Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

Matthew 10:40-42

 

Jesus has just done a whole slew of teaching with his disciples. Instructions for curing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers, casting demons, proclaiming good news. It’s a crash course of things you will need to know to be a disciple in that time and place.

It’s kind of a lot of instruction in a short amount of time. I’d like you to think about the first village the disciples went to. Think of the bumbling! They had to learn as they went. In public. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Picture the first attempt of curing someone. I mean, ten minutes ago these people were making a living fishing. Or by collecting taxes for the oppressors.

Now, they have so many new jobs. They are making the path by walking it.

Many of us are doing new things. New summer jobs for our teens and young adults. New plans for recent grads. Maybe you, too have a new job. Pastor Katie has been here in this new call for a few months. Music director David Lim begins his new role here tomorrow.  Some of you are in a new role as grandparent or the freshman class of recent retirees. Maybe it’s a new body part: a knee or hip. We sang Happy Birthday to one of our kids this week at Vacation Bible School who has just reached the double digit milestone of turning 10. She’s brand new at that.

Empathy abounds. You are in good company.

Keep going. Keep going with every single new bumbling thing you are doing. You are making a new path.

At the end of this instruction course in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus gives us today’s verses. Which are: if you receive welcome anywhere at anytime, that’s the presence of God. Offer someone a glass of water? That’s the very presence of God. Any welcome, at any time, in any form.

The bar is pretty low and incredibly expansive.

It seems so small unless you are the person who never gets to offer a welcome. Or if you are the person who feels just outside of a welcome.

Give a cup of water to someone. It seems so small unless you are the person who is thirsty.

Every church believes they are welcoming. Some of you have moved in and out of other churches and done some visiting and we all know that not every church is as welcoming as they imagine themselves to be. Including us. We have some work do to collectively. But it’s also tricky because what feels welcoming to one person is off putting to others. Some people show up here and just want to be left alone for a while until they get their bearings. Others want the opposite. Just because it’s challenging doesn’t mean it’s not important.

I listened to a wonderful interview by Rabbi Shai Held on Kristi Tippet’s Onbeing podcast. And Rabbi Held said we are currently living in a world that calls us to grow our capacity to love. It’s so basic and also true. We are all being called to grow our capacity to love our neighbors. To extend our welcome and take some risks.

In my call previous to this one, I was at a brand new mission church. During our first year together as a church, we gathered for worship at the Pilney Building, a rented storefront. And there were like 15 of us. Right outside the floor to ceiling windows was a busy city bus stop. Often people would wander in during worship and ask what we were doing. Sometimes they were curious, sometimes they were in an altered state. Sometimes they needed a cold drink of water.

One Sunday, one of our young adults stood up during announcements and said that we were forgetting the people right outside our worship space. That after 6 months of being a church, we were maybe too focused on ourselves.

She said, we should hold a coffee hour on the sidewalk outside one morning a week.

Without any strings. Just a pot of coffee, some donuts and a welcome.

Two other people immediately said, “We’ll help.” And the following Friday, five days later, they set up a little card table with coffee and muffins. No church fliers. No strings.

The first week, we met two neighbors. They names are Jimmy and Dr. Lee. These two guys were part of neighborhood, had big personalities and both of their lives were marked with the difficulties that poverty brings.

At the end of the hour on that first week, this hospitality team had already learned some things. They learned that if you get up suuuuuper early and make muffins, no one will help themselves to them because they don’t trust a strangers kitchen. Fair enough.

So on week two, the team brought donuts from the shop down the street. They learned in public while they were making this path.

But also! On week two, Jimmy and Dr Lee showed up early to help set up. And in a blink of eye, we had no idea who was serving who. There was no longer a barrier between the giver and the receiver. Or us and them. It’s was disorienting and beautiful.

So most of those weeks, it was an early morning crew of this young adult, another person from church, Jimmy and Dr Lee, creating a welcome for one another and for every single person who came through that bus stop from 7-8AM on Friday morning.

We who are gathered here this morning are the hands and feet of Christ, giving cups of cold water to anyone who is thirsty. It’s happening all the time, every day of the week.

This week, that looked like fifty kids and teens and adult leaders and camp counselors and director Kyrstin welcoming one another each day to Vacation Bible School. It’s the council meeting meeting on Tuesday night and leading with wisdom and heart. It’s three big tables of folks on the patio of JS Bean Factory sharing coffee and their lives. It’s the gardeners tending our giving gardens to help feed our neighbors and the gardeners tending the flowers all around this building creating beauty for the inherent joy it brings us. And the art committee who bring us new installations in the gallery because it’s good for our souls. It’s the quilters meeting each Thursday to create warmth with their thread. It’s Christine our wedding coordinator helping people find their way through this building yesterday at the wedding. Those are all cups of cold water given in the name of Christ.

And of course, it’s you taking care of a partner. You taking care of your kids. You taking care of your neighbors. It’s you taking care of yourself with centering breathing and walks and therapy and medication. It’s 10,000 small acts of love that never make news headlines but are knitting the world together.

Later on this summer, we will send the biggest group of kids off to Camp Wapo in Amery, Wisconsin. And let me tell you, Camp Wapo is part of a wide network of the 150 Lutheran camps spread throughout this country. And running those camps are young adults who are giving their whole lives away for the summer. Those 18-22 year olds are trained and equipped and earnest and hilarious and relentlessly kind. They give away literal cups of cold water every 10 minutes when it’s hot like it is today. But we also know they are a living metaphor for this Gospel, pouring out attention to kids who who lap it up like puppies.

Like it or not, we are the Good News of Jesus in human form. It’s us. Every single day, being sent into the world with humility and love, being willing to risk rejection.

There are so many barriers to connection. And we can talk ourselves right out of trying because it’s too hard. Because of the Ring cameras on the doorsteps our neighborhoods mean no one is answering the door unless it’s Amazon. We can tell ourselves why bother calling or texting or emailing because no one even answers those anymore. All of these tools are meant to improve our lives or keep us safe or save us time are actually just creating very lonely humans.

Sometimes it won’t go well. We will risk the welcome and vulnerability and our giant earnest hearts will be rejected. If that happens, Jesus says to shake the dust off your feet and move on. So we make like T Swift and Shake it off. And then continue.

So, yes, it’s challenging but look around here this morning at this miracle. If the humans are gathered then we have overcome all the barriers in order to be together. Right now, look at someone near you and say, “I’m glad you are here. Welcome.”