Welcoming Them – A Reflection by M. Gresh

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.¹

Who do we welcome? How do we welcome them?

This is a strange question, because I think most of us would agree that we should welcome everyone, that we should invite anyone. That we should treat everyone as if they were Jesus. I agree with that.

However, we are human, and the way that we treat other humans isn’t always the way that we would treat Jesus. Or maybe we would treat them as Jesus was treated in his final days on Earth.

The premise of this scripture is simple.

Feed the hungry.
Provide clothing.
Welcome strangers.
Take care of the sick.
Visit those in prison.

That makes sense, but how do we do those things?

Another question- are we doing them well?

Beginning with feeding the hungry, I have experienced both sides of this situation.

I have used food pantries and worked in them. There are two main kinds of food pantries or food banks.

If they receive government assistance, people who use them must meet certain poverty guidelines.

In my state, that usually means that they would make less than $3,000 a month for a family of four.

You need a government ID, you need pay stubs, and at the places I’ve worked, you need additional documents.

You also have to have a residential address.

This means that if you are homeless, or living out of your car, you cannot get food from these food banks. If you live with someone else, their income also has to be presented, even if they are not a part of your family. Where I worked, if two families were living in one house, they all had to be listed on the documents. If their total income was above the amount for the number of people living in the home, nobody could get food. Privately funded food banks are a little less strict on the rules.

You can access that food without necessarily meeting federal or state guidelines, but it does usually come with strings attached. All of this also requires that you be able to come when the food pantry is open. The place I worked at was open Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 1 PM. If you worked those hours, you were out of luck. Providing clothing, too, is full of struggles. Many of us donate old clothing to charity, but do you know what happens to it once you’ve dropped it off?

First, nothing is washed before being sold. It is, however, sorted. If there are stains, holes, or is otherwise undesirable because of fashion or season, those clothes are turned into rags, either by the donation center or sold to rag-makers.

If the items are deemed to be desirable, they are often sold at prices that aren’t affordable for those in need. 

A few years ago, I was in Goodwill and saw a used sweater that I actually owned. I had purchased the sweater on clearance at Target and had paid around $3.50 for it only a few weeks before.

Goodwill had priced it at over $5.

If the cost of used clothing is more than purchasing it new, albeit on clearance, it is no longer a blessing to those without the money to purchase clothing.

However, what really sticks out to me from this passage is the edict to welcome strangers.

I think that welcoming strangers is incredibly difficult for two reasons.

The first part is that, as the name suggests, we don’t know anything about them.

Here is the thing. I believe that our church should welcome everyone.

But when I really think about it, there is a prejudice that I have, and I’m going to be very vulnerable in sharing it, in the hopes that you would feel led to examine your own prejudices. 

My mother has a close friend whose husband was an Episcopal minister. About a decade ago, he was killed in his church building when a man came into his office soaked in gasoline and set himself and the church on fire.

The prejudice I have is not of all men, or even only men, but I am afraid of those who intend to harm others. The problem with that is that, like that minister, I wouldn’t know that someone had the intent to harm until I got to know them. It’s a risk that I take.

My church is not an urban church. Signs on the street are not going to bring people in, because the people that live here already have church families. We are not a wealthy church. We are not a thriving church. We are small, and we are rural, and to be frank, we look the part. We are not growing. We are, because of an aging population, shrinking. The scope of what we can do in terms of programming is limited because we do not have enough people to fulfill the additional work.

We say again and again that what makes us different is the group of people and the relationships between us. And that’s wonderful- for us.

But, to be candid, if I were not the pastor, if I had been looking for a church and wandered in, I don’t know if I would have come back.

I can’t speak to what seniors want out of church services from personal experience, but I can speak to what I was looking for when I was seeking out churches for myself and what those churches had in common.

First, I looked for churches where the stranger was welcomed. For me, this didn’t mean saying hello or greeting me at the door. There were systems in place that encouraged everyone to get to know new people. A huge part of this was introductions.

I found two church communities that I liked a lot and they each addressed this differently.

One had name tags. Each member had a name tag and visitors were given them as well.

Another church had a weekly check-in at the beginning of the service, which served as both an introduction and a time for sharing joys and concerns.

The second thing I was looking for was passion.

