they belong. Jesus asks us to embrace one another as beloved children of God, siblings on the way. Because God does not play by our rules. God does not respect our borders. God sees us all, all, as beloved members of the family. Welcome them as you would welcome me. Can our welcome be that radical?