If you asked most people to describe their church you can almost count on one word to be used every time:  friendly.  "My church is friendly.  We are a very welcoming congregation!"  Indeed, the description that was written about Church of the Western Reserve over five years ago when you were searching for a pastor included almost those exact words.

Yet what is the experience of visitors to most churches?  As one of my retired colleagues noted as he and his wife visited various congregations in our Presbytery, "usually there are only one or two people who will go out of their way to welcome visitors. As a whole, people tend to stick with the people they already know.  Very few will go out of their way to welcome a newcomer."  I'll let you guess who he found to be truly welcoming in this congregation!

In many ways, we, like most congregations, are friendly among ourselves, but many of us may find it more difficult to truly embrace all those who come through our doors.  Several years ago, The National Geographic told the following true story from the animal world.  When the tsunami struck almost five years ago, a baby Hippo named Owen got caught in the waves and was pulled out onto a coral reef off the coast of Kenya.  Fortunately rescuers were able to save him, but they weren't able to find the other members of his family group to return him to them.  So they decided to take Owen to a wildlife refuge about 50 miles away.  But when Owen first arrived there, he was not greeted warmly.  The other hippos there especially didn't want anything to do with him.  They viewed him as a threat and scared him away.

Amazingly, not a hippo, but a huge tortoise finally offered to be Owen's friend.  Wildlife experts said that it looked like Owen had come to regard the 130 year-old tortoise name Mzee as a combination of mother and best friend.  And so each day, you could see the baby hippo and the tortoise going on walks together, playing together in the swamps and even sleeping right next to each other at night. (National Geographic, 1/5/06).

So what do you think?  Are we a welcoming congregation?  Many folks who visit say yes.  They appreciate that we welcome without smothering.  But if you hear the story of Owen and Mzee, you can begin to appreciate that there is something more to being welcoming - something much more.  Could we - do we - welcome the human equivalent of a hippo among us?  Are we able to do what Mzee did and truly welcome someone who feels like an entirely different species into the life and work of our congregation?  Or are we more selective - finding it easier to welcome those who seem "most like us?"

Today's gospel lesson, as last week's, addresses the early Christian community's struggle to understand who Jesus was and what that meant for their own lives.   Again, Jesus is telling the disciples about his impending suffering and death, and again they don't really "get it."  Then they begin to argue among themselves about who was "the greatest." 

I'm guessing we usually do it more subtly today, but we still play the "who's the greatest" game.  Among clergy it comes in the form of "how big is your church?  How many attend on Sundays?" to which bigger numbers to both questions supposedly means being "greater."  And the rest of us may demonstrate our "greatness" in a myriad of ways, from the jobs we hold, the grades we get, the people we call friends, the clothes we wear, the kind of car we drive, or even the amount of time we spend volunteering at the church and elsewhere.  Seeking to be the "greatest" can take a lot of forms, which suck us in before we even know it.

Then Jesus does something shocking.  Once again, it is so much a part of the picture that most of us have in our heads regarding Jesus, that it doesn't seem shocking to us at all.  But it was no less shocking to the disciples than if I stood up here and lifted a baby hippo before you. "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all."  Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."  Mark 9:35-37

Many of us grew up with seeing pictures of Jesus with children seated all around him, and others, with Jesus holding a child on his lap.  We sang, "Jesus loves the little children" and never doubted our importance in Jesus' eyes.  But let me say it again.  To first century hearers, this was a shocking story - for many reasons.  It was not a nice, syrupy sweet story of Jesus, meek and mild, welcoming a child.  For the first century world held no such romantic view of childhood.

To begin with, fewer than half of children born would make it to adulthood. So the most obvious characteristic of a child at that time was his or her vulnerability. A child was perhaps the most vulnerable member of society.  Of course first-century parents loved their children - they were the closest thing to social security in the ancient world (especially if that child happened to be male), as they would most likely be your only means of support when you could no longer work.

But children were also the most susceptible to disease or hunger.  They were vulnerable physically to be sure - but also due to their low status in family and society.  Slaves, for example could own property, but children could not.  For the purpose of inheritance, they weren't even considered people!  So Jesus is saying that God's kingdom belongs to those to whom the world said nothing belonged.

In our culture, children are deeply valued and are put first in our priorities (at least that is what we say - although our actions sometimes betray us).  But there was no "women and children first" concept in ancient times.  Even in medieval times, Mediterranean cultures placed a very low value on children.  Thomas Aquinas, noted theologian, taught that in a raging fire a husband was obliged to save his father first, then his mother, next his wife, and last of all his young child.

In an article in The Christian Century, Joel Marcus tells of the Roman custom of a father claiming a child as his own by picking the child up immediately after he or she was born.  Such a gesture constituted a pledge to raise the child and a refusal to do so signaled that the child would be abandoned.  So when Jesus symbolically "adopts" this child as he holds him up, he signals to all who would follow him that they are to follow his example. (Joel Marcus, "Counting Diamonds, The Christian Century, Aug 30-Sept 6, 2000, p. 861).

