A good welcome saves lives

 

Matthew 10: 40-42
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
June 28, 2026

Photo of a red heart spray-painted over a white 5-petal flower on well-worn pavement.  The word "welcome" is painted over the red heart in black paint.

“All are welcome”. Have you been to a church with a sign that reads “All are welcome”? How was it? If you had to rate their welcome on a scale from 1 to 10, what would you give it? How would you rate the welcome of this church? How have you witnessed it change over time?



In many ways “All are welcome” can come off feeling like “All lives matter”. How intentional is the welcome? How might that welcome be shielding and protecting harmful attitudes and behavior? A good welcome is more than a sign, a handshake and a smile. A good welcome is more than everyone getting along and playing nicely with each other, requiring some people to play small.



Public theologian Kate Penney Howard writes, “Welcome isn't what the sign says. Welcome is what the system does the first time someone's needs interrupt its habits.” Not the second or third time, but the first. Most of the time, the first time someone’s needs interrupt the system’s habits, the system resists, and the second and third time. A system that harms or thinks it’s acting benignly is loath to examine itself and change its ways. What is so shocking is that even when it will save lives, the system still resists.



Shaming a system for being callous no longer works, if it ever did. Empathy for the least of these is out. Yet again the least of these are being treated as scapegoats, as we have seen this past week in the decisions made by the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 6-3 ruling, the welcome of temporary protected status was stripped away from 350,000 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians, making it possible to deport hundreds of thousands of people to countries where their lives would be in danger. Which now opens the possibility of protections being removed for people from a dozen other countries.



Another ruling decreed that asylum seekers can be physically blocked at the border, preventing them from setting foot on U.S. soil which would allow them to claim asylum. Justice Sotomayor read her dissent aloud from the bench: "The consequences of today's decision are predictable. More people will die. More people will attempt to cross the border illegally, and some will make it while others will not.” More people will die if they are sent back to the country from which they narrowly escaped with only their lives.



Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” Too often and with increasing accuracy, our society has criticized the Church saying that if Jesus were to arrive on the scene today, he would be living on the streets, bullied, institutionalized, turned away, declared illegal, deported, criminalized, crucified—all of the things we do to people who do not fit the dominant culture. The Christian faith has also been and continues to be used for cruelty, weaponized against anyone who isn’t a temporarily able-bodied, neurotypical, straight, White, cisgender male.



We know who is most important to Jesus by the order of the ones we are supposed to welcome. Just as with faith, hope, and love—love being the most important—Jesus says we are to welcome prophets, the righteous, and “these little ones”. These little ones are the most important because they are the ones with the most to lose, the most vulnerable, like a child or an infant.



In the past I used to wonder why in this day and age we continue to baptize infants and children into the Christian faith, without their knowledge or consent. It’s no longer to save their souls or indoctrinate them into a certain set of beliefs. Now I think it’s one of the most wholehearted welcoming things we do. We welcome these little ones into the Christian faith before we know who they will become, before they know themselves. We promise to be their community, that they belong to us and to Christ, that we belong to them no matter what the future brings. Even though it is a potent sacramental reminder, we shouldn’t need or require baptism or even membership for us to treat everyone this way.



Things have been changing but we still live in a world where queer kids cannot live openly and freely like cisgender straight kids. No one has ever written an executive order that made it harder for straight cisgender youth and adults to exist. Straight kids can talk about their crushes. Queer kids learn to hide them. Straight people can be affectionate in public. Queer people often must consider the risk of their safety if they do. Straight people openly flirt. Queer people have to assess and test the waters. Cisgender people can see themselves and their relationships in most books, television shows, and movies without question. Trans and non-binary people have to fight for their right to not be declared a content warning. Straight people just exist as the status quo. Queer people have to “come out” again and again throughout their lifetime. And all of this is that much harder if you are a person of color.



A good welcome saves lives. Research shows that LGBTQIA+ youth who have just one supportive adult in their lives were 40% less likely to attempt dying by suicide. Church friend Karla Bell reflected on social media, “Pride matters because, for so long, too many people were told—explicitly and implicitly—that they should be smaller, quieter, get cured, or be invisible. Pride exists because even now - simply living openly could cost someone their job, their family, or even their safety.” Karla continues, “Pride also matters because it creates space—space for people to see themselves reflected, perhaps for the first time. It tells someone who is questioning, or who feels alone, that they are not isolated; they are part of a larger, vibrant, resilient community. Representation becomes a lifeline. Visibility becomes a form of protection.”



No matter who we are, no matter where we are on life’s journey, all of you, all of us are not only welcome in this church, we all deserve to be loved, celebrated, and free to live as our authentic selves. As a church, as a pastor, we, I haven’t always gotten this right. But we are, I am going to keep at it, not just at a good welcome to you, to others, but to myself, to ourselves. A good welcome begins with self-acceptance, which means examining where we fall short, embracing our flaws, our woundedness, our vulnerability, as well as celebrating our sparkle, our star shine, our unique place in the universe.



This beautiful poem by Angi Sullins captures that spirit perfectly.


they tried to name you
before you had teeth
tried to dress your spirit
in someone else's image

but your soul
wild thing that it is
refused the costume

you are not a mistake
you are a masterpiece
in motion
a spell cast
by the stars themselves
an echo of ancient
divine defiance

you don’t transition
you transform

you transmute
shame into glitter
you shapeshift sorrow
into sovereignty
you paint the sky
with pronouns
of possibility

you are a truth-teller
in bravery boots
a myth-breaking maverick
in unbridled wings
a holy cure of compassion
in a world
addicted to binary boredom

and let’s be clear
you are not brave
because you exist
you are brave
because you insist
on freedom
on love
on you

you wear your story
like a crown
of phoenix feathers
and it dazzles
oh gods
it dazzles

so don’t dim
don’t fold
don’t soften the edges
that were born
to cut cages wide open

you, love pie,
are not here
to fit in
you are here
to remake the world

your heart
is your own bible
in a religion
made of wings
and wind
and wide-sky wonder
it's about damn time
we became your disciples


Amen!

Benediction – enfleshed.com


Go forth—
Your reward for loving one another is the delight of being in relationship.
Your reward for solidarity is a community built from compassion.
Your reward for the work of healing is the sweet song of liberation.