Andy James

A Blessing for All

July 20, 2014 By Andy James

a sermon on Genesis 28:10-19a
preached on July 20, 2014, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

Forty-five years ago today, a tremendous journey for humankind reached its pinnacle with the arrival of Apollo 11 on the surface of the moon. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s journey to the surface of the moon was an incredible mark of human achievement, not so much because of their bravery or personal action or even because Aldrin was a Presbyterian ruling elder who took along communion to share on the surface of another planetary body but because it was the culmination of more than a decade of intense work by thousands of people who did everything from design the spacecraft to sew the uniforms and everything in between. Neil Armstrong, the first of those two astronauts to step out of the lunar module and onto the moon’s surface, made this so abundantly clear in his famous words as he took that first step: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Now in our story from Genesis this morning, I think Jacob manages to flip that line around completely, for every one of his small steps on the journey recounted here seems to be a giant leap focused on himself. Jacob is quite an incredible figure in the stories of Genesis, and his outsized personality towers over one part or another of half of the book. Here, though, we see him relatively early in his life, but still after his trickster tendencies were fully revealed when he bought the family birthright from his slightly older twin brother Esau with a bowl of food and then deceived his father into offering him the blessing intended for Esau. Here Jacob had just set out on a journey to his mother’s homeland, where he was to marry one of his cousins. Esau was furiously angry with him for stealing the birthright and his father’s blessing. And Jacob had no idea what would really be coming next for him in his life.

So amidst all these things, after a long day’s journey, Jacob settled down to sleep. It’s hard to tell whether the sleepless night that ensued was brought on by all that change that was swirling around him or the rock-hard pillow that he found for himself, but either way he had a vivid dream that night. He saw a ladder on the earth, probably a lot like the temple that marked the town where he had stopped to sleep, reaching up into heaven, with angels ascending and descending on it. But then suddenly the Lord came and stood beside him and offered him a strange blessing for his journey and promise for his life:

I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.

This promise and blessing was largely a repeat of what the Lord had promised Jacob’s grandfather Abraham in a large family and a generous gift of land, but it went further to speak to Jacob’s situation, too. He was not yet married, but God promised him a large family. He was leaving the land of his birth, but God promised to bring him back. He was journeying out on his own, but God promised to go with him.

When you think about it, this was an astonishing promise. By our human standards, God had no reason whatsoever to deal with Jacob. He was on this journey for himself and no one else. He had little or no concept of how the lives of others would connect to his own, no sense that any of his steps mattered for anyone else but himself. He was even willing to deceive his own father so that he could receive a special blessing after he had already won his brother’s birthright with a bowl of food for an empty stomach. By even the most generous ethical standards, we would call Jacob a liar, a cheat, and a fraud. Yet God made it clear that there was more to Jacob’s story. He would not be defined by his homeland or his brother or his lineage. He would carry his own story of life and living. And he didn’t have to deceive anyone to receive God’s blessing that would surround him all his days.

God’s blessing of Jacob here is important for the development of the story of God’s people in Genesis. Jacob eventually was given a second name “Israel,” for he fathered twelve sons who were the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel that figured prominently into the later stories of God’s people. And the story of Jacob’s most beloved son Joseph being sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers and yet opening the door for them to survive and thrive there in new ways remains the greatest biblical witness to God’s providence in our world.

But what does this story mean for us today? I hope and pray that we are people who recognize our connectedness to one another better than Jacob did, who like Neil Armstrong understand how even one person’s seeming achievement is built upon the intensive and careful work of others. So when we hear God’s promises of presence and blessing to Jacob, they extend to us, too. We may not be directly linked to these promises to Jacob, but we do believe that our common heritage of faith through Jesus links us to the gifts and responsibilities that these things bring, not as a replacement of the Jewish people of any time or place but for the flourishing of all humanity in our common witness. Ultimately the gift and responsibility that flows from this blessing is at the center of all the blessing that we enjoy from God, for we are not gifted anything for our own sake but so that “all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring.”

