+Z’ev

Today’s Assigned Readings:

Wisdom 19:1-8,18-22; Romans 15:1-13; Luke 9:1-17

We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Each of us must please our neighbor for the good purpose of building up the neighbor. Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.
Romans 15:1,2,7

And from the Gospel:
The day was drawing to a close, and the twelve came to Jesus and said, “Send the crowd away, so that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside, to lodge and get provisions; for we are here in a deserted place.” But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.”
Luke 9:12-13a

This story is on my mind because I told it “live” on Thursday night…

In 1998, on the first Sunday of Lent, I walked into St Gregory of Nyssa Church (SGN) for the first time. I had been away from church - any church - for nearly a decade, apart from the occasional wedding or going to midnight services with my folks. I had been dared to go to SGN by my buddy, Chilly E, who assured me that I would fit in there. It was the beginning of Lent: if any Church was going to wind me up and knock me about, it was going to be on that Sunday. So I went. MR Ritley was preaching. The congregation was dancing. Communion was overwhelming. The sense of Love and Joy, equally, alive and real. And I was hooked - sorta. It took a while for me to realise what was happening.

But I was being welcomed by them as Christ has welcomed them. The same has happened twice more in the last seven days:

Once at a parish church here in Asheville last Sunday - when the priest came out of the Church and down the sidewalk to where I’d parked my scooter just to introduce himself and give me welcome. The second time was Thursday night at a meeting when four strangers sat down and chatted for the first time about “Emergent Church” and what that means. The sense of Christian fellowship was wonderful.

Welcome one another - the Greek word rendered “Welcome” here means “to take to one’s self” as a close friend or “to receive into intimacy”. It can even be used to indicate “taking food”. That’s the level of intimacy we’re talking about here. To be welcomed, to not have to put up a show of defensiveness, or protection.. not because you might be a danger to me but rather because my job as a Christian is to receive you as Christ received.

Now there’s something important here: for me to come into a given congregation, I might have had to say a creed or get baptised or make a financial pledge. Theologically, liturgically, for me to become Orthodox, I had to make a life confession and be chrismated and agree to some theological twists. To be welcomed in to the Episcopal Church, all I had to do was shake the Bishop’s hand. NONE of this has anything to do with how Christ received me - which, if we read the Prodigal’s story correctly - was running down the street and embracing me before I even had the chance to repent.

St Paul, in effect, says, “don’t be like those silly denominations and sects: just receive each other as Christ received you. No questions asked. You show up and yer in.”

Look at the Gospel…

The Apostles are given a job: feed all comers. Not “Ask them if they share our doctrine” not “quiz them on their morality” not even “check to see if they are properly circumcised Jews.” Just “feed them.”

And when they admit they can’t - humans always stumble over charity! - God does it Himself, acting through them because they gave him the freedom to act. And so it goes: God will welcome, feed and house the stranger among us - using our two hands - if we only give him the freedom to act.