Third Sunday in Lent – March 22, 2025

God called “Moses, Moses!” and Moses answered, “Here I am!”
God welcomed Moses by appearing in flames on a bush. And then God told Moses, “Come no closer!”

How would you feel if someone invited you to church and you made the effort to attend, and then they ignored you. Or if you had no idea what books were which and when to use them and no one offered to assist. Or if you brought your kids and they made noise and people stared at you.

Welcoming is a funny thing. We can underdo it, and we can overdo it. I’m not judging God here, but it’s weird how Moses was invited and then seemingly disinvited from drawing closer.

How many of you have been to a church where they ask the visitors to stand up or to say where they’ve come from? How about where six people swarm around you and look at you like you’re new meat? There’s a difference between being genuinely interested in having you to help you on your faith journey and being interested because you’re standing up without a walker and you have two hands, right?

Frederick Buechner, an American author, once wrote in his book Beyond Words, “If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes… we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces.”

Welcoming extends beyond being nice or friendly. Welcoming the outsider, the visitor, the stranger is welcoming Jesus. Jesus models for us a new way of seeing the other – with love, compassion, and forgiveness. The gospels are full of stories about Jesus being fully present with the people he meets.:
• The leper and paralytic in Luke 5
• The little children in Mark 10
• Peter’s mother-in-law in Matthew 8
• The prodigal son in Luke 15 (next week’s Gospel reading)
• The Samaritan woman at the well in John 4

In every case or story like the ones I listed, Jesus doesn’t assume he knows everything. In the example of the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus asks the woman – a foreigner who knows well that they should not be talking – for a drink of water. In each case, he opens the way for conversation, listens to the people, honors their answers, and values their wisdom. He has compassion. He moves closer when others run away. Where others see someone “less than,” Jesus sees the possibilities. His spirit and reaction change everything.

We’ve all seen the signs: “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You.” In fact, we have several signs that point people to the church from the main streets. There’s a period after the word You. There’s no IF on the sign. We welcome you. We don’t care if you’re poor or rich. We welcome you. We don’t know where you are on your faith journey, or if you’re happy with God or angry with God. We welcome you.

We don’t welcome you because we want you to be a member. We welcome you because we want to be in relationship with you. We want to help you build a relationship with the God we worship. Welcoming is connecting.

But, just like inviting people, we have to step out of our comfort zone. There’s often a hesitation to welcome the “other”, the stranger, to risk the embarrassment that might come from saying the wrong thing or welcoming someone who’s been coming here for years.

Welcoming asks us not just to see the other and improve how we greet and welcome people. It also asks us to use fresh eyes in looking at our facilities, inside and out. What needs to be changed so that we are perceived as a welcoming place? It asks us to evaluate every facet of our buildings from the sanctuary to hallways, so that they are spaces that feel welcoming and open to creating and maintaining relationships.

When you first stepped foot at St. Michael and All Angels, did you feel welcomed? Are there pieces of the building that you struggle with feeling welcomed in? What if each of us took the time to look at this place like it was the first time we were here? Could we make it look more welcoming? Today, I’m going to ask you to take that time after service or before service next week — before our next vestry meeting. And let’s talk about what you find out about our welcome then.

The deep truth today is that when we open ourselves to the other – those of different race or class or ideology or neighborhood or culture or gender or sexual orientation or physical ability or _fill_in_the_blank – and when we approach them with compassion, courage, curiosity, and anticipation, we can be renewed and recreated along with the world around us. It’s seeing the other that makes it special. It’s our job – as representatives of God here at St. Michael’s – to ensure that this place is a safe haven of grace, love, and welcome for those who remain outside. Just like when we invite someone, we can only extend the welcome and build a relationship. We are called to summon the courage and then to let God be God.

Ultimately, our faith is about relationship. We have been created and we exist in the image of a God who is relational. So when people join us and don’t find connections that are vital to their well-being (emotionally, spiritually, mentally), they leave us and go to search for this. Love is the connection that we hold so dear, and we need to celebrate and promote that connection. Let us welcome the other in love.

Let us pray. Gracious God, we pray this day with intention to live into our baptismal covenant to become reflections of Christ in all we say and do. We ask you for the grace to see others as Jesus sees them, with love and compassion and forgiveness. Let us welcome the stranger with open arms. Help us to serve faithfully, taking the challenge you set before us to go and make disciples of all people seriously. Open our hearts and our minds with holy listening and loving souls. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.