Even Jacob knew this. After he awoke from his encounter with God at Bethel, in the verses beyond our reading this morning he offered his own response, promising that if God took care of him along this journey, then he would be faithful to God, make that rock-hard pillow the foundation of a temple, and give ten percent of everything to God there. Now this response was far more conditional than God’s original blessing, but Jacob offered it nonetheless, for he knew that he had no choice but to respond to the abundance of God’s gifts to him along this journey.

In the midst of the sad and difficult events of this week in Israel and Palestine and Russia and the Ukraine and the crisis of child refugees unfolding in our own country, I believe that responding to this blessing in these days requires special attention to God’s call to bring and bear peace. In today’s reading, God promises Jacob and his descendants the land where he had this dream, a place he named Bethel, meaning “house of God” in Hebrew, because of the incredible encounter with God that he had there but now known as Beitin, a Palestinian town under Israeli occupation in the West Bank. While I can’t do justice to the complexities of this conflict in one sermon, it is still very interesting to note that God’s promise of land here is linked with a promise that Jacob’s descendants will be a blessing for all the families of the earth. In light of this blessing, I for one struggle to see how the escalating crisis in the Holy Land in recent days can so highly prioritize the safety and security of land for one group of people above this gift of blessing for all people in such a way that over three hundred people have been killed, many if not most of them innocent Palestinian civilians. God’s promise to Jacob here is less about any benefits for him or his descendants, and far more about how he and all his descendants, including us who are grafted into this family through the love of God in Jesus Christ, can be a blessing to all the earth by bringing a new and different way of life into all our encounters with one another.

So like Jacob we too are called to respond with gratitude and hope, to set aside our tight grasp on using God’s abundance and blessing for our good and instead to join in God’s work of blessing of all creation so that all people may live in peace. May our encounters with God, then, be filled with this kind of love, joy, peace, and hope, so that we and all the people of the earth may be blessed as Jacob was every step of the way. Thanks be to God! Amen.

In light of this word, we offered the prayers for all of God’s people shared by the elected leadership of the Presbyterian Church (USA) as the Prayers of the People in worship.

Sow What?

July 13, 2014 By Andy James

a sermon on Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
preached on July 13, 2014, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

The parable in this morning’s reading is quite likely one of the most familiar of all the different parables that Jesus taught to his disciples. While some of Jesus’ parables defied interpretation in his own time and continue to confuse us today, this one clearly has simplicity on its side—and if we have any difficulties in understanding it, we can resolve them by reading just a few verses further on to hear Jesus’ own explanation of it! The parable’s simplicity certainly helps with its familiarity. I remember first hearing this parable as a child in Sunday school, and I suspect that it remains a staple of such classes even today because it is so accessible—and because it almost immediately leads to a fun activity involving seeds and dirt!

This parable of the sower showed up while Jesus was teaching an ever-growing crowd, for he had just climbed into a boat to speak to a crowd that had gathered on the lakeshore. They were anxiously awaiting his next teaching, so he offered them this story. A farmer set out to plant his seeds, and he sowed them all over his land. Some fell on the path, some on rocky ground, some among thorns, and some on good soil.

The seeds bore fruit based on where they were sown. The seeds on the path didn’t have enough time to take root before birds came along and ate them. The seeds on rocky ground sprang up quickly in the shallow dirt, but they never grew deep roots and so withered away. The seeds among the thorns started out okay, but they had no chance to get the sunlight and nutrients they needed because the thorns took over all around them. And the seeds on good soil took root and grew well, building up toward a plentiful harvest.

After he had told the parable to the crowd, Jesus’ disciples came to him and asked him why he spoke in parables—and by extension, what this one meant. Our reading this morning skips over his explanation for teaching and speaking in parables, I think in part because Jesus’ words confuse as much as they clarify, but Jesus’ description of the meaning of this parable that follows is incredibly familiar and understandable.

Jesus cast this parable of sowing seed as the sharing of “the word of the kingdom,” placing God in the role of the sower and the hearer of this word as the soil. According to Jesus, the varied receptions of this word by those who hear it are the different types of soil. The path is those who do not understand it and so find the word snatched away before it takes root. The rocky ground is those who respond quickly but who struggle to keep going for the long term. The soil surrounded by thorns is those whose response is held back by the things of the world. And the good soil is those who hear the word and understand it and so bear fruit abundantly.

