When I was young, most houses had a welcome mat at the front door. We all know what it feels like to be welcomed by someone and welcoming others. It's a feeling of a good fit to hear-welcome home. Welcome is determined to make you feel at home. It is an ancient way of saying that I am so glad you came.

 

Welcome extends the family metaphor to surprising extent toward 1 voice and indeed one common mind. In politics an administration seeks to speak with one voice, even if the path toward a policy has been contentious. The new Christian Century notes the musical allusions of the peace of welcome. (Here demonstrate harmony and dissonance).Just as Israel's history meets at a point in Christ, now that pivot point will open a door to all. Paul uses a dense interplay of scripture here,as he arranges a string of quotations to tell the Jewish Christians that an advent moment had arrived with Jesus Christ and the church. A door had been opened through little Israel to welcome the whole world in.

 

This section closes a long discussion by Paul on judging others as the opposite of welcoming them. Instead of acceptance , we close off welcome with walls when we judge them harshly, and what other kind of judgement is there? So we make people feel unwelcome. Both groups thought they were being better Christians than the other, and they looked askance at the other group. I'm not sure if it is arrogance or defensiveness that brings us to such a point.I remember going to a church and hearing that the contemporary worship folks blamed the traditional worship folks over a pastoral dispute, but it had nothing at all to do with that issue. Judgement leaps to conclusions. Judgement links points that are not necessarily linked. it makes untested assumptions about people, and untested assumptions usually end up with poor decisions.

 

Isaiah imagines a peaceable kingdom in nature, so maybe even in church. Gen 1 seems to indicate carnivores came after the fall. It is a vision of no more predators, of safety and security. Secure in welcome, we can let our guard down. That's why church is a place where tears flow when they don't normally. It is the one place where we can admit that everything is not up to us. In church we glimpse a God who stands with arms wide open to us. For me, the liturgy offers a secure place to stand, so that we can feel that divine welcome.Emily Dickinson-the soul should stand ajar,ready to welcome ecstatic experience. I heard a complaint about a pastor that the new folks who were visiting were Not our kind of people. People will often welcome newcomers only if they pledge fealty to doing things exactly the way they have been done before. Who are the predatory folks in church, and who are the lambs? Margaret Wheatley says a circle tells the shyest person that their voice is welcome 

 

Welcome as Christ as welcomed you. We see what that looks like in baptism. We don't run a litmus test on age or any demographic factor. Jesus Christ accepts those who heed god's equal call to baptism. In communion it is a wide open spiritual buffet line. Scratch that as usually we get served family style. Paul Tillich famously preached: you are accepted. That phrase continues in the short statement of faith of the reunited North and South of our own denomination. The NIV translates welcome as accept. I will say this, even though it may be going to far. Welcome is an example of unconditional love, love with no strings attached.