Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18

Psalm 27

Philippians 3:17-4:1

Luke 13:31-35 

One of the books I have been reading is “Radical Welcome: Embracing God, the Other, and the Spirit of Transformation” by Stephanie Spellers.  In this book she challenges the church to practice what I would call radical hospitality.  She calls the church to gather all people together under her wings like the hen.  I believe that this is what our Christian calling is about.  Gathering the people, and I do mean all of the people, even the conservatives with whom I disagree, under Christ’s wings and to welcome them wholly.  Warts and all!  This theology of inclusiveness is what I believe is being challenged by the primates communiqué.  But I want to stress that a theology of inclusiveness is not a theology of anything goes.  On this Second Sunday in Lent we are reminded, in the words of the New Zealand Prayer Book, that we are being called to repentance.  My theology of inclusiveness recognizes that there is a need for repentance.  None of us is without sin.  What I believe is that Jesus came into the world to help bring the Dream of God to earth.  A dream that requires us to act out the Great Commandment to Love the Lord our God withal our heart, mind and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  To me our greatest sins are when we don’t love our God or ourselves enough to be able to love our neighbors.  To pick on any group as inherently sinful, in my mind, is itself sinful.

Getting back to my question of what does the actions of the primates of the Anglican communion have to do with us?  Unfortunately for any who read the papers or the blogs it adds barriers to those who would like to preach the God of Love and inclusiveness.  It throws up a fence between the image of Christ and his church as a hen gathering her chicks.  If our parent church comes across as a radically unwelcoming church then we have our work cut out for us.  We need to redouble our efforts at St. Paul’s to let the world know that we are want to gather all people, regardless of their status in society, into a relationship with a living Christ who will protect them and love them.  Even when we scatter into danger.  We need to, as Stephanie Spellers says in her book, learn live with “Arms open Wide”  In her book she challenges us to surrender all to be able to follow Jesus.  In the book, as in the Gospels, we are challenged to let go of our preconceived notions of what God is asking us to do and in place to listen to the spirit.  Mother Cecily Brodrick y Guerra, the fist female rector of St. Philipp’s Episcopal Church in Harlem is quoted in the book as saying “A lot of people here aren’t open to what the Spirit is dictating.  They view the future by walking backwards, and they have no tolerance for change.  So I continue to reflect in my preaching that change is a part of life.  It’s not a reflection of failure.  It’s a reflections of being alive.”  Stephanie Spellers reflects that “ [this] is a tough Gospel to live by.  God knows we want to cling to something tangible, to stick with the way things have always been, to maintain traditional boundaries regarding who is in and who is out.  But faith and real life come when we cling not to our own power or ability or institutions, but only to the living God.  And sometime the greatest blessing is that which wrenches our fingers off the controls and removes the illusion that we were ever in charge.”

Ultimately, that is what I this the challenge for our church is going to be with our reactions to the primates requests.  We need to let go of the controls and show the world, and the larger church, that with God in control everyone is welcome to the table.  We, the people who are the church, have to show in our actions that everyone is welcome. That, regardless or what some are preaching, that we believe in an inclusive God who is calling everyone into ministry in our Church.  I believe that we are called to practice a theology of radical welcome.   We are called to reach out to the disenfranchised.  We are called to open our wings as Jesus did and call the world to a place where they can be together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, even when the world is not willing!” 

In our Gospel lesson, Jesus is being warned that Herod wants to kill him and that he should escape.  Jesus knows that in his radical casting out of demons and performing cures, that he is challenging the powerful in his society.  He knows that he needs to continue his ministry for a while longer before being first welcomed into

Jerusalem

as King and then being crucified.  In our season of Lent we are being asked to realize that we too need to challenge societies notion of who we think are “in” and who should be thrown out.  To look within ourselves and ask where are our walls that prevent us from welcoming Christ into our lives and asking god to remove those walls so that we can let all of his people in. 

During this season of Lent I would suggest that we look both within ourselves and at our institutions and society to see what barriers we are erecting to God’s radical welcome.  What changes do we have to make to take that welcome out of our churches and into society?  With the pressures on our national  church from the international church we need to redouble our efforts to show the world and, especially those who have been hurt by the church, that we are different.  We believe in a God who practices a Radical Welcome.  A God who welcomes all who come to his table.  A God who will feed and heal all the hurting people if they will only gather under His wings. 

Amen