Now as Jesus tells it and explains it, this is a beautiful and simple parable, but when he is done talking about this sower I still find myself asking, “So what?” The pun for us is as intentional as it is bad, because I think the parable’s recognition of different soils is not as helpful for us as it was for those who first heard it. I think most of us here fall in that final category, in that space known as the good soil, for we have heard the word of the kingdom and done our best to understand it and let it take root in our lives. Now our fruits may be less visible at times, we may have shoots that sprout too quickly and wither faster than they should, we may have some roots that struggle to take hold for one reason or another, but on the whole I think we are far more like the soil where seeds yield fruit than any of the other options.

So if we are already among those bearing fruit many times over, the biggest question that emerges from this parable for us really does seem to be “so what?” It might be worth our while, then, to step back from our traditional viewpoint in this story and imagine ourselves not just as the soil but maybe as the sower or the seed. What is the seed which we sow? And how do we sow and spread it?

The seed, as Jesus described it, is “the word of the kingdom.” This is not just any word, not just a part of the Bible that we pick and choose as our favorite or as strangely essential, not just the word that we imagine God wants us or others to hear. This word that we sow is the word of the kingdom of God, a word that by its very name challenges every earthly kingdom and nation, a word that upends all our human expectations and transforms our desires, a word that focuses on the well-being of all creation and not just the success of a few, a word that demands more than a response in words or belief but also a response in action.

Sowing this seed, then, is more than hitting someone repeatedly over the head with the Bible, more than standing on a street corner shouting scriptures of love or condemnation at the top of our lungs, more than suggesting that it might be a good idea to let this seed take root and bear fruit. Instead, when we take on the role of the sower in our lives and our world, we are called to boldly proclaim this word of the kingdom of God in word and in deed, to shape and mold our own lives to this transformative vision of something new, to call our world to radical ways of valuing all human life, to work toward full expression of God’s mercy, justice, and peace in our world, to cry out for peace when war and strife seem to reign and calls for vengeance overtake any sense of reasonableness, and to turn away from all the things that keep us from placing our ultimate and real trust in God alone.

All this talk about sowing seed is important and thoughtful and good, but when we ask the question “so what?” we might just see that Jesus left out of his parable one of the most important parts of good farming: the hard work of cultivation. In his parables, Jesus often made his focus very intentional and immediate, recognizing that his own time to spread this message and plant these seeds was short and that the immediacy of God’s coming kingdom would outweigh a long season of planning, preparation, and waiting. It is not surprising, then, that his message here might miss some of the ways in which longer-term care and nurture might help these seeds to grow even more fruitfully.

Yet I think it is foolish to think that any reasonable farmer in this day and age would ever throw seeds so indiscriminately, let alone leave them to sprout on their own without any additional care. Even if Jesus leaves out this important part of the growing process, it still falls to us to be good stewards of the seeds of God’s kingdom that we sow and nurture. We may have to to till some soil a bit to make it ready for seeds to grow. We may need to examine where we are sowing our seeds to choose places that are ripe for the growth of the kingdom. We may need to keep the birds and weeds of our world away as these seeds sprout forth. And we may find ourselves doing less planting and more watering and fertilizing of seeds as they take root and begin to bear fruit.

So as we consider the impact of this familiar parable, may we keep asking “So what?”—wondering what exactly we are to sow, exploring all the different times and places where God is calling us to join in this work of sowing seed, sharing the seeds of the wonder of God’s kingdom far and wide, and nurturing all the seeds that God has planted in us and around us and in spite of us so that we all might bear much fruit as all things are made new in Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be to God! Amen.

