Sermon by The very Rev Chris Yaw, 7/2/2023, Mastthew 10:40-42
When I was a little boy and had trouble sleeping due to frightful or anxious thoughts, I would go to my parents and ask for advice.
I was told that while I did not have control over which thoughts knocked on the door of my mind, I did have control over which ones I welcomed in.
Our days, weeks, even lives are dictated by what we welcome into our minds.
When we welcome worry, doubt, and fear, things go one way.
When we welcome faith, hope, and possibility, things go another.
What have you have been putting out the welcome mat for lately?
Are you making a home for the right kind of company?
Are there some guests who've found their way in who now need to be shown the door?
Today's message is called The Power of Welcome.
God has given us gifts of wisdom, discernment, and agency to welcome the right kind of influences into our lives.
Through Christ we have, not only the power to welcome God's preferred guests, but we are invited to dwell deeply with them - to live in God's peace, guidance, abundance, and hope.
The Power of Welcome is God's gift to a lost and wayward world to help us get back on track - to say "no" to the powers of addiction, discouragement, and apathy - and "yes" to the powers of prosperity, healing, and abundance.
Are you feeling defeated, abandoned and afraid?
Has the world done a number on you this week - stealing your joy, tempting you with doubt and fear? Maybe you've welcomed the wrong guests?
Well guess what?
Today is eviction day!
Today is your day of release and renewal!
God's Paddy Wagon is here to cart off the devil's freeloaders - and usher in a new beginning, God's beginning, with the power of welcome.
------
As we've been studying in Matthew's Gospel these last few weeks, Jesus is sending out his 12 disciples to spread his word of healing and hope.
Today we heard Jesus' words, "Those who welcome you, welcome me, and those who welcome me, welcome the Father."
What does it mean to welcome God, but to welcome everything that God is and has for you and me?
The more you and I roll out the welcome mat for God, the deeper we seek to go in our faith, the more intentionally we take steps toward God - the more we experience God's blessings of peace, forgiveness, hope, and reconciliation.
--------
That's what my friend Steve experienced not long ago when he and his wife got into an argument.
Like most disagreements, it wasn't really over the toothpaste cap being left off of the toothpaste - or the toilet seat being left up, it was about deeper feelings of rejection and discontentment, and led to angry words that caused Steve and his wife to go to separate corners of the house.
That's when Steve experienced the power of welcome.
He had to decide, would he welcome the voices that said, "Oh it's her fault, she always picks fights. You haven't done anything wrong; you're just sticking up for yourself. She's at fault here and better come back asking for an apology soon!"
Or would he welcome another voice that said, "She probably didn't mean any harm, I know she was tired and angry at the time. We've patched things up in the past and we can do the same thing this time."
Steve had a decision to make.
He had to decide whether he wanted to be a divider or a reconciler.
Steve had to decide which voice he was going to listen to.
He had to decide how he was going to use the power of welcome.
He chose wisely, he welcomed those thoughts of healing and reconciliation, and he and his wife patched things up.
Would you and I do the same thing?
Has someone offended you - and are you deciding which voice to tend to?
Are you welcoming thoughts of vengeance and anger?
Or do you need to welcome forgiveness, compassion, and reconciliation?
Don't fall into the trap that anger is a key to your happiness.
Don't fall for that lie that by not paying attention to it, it'll all go away.
Don't drink that strange brew of vengeance, that tries to manipulate you into thinking that when you get even, you'll get happy.
Make room in your house for healthy words and healthy actions.
Only let in life-giving, love affirming guests.
Patch things up, be the first one to offer an olive branch, be the peacemaker Jesus made you to be.
We know that when we reconcile, when we make amends, when we seek peace, we are doing God's work, and we are living God's way, this is when we have welcomed the father into our hearts.
-------
A farmer had two plots of land.
On the first was a nourishing crop of yellow corn.
On the second was a snarled collection of invasive weeds.
His neighbor was passing by one day and asked, half-jokingly, "Which one of these crops is going to be bigger?" The answer, of course, is the one the farmer pays most attention to.
Now you might wonder, who on earth would spend any time or energy whatsoever cultivating a crop of snarled, invasive weeds?
