Rev'd Philip Heak
Once there was a church that had the phrase ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments’ on a sign above its iron gate.
The church and its message intrigued a young man, so he decided to go there on Sunday. He was not welcomed. No one spoke to him, or smiled, or offered him a handshake. After the service he left in a puzzled state.
As a parish, we like to think, or at least hope, that we are welcoming. That may well be true, but my experience of the pandemic, that churches seem to have been largely irrelevant to the news / media / politicians and world at large, makes me wonder.
Has it ever occurred to you that Sunday morning can be the most exclusive, segregated, and separate time of the week?
Many of our churches do not look anything like the communities that we live in, the supermarkets we shop in, or the places we go …
All week long we encounter people who are not like us, but often on Sunday we attend a church that consists mostly of people like ourselves.
Now to be honest, we don’t often do a great job of loving people like ourselves, so how are we to apply it to the majority of people who have no interest in church?
There are exceptions, of course.
But a lot of times, the love that our churches offer is a far cry from our reading, John 14:
15 ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments
We know what Jesus commanded was, “Love one another as I have loved you.”
This is not a phrase easily dismissed.
Jesus’ entire ministry, including his passion and resurrection, hangs on this phrase, ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments’.
Jesus loved people in a radical way.
Today he would be – and often is – in the supermarket talking with the people on the tills, the stockers, and the customers finding their way through a bewildering array of products.
He is there because that is where all the community goes to buy food. He is there because that may be where a lonely newcomer to town gets a smile at the till, or even a query, “Have you been here for long? Welcome.”
But what about church? What about that Sunday morning experience that is often the place where we see only familiar faces, only people like us, only people we know?
Is Jesus there? Of course he is, but he is there to welcome the stranger – whoever walks in that door timidly and tentatively looking for new community.
Are we ready for that? Do we seek those persons? Would they be welcomed, truly welcomed here?
We’ll find out I guess when our churches re-open next week. There is a huge challenge for all of us as members of the church to love and allow ourselves to be loved and show people that they have value. Whoever walks though the door of our churches will be welcome and loved. Now that’s a challenge.
Not long ago the young man who had visited the church and was made to feel like an outsider was back in the town and walked by the church he had visited on that Sunday. It had been many years.
The sign “If you love me you will keep my commandments” still stood above the iron gate. Then he saw that the church doors were boarded over, as were many of the windows.
The church was obviously closed and looked as though it had been for some time.
There was a for sale sign there as well, In the small print it read, “development opportunity!”
He walked on, wondering what had happened.
We can draw our own conclusions, but if that church had lovingly welcomed him and others instead of being closed to what God was sending them on frequent occasions, the end of their story might have been very different indeed.
Perhaps we could say this prayer
Welcome to our church family,
I’m glad that you could come
I’m honoured to share this day with you
As we worship God’s risen Son
I hope that God has touched your life
As we worshipped side by side
And that you left this place today
With the peace of God inside.