No Other Comfort

July 6, 2014 By Andy James

a sermon on Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
preached on July 6, 2014, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

Amidst all the discussion and celebration of independence this weekend, the Times offered an interesting look at the changes to feelings of national pride over the course of several generations. They highlighted a recent survey that showed that young adults—roughly defined as people younger than me—have less interest in supporting the symbols of American democracy while showing a higher level of respect for “classic American ideals like equality and opportunity.” Most notably, the article notes a consistent decline in the percentage of Americans who “consider their American identity to be extremely important,” ranging from 78% of the oldest generation among us to 70% of baby boomers, 60% of “Generation X”ers, and now only 45% of young adults. The article looked closely at broader trends for other generations over time and on this basis suggested that this is a long-term trend that will not change as this youngest generation grows older. However, while this youngest generation may not wave the flag or “love America” quite as much as those who are a bit older, their attention to the values that define our union makes it clear that they can’t be considered any less patriotic than anyone else.

Now, you might wonder, what does this news about patriotism have to do with our strange story from Matthew’s gospel this morning? Well, I think Jesus was facing a time where people were focused on the symbols of his ministry and missing the values that stood behind it. He was about halfway through his recorded ministry and had gone so far as to commission his disciples to go out and do some of the work that he had been doing, so he stepped back to assess how things had gone. He was even challenged by his old friend and preacher John the Baptist, now stuck in prison, to send him back an assessment.

When Jesus looked around, though, he saw a bunch of people who loved the spectacle and symbols of what he was doing but who totally missed the point of why he was doing it. He saw people who loved his miracles, who listened carefully to every word of his teaching and preaching, who followed him around from town to town, who brought their sick friends and family to him in hopes of finding healing—but who ultimately missed the point of it all. The people loved the symbolism of what he was doing, but they didn’t really seem to understand the values behind it, the reality that following this message had consequences.

So Jesus voiced his frustrations with them, about lifting up his voice and not being heard, about offering his hope and finding vindication only in the long term, about revealing his wisdom to the wise only to have them dismiss it as folly. The worst of Jesus’ frustration actually comes in the verses that our reading from the lectionary skips, where he reproached the cities where he had been preaching and teaching and healing for ignoring his cries to repent. He didn’t seem to be frustrated so much by their personal sinfulness or lack of traditional morality but by the ways in which they seemed to be focused on all the wrong things. Jesus lamented how deeply astray this entire generation seemed to be, how they were unable to tear their minds and hearts away from themselves, how they insisted upon status and privilege for themselves, how they missed all the ways in which God’s kingdom was being revealed in their midst through not just deeds of power but even more through the dancing and weeping led by the children, the poor, the needy, the widow, the orphan, all those for whom God shows special care and concern because the world so easily forgets them along the way.

After voicing his frustration at the people’s inability to take his message to heart, Jesus turned his focus to prayer. He invited the people—and us—to overhear his prayer to God, a prayer not about changing hearts and minds or convincing anyone that he has a better way but rather a word of thanksgiving for the people who did seem to be getting it, for the ways in which God was hiding these lessons from those who claimed to be wise and instead revealing it to “infants”—not literally babies but children in spirit who were willing to start fresh and be open to the fullness of what God was doing in the world. Jesus thanked God for keeping this message from being so clear to some people, for letting him keep his focus on those truly in need, for welcoming not those who were already at home but those who needed a place to settle in for good.

In his frustration and in his prayer, Jesus was embodying the deep and clear biblical message so well expressed by twentieth-century Reformed theologian Karl Barth,

that righteousness always requires favoring the “threatened innocent, the oppressed poor, widow, orphans, and aliens… God always stands unconditionally and passionately on this side and on this side alone: against the lofty and on behalf of the lowly; against those who already enjoy right and privilege and on behalf of those who are denied and deprived of it.” (Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, II/1, p. 386; quoted by William Goettler in “Pastoral Perspective on Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30,” Feasting on the Word: Year A Volume 3, p. 214.)

Jesus was frustrated with a world that was so focused on preserving the symbols of everything that it didn’t care about the people in greatest need—and most of all didn’t care that it didn’t care.

As we celebrate the independence of our nation this weekend, it seems like a good and fair moment to think a bit about these things, about our care and concern for those in greatest need, about our attention to the transformation of the world that requires us to give up our power and privilege for the sake of others, about the challenge from our young adults to pay attention to the values that define us rather than the symbols that stand before us.