There is an odd thing that happens with youth who are growing up in the church. Most of the time, Christian youth ministries are intense. There are small groups, there are events, the music is easy to sing, and the messages dig in a little bit.

But when you finish high school, that abruptly stops.

You are introduced into the adult classes, with only the traditional services, and to be honest, a lot of the time it is bland. It’s the same stories over and over, the messages aren’t terribly exciting, and when you look around and see nobody like yourself, it’s isolating.

None of the churches I attended regularly were only young people. I was often the youngest person there. But they had passion, they had direction, and they were welcoming.

We’re not holding steady as a denomination.

We are shrinking, and unless something changes, that will continue.

My church sees one side of me, and that’s okay because I am this person.

But it’s not all of me, because I’m not sure how all of me would be accepted here.

I think that’s a fear that a lot of people my age would have walking through our doors. I’ve been in the position of feeling like I have nothing appropriate to wear to church. I’ve been in the position of being afraid that the message will hurt my heart.

My church’s website states the following: “Our congregation welcomes all who wish to share with us in another way of living: the way of Christian discipleship, life in community, fulfillment in service.”

That sounds really nice, but let’s decode that.

“Our congregation welcomes all”- that should mean that we welcome everyone, no matter who they are, what they’ve done, or how they look.

“Another way of living”- that should mean that we are different from the other churches around us.

“the way of Christian discipleship”- that should mean that we put the emphasis on following Jesus’ model.

“life in community”- that should mean it’s not just on Sundays.

“fulfillment in service”- that should mean we are actively doing service for others.

I don’t know if those things are true or not, but that is who we say we are.

If that isn’t who we are, is it the website that should change?

Or is it us?

After hearing this message, my congregation made a commitment to embracing who we say we are. For us, that has meant that we have needed to push our own boundaries. We have been exploring what it means for us to be a welcoming church, and that has meant examining how we feel about different groups of people. We have been addressing this by dedicating one or two sermons a month to how we can be more accepting of the strangers in our lives. For example, we recently discussed gender and the ways in which gendered language can help or hurt us in our mission to love the stranger. By using scripture to align our faith with how we approach those around us, we are making strides towards being a truly welcoming and loving community. 

One way that we can be welcoming is to look at Scripture from different perspectives. By reimagining the ways that Scripture can be interpreted, we open the doors to individuals who have experienced Scripture being used as a weapon against them. 

One scripture that I have examined with this in mind is Proverbs 31. I love it dearly, not because it refers to women, but because I think it describes what everyone, regardless of gender, should seek out in a partner. I think after I explain it, you’ll start to see the qualities of this person not only in your spouses, but also in your friends, your family members, and hopefully yourself. Because we are going to be looking at this in a gender-neutral way, I’m going to take each section and use gender-neutral language to describe the person in the text. This is not only useful when looking at this text, but also in our day-to-day lives.

One of the pieces of cultural sensitivity that we as a congregation need to be aware of is the concept of gender, and what it means in today’s world. There are two major aspects to gender- gender identity, which is the way someone identifies their gender in their mind, and gender expression, which is what you see when you look at someone. The two may match up with one another, and they may match up with a person’s biological sex, but this will not always be the case. Increased awareness of this means you may be hearing people asking other people what their pronouns are. For example, I look like a woman, and my gender identity matches up with that. But someone else might look confusing to you when you see them, or might look like one gender but know in their heart that they are another. Sometimes, neither he/his or she/her pronouns fit a person, and they might ask you to use they/them pronouns instead. Gender is about the way you interact with the world and feel inside, not about what parts you have. It is also completely separate from who you love. This concept is being examined in a new way, but in reality is as ancient as the Old Testament.² Jewish people recognize as many as six distinct genders, including four which do not adhere to male or female. Let’s take a look at the text, using they/them pronouns to describe a person whose gender we don’t know.³

“A person of strength who can find? They are far more precious than jewels. The heart of their partner trusts in them, and they will have no lack of gain. They do good and not harm all the days of their life.”

I think everyone knows a person like this- a person who is strong, trustworthy and seeks to do only good things towards others every single day. Strength is an interesting quality to observe in others, because it doesn’t always apply to your physical condition. In fact, the word that the text is translated from could be better translated as “valor.” In that line of thinking, this poem could easily be viewed like a child’s homework assignment to describe their hero.

