Welcome (Mark 9:30-37)

Most people like to place a mat at their front door for visitors to wipe their feet, so they don’t bring dirt or mud into their home. These doormats can have a wide variety of shapes, sizes, colours and materials to enhance the appearance of a home or reflect the personality of the people who live there.

Sometimes these doormats have the word ‘Welcome’ written on them. People who put out a ‘Welcome’ doormat want their visitors to feel welcome even before they enter the house. Making guests feel welcome doesn’t stop the front door, though. It can include things such as greeting them with a handshake or a hug, offering them a seat, giving them something to eat or drink, and having a conversation with them.

Helping people feel welcome is about how we treat them and the relationship we have with them. When we connect with others, show an interest in who they are and what they do, and engage with them in positive and healthy ways, then they will feel welcome and accepted. We can welcome others by cultivating a healthy relationship with them and giving them a strong sense of belonging with us.

How do you think you would welcome Jesus if he ever knocked on your front door? We might feel a bit embarrassed if our lawns aren’t mowed or the house isn’t clean. Thankfully Jesus is a very forgiving and accepting bloke, so we might not need to be too concerned about how the house looked. However, if our Lord and Saviour decided to pop in for a quick visit, what would we do to make him feel welcome? Would we open the door and let him in? Would we treat him like any other guest who came to our home? Or would we do something special to welcome him and help him feel like he belonged?

Jesus says three challenging things in this week’s gospel reading from Mark 9:30-37. He begins by repeating what we heard in last week’s gospel, that he must be betrayed and killed, but would rise again on the third day (v31). This was hard for his disciples to hear because they expected the Saviour of their nation to come in power and strength, not suffering and death. Secondly, Jesus challenged their perception of who we might consider to be great or important. He said that ‘whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else’ (v35 NLT). For Jesus, the greatest are those who give up their place at the winners’ table to serve others. Jesus points us to his grace for us as he adopted the posture of a servant and served us by giving his life for us on the cross.

Mark saves what is possibly the most challenging part of this story for last. He tells us that Jesus then took a little child in his arms, who was probably less than seven years old, and he said, ‘Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not only me but also my Father who sent me’ (v37 NLT).

It can be pretty confronting to look at a child and think that this is how Jesus makes his presence known to us. Some of us might be more comfortable with the old saying that children should be seen and not heard. However, listening to Jesus’ words about welcoming him when we welcome children gives us a whole new perspective on who we are and what we do as the church. It challenges us to start thinking more about how we might be able to make children and young people fell welcome in our churches, rather than how do we get what we want and what suits us.

A good place to start doing this is by asking how we might welcome Jesus if he turned up at the door of our home or our congregation. As we asked earlier, would we treat Jesus like a regular guest, or would we do something special for him? Would we expect him to fit in with what we were doing, or would we change what we were doing to accommodate him? Would we get him to start doing some of the carpentry jobs around the place for us, or would we be willing to serve him?

If we can imagine how we might help Jesus feel welcome in our homes or congregations, we have a place to start thinking about how we might begin to make children and young people feel welcome in our lives and our churches. Jesus includes these words in the context of service because he wants us to think about how we can serve the young people in our lives in faith, hope and love, rather than expecting them to serve us. This is not just about how we worship on a Sunday morning, although that is part of it. This is about how we relate to the young people in our lives and the kind of relationships we have with them

The mystery Jesus is communicating here is that he doesn’t come to us or make himself known to us through power, strength or control. Instead, Jesus comes to us and makes himself known to us in the small, the weak and the vulnerable. Jesus crossed the great divide between heaven and earth, between our holy God and our sinful humanity, by being born as a small, weak, helpless child in Bethlehem. Throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus took on the posture of a servant by taking care of people who were weak, excluded, devalued and condemned. Jesus continues to come to us to serve us with lavish helpings of grace and love. Helping the children and young of our congregation and parish feel welcome by serving them gives us an encounter with Jesus who comes to us in them, makes himself known to us through them, and embodies God’s grace and peace in our relationships with them, so we can also be welcomed into the loving arms of our heavenly Father.

Learning to welcome Jesus by welcoming our children and young people requires a significant change in the way we think about and do church, and an ongoing conversation about what that might look like. At our Sunday Night Connect on 20th October, we will be brainstorming ideas for ministry with young people in our parish. Pastor Eugene is keen to gather people together who want to re-imagine what ministry with young people might look like, how we can make them feel welcome, how we can serve them, and how we can serve our community together with them as God’s dearly loved children. This will be an on-going conversation as we look for ways to help our children and grandchildren feel welcome in our lives and in this church, trusting that God is present with us in and through them.

This week, spend some time thinking about how we help visitors feel welcome in our home. Maybe invite someone over to practice making them feel welcome. Then imagine how you might make Jesus feel welcome if he dropped into your home. By welcoming our children and grandchildren like we would welcome Jesus, he says we are welcoming him in them.

More to think about or discuss:

• How do you make people feel welcome in your home? What helps you to feel welcome when you visit someone else in their home?
• What would you do to make Jesus feel welcome if he dropped in at your home?
• How might these questions inform what we can do to help our children or grandchildren feel welcome in our churches?