It is easy to forget that Jesus was a young adult in his day, certainly in a slightly different category than he might be today because of substantially shorter life expectancies but still also likely to have been dismissed and derided as one whose attitudes and behaviors would change as he grew older. Yet his insistence on caring for the poor, on breaking down the structures of power that preserved the status quo, and on building up a new way of life that focused on the fullness of life for all are so very similar to those values of equality and fairness that are lifted up by young adults in our own day and age. To put numbers on it, the survey cited by the Times notes that some 37% of the oldest generation think that unequal chances in life are a big problem while 57% of young adults call that inequality a big issue. I think Jesus would welcome this kind of reassessment that helps us to focus anew on the values that lay behind our symbols and that invite us to recognize how we can be more faithful in our life together.

Then it is in these moments, these times when we have faithfully considered how God is calling us to live in gracious mercy toward all, these places where we have given up our power and privilege to trust God’s presence with us, when we can begin to claim those hopeful words that close our text for today. These beautiful words echo across the ages:

Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

When we hear these words alongside this call to deeper repentance, it becomes clear that Jesus offers rest and comfort not to those who already enjoy it but to those who are most in need of it, to those who have no power to make it happen for themselves, “to those who have been made weary by a world that fails to comprehend the burden of injustice.” (William Goettler)

So Jesus calls us to set aside our hopes in our own salvation, our trust in other understandings of the world, our confidence in military might, our allegiance to flags and nations, our hope in the power of the world—everything that yokes us to things other than him—so that we might know this kind of true rest, this sort of easy yoke and light burden, this freedom that comes only from God in Jesus Christ our Lord. When we do this, we need no other comfort than what we find in Jesus Christ our Lord. We need no other sign than the cross. And we need no other goal in our life together than to seek the promise of love and joy and peace for all people in the new thing that God is doing in our world.

So may God strengthen us as to open our hearts and minds to this deeper and truer comfort, this most hopeful sign, and this most joyous goal, until all things are made new. Thanks be to God. Amen.

An Ending and A Beginning

June 30, 2014 By Andy James

a sermon on Philippians 1:1-11
preached on June 29, 2014, for the retirement of Rev. Jane Donnelly

One of the most immediately surprising things about the letters of the apostle Paul to our modern ears is that he seems to get his beginnings and endings all mixed up. Nowadays, whether they be for business or for pleasure, whether sent as email, typed and printed, or handwritten, we sign our letters at the end, not at the beginning. So to hear Paul’s name first, even before the names of the people he is addressing in his letter, throws me off a bit. But when you get down to it, it’s a perfect situation for a day like today, this day when we celebrate a particular ending in the life and ministry of our friend and colleague and pastor Jane, because the end is the beginning and the beginning is the end.

Jane and I are separated by just a few years of age—I think I counted it up once, and it seems like it might have been six or seven years between us!—but we had the privilege of beginning our ministries as pastors within just a few months of one another. Though we did not know each other before I moved to New York City in 2005, it has been a real honor to journey together over the past nine years, attending the Early Ministry Institute, working as members of the presbytery’s Committee on Preparation for Ministry, sharing our stories and wisdom in our pastoral reflection group, and spending many holidays in her home when I couldn’t be with my own family. As much as we began together, it is now an incredible privilege for me to be a part of this ending—this ending that like those in Paul’s letters is mixed up with a new beginning.

After we get beyond his mixed-up beginning and ending, Paul’s letter to the Philippians offers us three incredible and important messages for this day of beginnings and endings. First, he offers us the theme of thanksgiving and joy. The whole letter to the Philippians is filled with expressions of these wonderful gifts, and it is right and good that all our beginnings and endings be filled with them, too. Paul has much to be thankful for here: the faithful witness of the Philippians; the hope that they share through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; and the gift of these sisters and brothers holding him in their hearts amidst his struggles and imprisonment. His thanksgiving, then, overflows into joy—joy that lifts his heart, joy that sustains him in the midst of the challenges that he faces, joy that fills his prayers each and every day.

