Welcome, Welcome, Welcome

Yesterday, I overheard a parishioner who pays very close attention to the weather saying, “We got four inches of rain last week. That was more than we did all last summer.” Over the weekend tropical storm Cindy brought significant rain and serious winds through the Tennessee Valley, as well as most of the Southeast. What I noticed more than usual in regards to weather was how this storm, which made landfall in Texas, brought with it the climate of the humid coastline there. I walked outside on Friday and thought I was in muggy Houston, then hurriedly ran back inside. Welcoming the climate of somewhere else felt hard.

On the other hand, waking up this morning—after storms had all passed by the Decatur area—and taking a walk I could not help but smile. The weather could not be better, as the weekend's storm pushed both heat and humidity away for a couple days. Quite easily I accepted how it felt outside. Isn’t it strange that even with forces like the weather that are neutral—I mean apolitical, amoral, and without opinion—we can deem some of it good, while we call some of it bad? Imagine what we do with things that we do view as political, moralistic, opinionated, or religious! In other words, we are bad at welcoming almost all change in life, even though change is the substance of life.

The Gospel text for this coming Sunday stands out as surprisingly shorter than many in this Season after Pentecost in Year A. It is only two verses long! Perhaps the framers of the Revised Common Lectionary did this so we would focus on the word that is repeated over and over again: welcome. Welcome appears six times in two verses, and really the idea of welcoming pervades every word within this teaching. Jesus cannot seem to stress enough his desire for the hearer to welcome!

In Matthew 10:40-42 Jesus challenges us to welcome one another, him, the one who sent him, prophets, righteous people, and disciples. Truly, this was a starting point, as Jesus want us to expand that welcome even more. Unsurprisingly when I hear the word welcome I cannot help but recall a prayer attributed to Fr. Thomas Keating called—you guessed it—“The Welcoming Prayer.”

The prayer reads as follows:

“Welcome, welcome, welcome. I welcome everything that comes to me today because I know it’s for my healing. I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons, situations, and conditions. I let go of my desire for power and control. I let go of my desire for affection, esteem, approval, and pleasure. I let go of my desire for survival or security. I let go of my desire to change any situation, condition, person, or myself. I open to the love and presence of God and His healing action within.”

This prayer is radical. No, I do not mean this in the Ninja Turtle sense, like bodacious or awesome! I mean that what Keating proposes requires us to radically shift our priorities, our vision, and our lives. If I say the above words and mean them, then I believe something different as I welcome even those difficult changes that come my way. The challenge is hearing this prayer not as a self-help mantra, but as the invitation that it is to allow God to be present within us, to heal us, and to act in our lives.

When we open up to and welcome what is happening by the hand of God we discover something far beyond our own desires and even our imaginations. Our lives at this very moment are woven intricately together in a vast web with each of our strands coming together to form the quilt that is Life. While we may think that we have control over a vast swath of what is happening, the truth is that this Life is brought together by the force within, between, and beyond, which we often call God. Before believing that we are merely bystanders to our own life let me add one more element.

The Welcoming Prayer coupled with Jesus’ teaching on welcoming pushes me to believe that what God yearns for is a co-creative dance that opens us up to Life flowing within, between, and among us. This is not easy. We are taught especially in American culture to be independent, in control, and in charge of our lives. We take on the mantra of Frank Sinatra, as we want to say, “I did it my way.” And yet, that is not how life in Christ and this welcoming of God’s weaving works. A final helpful analogy comes to mind.

We may not have control over all things in our lives. Instead we may just be like a hand. For a hand to receive something it must be open. For a hand to give something it must be open. Often though what we want is to hold onto something—a moment, a time in life, a prized possession, how we see the world, the way we have always done things, etc.—and so we close the hand thinking this will stop life from continuing or change from happening. Perhaps, for a time things keep on going as they have, but nothing new comes in and we cannot pass along those things that we hold so valuable. Eventually the hand becomes a clinched fist that is ready to fight, as it feels the fearful myth of scarcity. Those gifts clinched within the fist are not passed on to others and so others find them strange and antiquated. Without the openness to both give and receive the hand is nearly useless.

This week I invite us to let the clinched fists go. Hear Jesus’ words of welcoming. Live into the radical nature of the welcoming prayer. Open our hands in love to serve others and receive from those with whom we serve. Allow our lives to become a co-created tapestry in which God weaves together all of Life.