“They seek wool and flax and work with willing hands. They are like the ships of the merchant; They bring their food from far away. They rise while it is still night and provide food for the household
and tasks for their servants.”⁴

This bit is a little less relatable on the surface. The first verse in this section isn’t really talking about flax and wool, but about willingness to work, no matter what skills can be brought to the table. Likewise, the ships of the merchant bringing food from far away is about being prepared for coming seasons of life.

The author of this message, possibly the mother of a king, is describing in this section a person who thinks ahead, who plans for the future while living in the present, and is willing to participate in life, rather than depending on their spouse for everything.

The right person considers a field and buys it;  with the fruit of their hands plant a vineyard. They girds themself with strength and makes their arms strong. They perceives that their merchandise is profitable. Their lamp does not go out at night. They put their hands to the distaff, and their hands hold the spindle.

This person doesn’t stop there. They have a vision for their life, and work to make it happen. They take care of their body. They know their worth. They don’t make careless mistakes, like running out of lamp oil. And they don’t waste their time.

They open a hand to the poor and reaches out hands to the needy. They are not afraid for their household when it snows, for all the household are clothed in crimson. They make their own coverings; their clothing is fine linen and purple. Their partner is known in the city gates, taking a seat among the elders of the land. They make linen garments and sells them; and supplies the merchant with sashes.⁵

This passage says a lot about sewing and weaving, but the point isn’t actually about making clothing. The point is about being self-sufficient. For example, we’ve all met someone who, as an adult, does not know how to cook and lives off of takeout. That’s less than ideal, because first, it’s going to be expensive, and second, it’s pretty difficult to stay healthy eating that way.

A modern version⁶ of this section might be:
My perfect partner would cook from scratch.
They’d take food to the hungry,
And do their own laundry.
My perfect partner would never run out of gas on the highway,
And they’d always pack my lunch for work.
They would never embarrass me in front of my family,
And they would never forget to take out the trash.

That might sound silly but this whole chapter is about the perfect partner. We see right there at the beginning that this person is rarer than jewels.

Strength and dignity adorn them, and they laugh at the time to come. Wisdom comes from their mouth, and the teaching of kindness is on their tongue. They look well to the ways of their household and do not eat the bread of idleness The children rise up and call them happy; Their spouse too, and they praise each other: “Many people have done excellently, but you surpass them all.” Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a person who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give them a share in the fruit of their hands, and let their works praise them in the city gates.⁷

This part is all about the spirit of the perfect partner- strong, dignified, unafraid, wise, kind, prepared, hard-working, and happy. I’m sure you have someone in mind when you hear those words. I’m not sure I would want to date that person though. I don’t think I’d measure up, because I’m not all of those things, certainly not all of the time.

Fortunately, we don’t have to be the “perfect partner.” You can be an excellent partner and still cry when you lose a heated game of Monopoly. You can be a wonderful partner who forgot to pack your sunglasses for the beach. The most important thing about this scripture is that it’s not really a measuring stick for you to hold up to anyone else. This, like the fruits of the spirit, is a mirror for you to check your own attributes in. It can also be a starting point for ways you can be a better partner, friend or family member. If you don’t know how to scramble an egg, and your spouse cooks three meals a day, maybe asking to learn or doing the dishes would be a good starting place.

If you notice that your friend is unhappy, maybe some extra kindness or an offer of assistance is in order from you.

The beauty of community and partnership is that we can make up for each other’s deficits by being the best version of ourselves.

We’re not ever going to be the “perfect partner,” but we can be good partners and we can be good friends. We can be good members of the community, even if we aren’t perfect.

The attempt is worth the effort.

God doesn’t expect us to be perfect.

We are loved for the sheer simple fact that we are trying.

We are never going to be perfect Proverbs 31 people, but we are God’s people- imperfect as we are.

1. Matthew 25:31-46 (NRSV).
2. Meyer.
3. The definitions and assertions in this paragraph are based on the author’s extensive pastoral care and counseling experience. They are not based on outside research. The reader is encouraged to further investigate any terms one is unfamiliar with.
4. Proverbs 31:13-15 (adapted).
5. Proverbs 31:20-24 (adapted).
6. The author.
7. Proverbs 31:25-31 (adapted).