Those prayers are the second theme that inform this ending and beginning for us today. In his greeting to the Philippians, Paul makes it clear that his distance from them has not kept him from holding them in prayer. For Paul, prayer is the key way of maintaining his relationship with the Philippians when he cannot remain present with them. In his prayers, he offers thanksgiving for their faithful witness. He prays for love to be continually shared with him and others. And he prays that they might emerge from the trials and tribulations of the life of faith “pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.” Any distance, then, that emerges for us today because of this ending and this beginning is made so much less because we know that we will keep one another in prayer.

So as we approach this ending and beginning today, Paul offers us one final important reminder by lifting up the importance of the end. Paul isn’t particularly known for extended reflection on the end times, but he never leaves that idea totally behind. Here he twice reminds the Philippians that they are not just looking at each day ahead—they are ultimately looking toward “the day of Jesus Christ.” His thanksgiving and his prayers are all focused on this goal ahead, on the work that God is doing in the Philippians that God will finish before the end, on the wholeness and completeness that God will bring into being as the end brings with it a new beginning. So Paul encourages the Philippians too to keep their focus on this bigger goal, not just to keep things going as they are now until the end comes but seeking every day to be a part of the new beginning, the “harvest of righteousness,” that God is bringing through Jesus Christ.

So this strange mix of endings and beginnings from Paul, shaped by thanksgiving, prayer, and an even bigger ending, seems all too fitting for today. This day seems like the perfect embodiment of the beautiful words of T.S. Eliot:

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.

As we celebrate the ending of this phase of ministry for Jane and Bay Ridge United Church today, we know that the past nine years have been shaped by all these things, by deep thanksgiving for faithful witness, by prayer for continued faithfulness and shared grace, and by hope for an even bigger ending and an even greater beginning. But as Eliot says, this end is the start of our new beginning together—a continuation of the new things happening in the life of Bay Ridge United and Fourth Avenue churches, a next step in the ministry of our friend, colleague, and pastor Jane, a new beginning for all of us as we journey together with all our sisters and brothers in this time of change and transition, this end and beginning that show us how God has been at work around us and open us to how God will continue to make all things new in our world.

While we may not know the fullness of what is ahead for Jane, for these two churches, or for any of us, Paul’s thanksgiving, Paul’s prayers, and Paul’s hopes for God’s new creation ahead remind us that we walk together, always carrying these gifts from these beautiful words with us along the journey. Again, I think the words of T.S. Eliot offer a glorious reminder of the hope and prayer that are ours in the days ahead:

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one. (“Little Gidding,” from Four Quartets)

So on this day of strange endings and beginnings, may God’s presence sustain us on the journey ahead, may God’s grace surprise us in all our exploration, and may God’s love surround us at all our endings and all our beginnings as all things are made new in Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be to God! Amen.

A Two-Way Welcome

June 29, 2014 By Andy James

a sermon on Matthew 10:40-42
preached on June 29, 2014, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

There is truly something wonderful in that short song that we just sang—and not just because I managed to get you all singing in parts a little! Like so many songs from around the world that are coming into our knowledge nowadays, this song comes bearing a story. Even though you can now find it our hymnal, it was collected only a few years ago in South Africa by the Scottish pastor and songwriter John Bell. It comes out of a hospice program for those suffering from HIV/AIDS in South Africa, a program that steps into the gap for those who have been abandoned by friends and family as they deal with this dreadful and incurable disease, a program that responds to such a disease in a place where the lasting effects of poverty and apartheid are still prominent. These people have every reason to question the depth and breadth of God’s loving welcome, and yet still they sing joyfully and hopefully, trusting God’s amazing love to carry them through the difficulties of their disease and welcome them into new life.

This kind of wildly inclusive welcome despite every reason to think and act otherwise stands at the core of what Jesus was describing in our reading from Matthew’s gospel this morning. Jesus had been preparing his disciples for their first mission work in his name, and he was about to send them out on their own to share his teachings, heal the sick, and proclaim the coming of the kingdom of God. He had told them where to go (the people of Israel, not the Samaritans or Gentiles), what to say (“The kingdom of heaven has come near”), what attitude to offer in the face of opposition (have no fear of it), what to leave behind (family and friends and commitments at home), and what to take with them (nothing other than a cross as they followed him).

