All Are Welcome in This Place? Really?

²⁷ After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, ²⁸ and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

²⁹ Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. ³⁰ But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

³¹ Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. ³² I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Matthew 5:27-32

Philip Yancey, in his book What’s So Amazing About Grace, tells the story of a friend of his who worked with the down-and out in Chicago.  A prostitute who had been driven to do unspeakable things came to him and poured out her story.

At last I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help.  I will never forget the look of pure, naïve shock that crossed her face.  “Church!” she cried.  “Why would I ever go there?  I was already feeling terrible about myself.  They’d just make me feel worse.”

Ironic, isn’t it?  A person who desperately needed to hear a word of love and grace in her life feels repulsed by the very institution that proclaims that love and grace.  How quickly we turn into Pharisees!

What would it look like for God’s church to actually welcome people as Jesus welcomed them…to love them as children of God?  It’s easy ‘in theory’ to say that God welcomes all people…but what does that look like when someone high on meth walks into a church building…or when the man on the sex offender list stops in to pray.  How easily we justify keeping ‘those’ people out!

Custer Lutheran Fellowship in Custer, SD has this note of welcome posted on their wall.  It’s a radical welcome: one that Jesus just might agree with!

Who Is Welcome Here?

·         We want it to be of public record that those of different colored skin and heritage are welcome here.

·         We want it to be known that those who suffer from addiction to drugs and alcohol (whether recovering or not), and their families are welcome here.

·         We want it to be known that women and children are welcome here and that they will not be harassed or abused here.

·         We want it to be public record that in this congregation you can bring children to worship and even if they cry during the entire service, they are welcome.

·         We want it to be known that those who are single by choice, by divorce, or through death of a spouse, are welcome here.

·         We want it to be known that if you are promiscuous, have had an abortion, or have fathered children and taken no responsibility for them, you are welcome here.

·         We want it to be known that gossips, cheats, liars, and their families are welcome here.

·         We want it to be known that those who are disobedient to their parents and who have family problems are welcome here.

·         We want it to be of public record that gays and lesbians and members of their families are welcome here.

·         Let it be public knowledge that we at Custer Lutheran Fellowship take seriously that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The young and old, the rich, the poor, all of the broken are welcome here.

·         We want it to be public knowledge that we are justified by the grace of Lord, which is a gift through the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

·         We offer welcome here because we believe that while we were yet sinners Christ died for the ungodly. That's us. Christ did not die for us after we showed signs of "getting it all together." Christ loved and still shows love to us while we are yet sinners.

·         Sinners are welcome here; sinners like you and me, and like our neighbors. Let us not condemn the world, but let us proclaim to a broken and hurting world, God's forgiveness and grace.

·         We want it to be of public record that since we are a sinful people, we will not always be as quick to welcome as we should. Let us be quick to admit our sin and seek forgiveness.

·         May God give us the grace to welcome and forgive one another as Christ has welcomed and forgiven us.

Written by Pastor Chuck Hazlett, who served Custer Lutheran Fellowship from 1978 - 1998