Yet we do it all the time - when we welcome thoughts of defeat, discouragement, doubt, and despair.
How often do we lay out the welcome mat for destructive thoughts like:
I'll never be able to break that habit.
I guess happy marriages are for other people.
I'll never get my finances in order.
I'll never get promoted.
I guess I'm not destined to be a parent.
Why work for racial reconciliation when the Supreme Court is just going to shoot it down?
When we welcome these negative, weed-snarled thoughts into our lives we are not surprised by the unappetizing crops we harvest.
How much better is it to cultivate the good, nourishing crops of hope, health, and possibility?
Why not roll out the welcome mat for those thoughts like:
"I may be stuck with this bad habit today, but the same God who has helped me overcome things before and can do it again.
"My marriage may not be perfect, but we were happy once and with God's grace we can be happy again.
"My finances may not be where I want them, but the same God who has provided for me in the past can do it again."
I was talking with a woman this week, preparing her for baptism, when she made an observation about the negativity of the world - how divisiveness, cruelty, apathy, and hopelessness run rampant in our world.
We can't help but experience it every time we turn on the news or chat with friends and neighbors. It's a sense of uneasiness, discord, worry, and dread that clouds the air.
It's a lot like that pervasive and poisonous smoke we were breathing all week from those northern wildfires.
Stinky and stunting.
And when we breathe it in experts tell us it's got the potential to kill us.
What's the solution?
Get a mask!
Don't let that poison in!
Refuse to breathe that bad air!
It's the same with the negativity of the world -
Don't breathe it in!
Don't allow it in your body!
Don't let it poison you.
Get a mask!
And Jesus is our mask.
God's word is our mask.
Our Christian community, rooted in Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Eucharist, are the ways we filter out the toxins - and let the clean, fresh, healthy, life-giving, and love-infused breath of God fill our lungs!
We breathe in the toxic air of the negativity that surrounds us, through the filter of God's word and God's promises - and the dirty old air of this broken-down world, becomes the sweet scent of that heavenly dwelling place where God intends us to live, and move, and have our being.
Has the poison of the world brought you down, clouded your vision, robbed you of your potential?
Does it do a convincing job of telling you are less than you are?
Has it doped and duped you into places of hopelessness and apathy?
Jesus has shown up with the antidote:
Roll out the welcome mat to God's answers.
Don't be overwhelmed by the world's problems.
Say goodbye to worldly wisdom and welcome the true wisdom that is God's.
I know that sounds simplistic, maybe even impossible.
Can God do that for you? God did it for Abraham!
He was 100 years old when God fulfilled the promise of a son through his wife Sarah.
Then God came to Abraham and asked him to sacrifice his son, his only son, his firstborn from Sarah, who was destined to found a nation through whom the world would be saved.
This, of course, made no sense. Why would God have Abraham kill Isaac?
But this isn't a story about logic, it's a story about faith.
It's a story about how Abraham believed God, he believed the impossible, and God rewarded him, making him the father of many nations.
Is there something impossible in your life right now?
Is there a healing you need?
Is there a relationship that needs restoration?
Is there a financial challenge looming?
Are you distraught over the direction of the nation and the world?
The same God who rescued Isaac from an altar of sacrifice, Lazarus from three days in the grave, and Jesus from the tomb of death, has the power to turn around anything you and I are facing.
Friends, this is what the gospel, the good news is all about, you can change, things can change, you are not stuck breathing in the nasty air of the world, but a new fragrance is in the air and with the power of God, things can get better for you.
Jesus did not send out the disciples with fine clothes, elegant transportation, or sumptuous food. God said, trust in me for the journey, follow my ways, follow my words.
I will provide for you, I will make a way for you, I will see to it that you 12 poor, uneducated, nobodies from nowhere, will be the heralds of Almighty God's Divine plan of salvation for the world!
And his words are those of welcome, welcoming the one who sent them, welcoming the father, who invites us to also welcome God's words into our hearts.
You are not without purpose.
You are not without value.
You are not without destiny.
You are God's precious champion, uniquely called, uniquely equipped and universally invited to roll out that welcome mat and invite Jesus to have his way with you!
Can I get an amen?