But then he offered these words from our reading today to close his instructions, telling his disciples not about how they needed to treat others along their way but about the blessing would emerge through them for those who met them along the way. Jesus insisted that his disciples were extensions of him, that any welcome offered to them was welcome offered to him, that God’s reward for the prophets and the righteous extended to those who welcomed prophets and the righteous like them, that care and concern offered to anyone, even a glass of water shared with those who might be looked down upon by society, was ultimately offered to Jesus himself. Without their even knowing it, those who chose to receive the disciples would offer the presence of God to them—and in so doing receive that presence for themselves.

This two-way welcome—the welcome that God offers to us that we proclaimed in our song a few minutes ago and the welcome that we offer to others and so offer back to God—is a critical part of what it means to be church in these days. In a day and age when an increasing number of people have never experienced church for themselves, when God’s welcome so often does not reach people who do not seek it out, when the words of the Bible are still so often used to offer hope to the insider at the exclusion of the outsider, when Sundays are more likely to be spent sipping a latte and reading the newspaper than sitting in a sanctuary, this two-way welcome is more important than ever to show the world what God’s welcome looks like—and to open our eyes to how the world is showing that welcome to us, too.

This two-way welcome is most easily seen in the hospitality we offer to others in our life as the church. Over my nearly nine years here serving as your pastor, we have talked several times about how we do this—how we greet everyone, members and visitors alike, as we arrive for worship; how we work to honor the image of God in everyone who crosses our path; how we offer time and space for those who make their way here to discover God’s welcome within and beyond these walls. But we do this in other ways, too—in our openness in our life to new ideas and different patterns of life together in the church community, in our willingness to embrace the fullness of the lives of those who journey with us, even in our standing with and speaking out for others who cannot do so on their own.

But the two-way welcome that Jesus offers us here is not just about offering God’s welcome to others—it is also about being open to receive that same welcome from others, too. It’s easy for us to think that we need to be good at offering a welcome to others, but Jesus’ message to the disciples here ultimately challenges them to accept the welcome given to them and to trust that it is not just extended to them but to God too. This two-way welcome reminds us that when we offer hospitality at its best, we find ourselves both giving and receiving, for we find that just when we think we are most prepared to host, we are actually becoming the guest. When we think that we have offered enough of a welcome to others, they turn around and show us the same gift. And when we are confident that God’s welcome has reached its limit, God will remind us again in those we have welcomed before, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”

This afternoon, several dozen Presbyterians will gather on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, in front of First Presbyterian Church, to offer a ministry of welcome to the marchers in the annual New York City Pride Parade. As women and men stream down Fifth Avenue to celebrate the unique culture and community of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons, these faithful Presbyterians and friends will offer cookies, hugs, and even a cup of cold water to marchers of any and every sort. They’ve been doing this for four or five years now, seeking to extend God’s welcome to each and every person. They’re taking these words of Jesus quite literally, not because of any earthly or heavenly reward, not even expecting to convince some of the marchers to show up at church next Sunday, but because it is the kind of welcome that Jesus himself would offer. As I’ve listened to the stories of friends and colleagues who have shared in this ministry over the years, I’ve heard that this has been a two-way welcome, that they have received as much welcome as they have shared, that their offering of even this simple cup of cold water has broken down barriers, that the transformation that is possible through God’s amazing grace shines here in new and glorious ways, not just to the people who receive this gift of water but even more to the people who step out and share it.

Now while it may not be as easy for us to stand out in front of our church and offer a cup of water to in this way, while we may not be in a place to directly hear the stories of people whose songs can embody an incredible sense of welcome and grace and hope, God still challenges us to offer and receive this kind of welcome in our lives of faith. We can find times and places and ways to share that cup of cold water with those who are thirsty. We can look for other opportunities to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves. And we can offer the fullness of God’s welcome to strangers and friends, trusting that in so doing we may receive far more than we have offered.

So may God show us all the more how to give and receive this two-way welcome, this gracious and merciful and wondrous gift that embodies God’s love in our world, so that all people might know the fullness of God’s love each and every day. Thanks be to God! Amen.