Welcome that Reveals Christ

At first glance, what Jesus tells the disciples sounds like a word for the people waiting on the other side of the road. It sounds like instruction for the towns, houses, and communities that will receive them. We might think Jesus is telling the world how to treat his messengers.

But Jesus says this to the disciples.

That matters because it raises a deeper question: if the way others receive the disciples is bound up with how they receive Christ, then what kind of presence are the disciples bringing into the world? When people encounter them, what do they encounter?

Do they encounter the way of life?

Do they encounter the light of Christ?

Or do they encounter just another religious version of the way of death?

Their mission begins in communion: in the life of God moving toward a wounded world. Their witness cannot be separated from the people they are becoming.

Earlier in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples, “You are the light of the world.” Here, near the end of this missionary discourse, he shows us what that light may look like. It may look as simple as welcome. It may look as ordinary as a cup of cold water. It may look like mercy made visible when someone needs to know they have not been forgotten by God.

To be the light is not to draw attention to ourselves, but to become the kind of people through whom the mercy of Christ can be encountered.

This week, I read a report about our government preparing welcome bags for white South Africans entering the United States as refugees. Reports described Android tablets, American flags, copies of founding documents, and materials meant to shape how these new arrivals understand America’s story regarding race and belonging, including a children’s book on so-called reverse racism and a document defending the country’s founding on the basis of slavery.

Now let me be clear.

The issue is not whether white South Africans deserve compassion. The Gospel does not permit us to ration mercy by race, nor does it call us to burden anyone with guilt. The deeper problem is that we have developed a double standard in how we officially extend care, welcoming some while turning others away.

When one group receives an unusually warm and symbolic welcome while others fleeing war, violence, political collapse, poverty, and devastation are told there is no room, something has gone wrong.

That is selective welcome. It is mercy filtered through power. It is hospitality shaped by fear and political usefulness.

What grieves me is the erasure, the pretending, and the way our country can act as though race has nothing to do with welcome, even though our whole history tells us otherwise.

We live in a land where welcome has always been complicated by race: a land built by stolen labor on stolen land, where some immigrants were invited and others excluded, where some refugees were embraced and others turned away, where some people were told they belonged and others were told to wait, prove themselves, or go back home.

Because that is true, Christians in this country do not have the luxury of practicing welcome without remembering our complicated past.

We cannot dismiss these realities as “just policy,” as though policy does not shape flesh-and-blood lives. Nor can we reduce them to “just politics,” as though Jesus did not place the vulnerable at the center of his concern. And it is not ours to claim, “This is not our problem,” when Christ himself binds welcome to how we receive him.

And in this same week, the Supreme Court opened the door for the government to end protections for Haitians and Syrians who have been living and working here under Temporary Protected Status. People from places marked by violence, instability, disaster, and war. People with jobs, children, churches, neighbors, memories, and hopes.

The Court also allowed the government to make it harder for asylum seekers at the border to even begin the process of asking for safety.

So yes, this belongs in a sermon on welcome.

Because the Gospel is not asking whether our welcome is convenient. It is asking whether our welcome reveals Christ.

The ancient Church described the Christian life as a choice between two ways: the way of life and the way of death.

The way of life is love of God and neighbor. Mercy. Truthfulness. Generosity. Care for the vulnerable. A refusal to let anger, greed, fear, or pride become the shape of our soul.

The way of death is not limited to violence or cruelty. It also takes the form of hypocrisy: religious speech without mercy, power without tenderness, and piety that leaves the weary and the little ones unseen.

Such a way can speak of faith while ignoring the stranger, appeal to order while crushing the vulnerable, and claim welcome while deciding whose suffering counts.

But the way of life bears the fruit of Christ. It creates space where others can belong, safeguards the vulnerable, speaks truth with mercy, refuses to render anyone invisible, and offers the weary a chance to breathe again.

That is the light Jesus sends into the world.

And that is what I kept seeing at Sawyerville this past week.

Our camp theme this year was “Be the Light,” and I had the gift of serving as chaplain. I got to be right in the middle of it all: watching for the light of Christ, praying, listening, blessing, encouraging, and noticing where God was already at work.

I saw the light in counselors praying with kids before swim tests. I saw it in songs and games and laughter. I saw it when a counselor knelt down to listen. I saw it in the steady, patient work of creating a community where belonging did not have to be earned before love was given.

Much of that holy work was quiet and unremarkable, the kind that rarely draws attention. Jesus reminds us this morning that even a cup of cold water given to one of these little ones is never insignificant in the kingdom of God.

The “little ones” in the Gospel are not only children, though they certainly include them. They are the vulnerable and the weary, those easily overlooked, those whose needs are dismissed because they lack power.

Jesus places them at the center of his concern.

That is why Christian welcome cannot be reduced to sentiment or surface kindness. It must be rooted in truth, shaped by justice, and willing to see clearly what is happening in the lives of others.

Christian welcome is holy and discerning. It keeps the door open, but it also pays attention to fruit.

Does this welcome protect the vulnerable, or does it protect power?

Does this welcome make Christ more visible, or does it merely baptize our preferences?

Does this welcome serve the little ones, or does it use them?

The welcome of Jesus remains open without becoming careless, extending mercy without ignoring harm, and offering generosity without slipping into denial.

By grace, we can become less captive to fear. By the Spirit, our welcome can be purified. In Christ, our memory can be healed enough for truth, and our truth can become strong enough for love.

That work takes shape in what we say and refuse to repeat, in what we teach our children and the histories we choose to remember, in how we give, serve, organize, speak, pray, and notice others. It takes shape when we support ministries that welcome refugees and migrants without racial preference, when we refuse to let fear determine who counts as our neighbor, and when our church becomes a trustworthy place where people can encounter mercy.

Most of us will not be asked to change the whole world in one grand gesture. Instead, we are shaped day by day by the paths we follow. Our habits quietly train our vision, teaching us what to notice and what to ignore. Over time, we either grow more open to the mercy of Christ or become increasingly at ease with suffering we choose not to see.

So the question before us is not merely whether we are welcoming, but whether we are becoming the kind of people in whom Christ himself can be received.

When others encounter our church—our words, choices, habits, and treatment of the weary, the strange, and the small—what do they find? Do they glimpse the way of life, the light of Christ, the quiet strength of mercy? Do they meet people who can speak truth without abandoning grace?

We may not see everything come together in our lifetime. We may not witness the full harvest of justice, healing, and peace. But that does not mean our work is small. It means our work is faithful. We are planters of seeds of mercy, truth, and welcome that take root in ways we may never fully see.

Discipleship is the slow, beautiful work of welcoming Christ so deeply that his light begins to shine through us as mercy, even in the midst of darkness.

Sometimes that work looks as simple and sacred as offering a cup of cold water. Sometimes it looks like choosing kindness when it would be easier to turn away. And sometimes it calls for the courage to speak truth with faithfulness and love.

As my PawPaw Ralph used to say, “When we pray, move our feet.”

Because it’s in that faithful movement that light begins to break through.

Amen.