Children were among a long list of "the invisible" - people who really didn't count in Jesus' day - and many of which don't "count" today either:  the old, handicapped, sick, illiterate.   Children were those without voice.  Who were the other voiceless ones that Jesus suggests need to be brought to the center of the circle?  In the first century you would definitely add in peasants, farmers, shepherds, widows, slaves, the unemployed, aliens, immigrants, prisoners, the homeless.  How welcoming are we to those folks?  Maybe the list hasn't changed all that much.  And Jesus tells his first disciples - and us, these are the folks to whom you should be reaching out, who you should welcome into your fold as one of your own. 

To welcome a child is to do the simplest thing for an individual whom society dismisses as perhaps cute but ultimately insignificant, someone who lacks any accomplishments, greatness or status. By extension, Jesus invites us to welcome every person in the same manner, without regard for external measures of their importance in society or their status.  To follow Jesus means moving beyond comfort zones, beyond ease and security.

And this is the point at which most of us probably find ourselves a bit uncomfortable.  After all, it's so much easier to reach out and welcome folks who are most like us.  We understand their world.  We have something in common, something to talk about.  For those of us who are on the shy side, even reaching out to folks who are virtually just like us is difficult.

So why not do as a former Cleveland pastor did and seek out and invite the newly arrived high-ranking executives to be a part of our congregation?  (I should clarify that these were the only folks whom he sought out.)  We live in an affluent suburb.  Why not focus on inviting only those who "fit the mold?"  Why welcome someone who doesn't have the power or ability to add anything to the group?  Why welcome someone when it is obvious that there won't be any reciprocity?  First Jesus talks about suffering and now he wants us to cuddle up next to those we would usually walk by?

Because friends, Jesus has a different ranking order.  He turns everything upside down. The ordering of such things as status has been flipped upside down with Jesus now facing death, and the child now labeled as most valued. As always, when Jesus talks about the reign of God, he reverses a whole bunch of our expectations and assumptions.

Why go to such effort to embrace those who probably won't come to our doors without some encouragement?  Why not simply serve those in front of us? Because, as the Rev. Stephen Lewis said in a sermon on this text, "ultimately, what is at stake is the church's future, its witness and its relevance in the world. A church that fails to be the welcoming presence of God ceases to be the church."  (Insignificant Greatness, Day 1, Sept 20, 2009).

Hospitality has long been a fundamental human practice.  Yet according to Christine Pohl, the Church added a new element:  "The distinctive Christian contribution was the emphasis on including the poor and neediest, the ones who could not return the favor...the close relations formed by table fellowship and conversation ...extended to the most vulnerable." (Making Room:  Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition, Christine Pohl, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999, p. 6)

So how are we doing at being a welcoming congregation?  There a plenty of ways to gauge the answer to that question.  How do we demonstrate our value of our children?  The children of others?  How much are we focused inward on ourselves, and how much toward those beyond our doors?  How readily do we welcome newcomers - including their ideas and viewpoints - especially if they don't line up with our own?  How much do we go out of our way to invite and include the vulnerable and marginalized?  How open are our hearts and minds and pews and lives to those who make us uncomfortable?

I know that for me the ability to truly welcome someone whose differences put me on edge comes down to trust - trusting that God will work through all of God's people, and that my perspective is only one among many.  So I have to ask myself - am I holding on to control? (As if I could control outcomes anyway!).  Do I feel secure enough to let go? Am I willing to enlarge our family of faith -- welcoming strangers?  Am I fearless enough to deepen those relationships? 

As those who seek to follow Jesus, our faith is seen in our actions, in a life-style of hospitality.  Hospitality, welcoming the stranger, is not an optional add-on.  It is an essential component of Jesus' disciples.  As I just read this week, "Hospitality cannot be limited to the warm fellowship of those who are like us....Hospitality is not just the right hand of evangelism, it is a critical life skill in our striving toward a more Christ-like existence. (Cheryl Hilderbrand, Horizons, p. 15-16, Sept/October 2009).

In many ways a discussion of hospitality is really about who is in and who is out, who is included and who is not.  Jesus is unequivocal:  all are included.  Peter Story, a leader in the struggle against apartheid once said: "Some tell us that following Jesus is simply a matter of inviting him into our hearts.  But when we do that, Jesus always asks, "May I bring my friends?"  And as we look at them, we see that they are not the kind of company we like to keep.  The friends of Jesus are the outcasts, the marginalized, the poor, the homeless, the rejected - the lepers of life.  We hesitate and ask, "Jesus, must we really have them too?"  Jesus replies, "Love me, love my friends!" (Listening at Golgotha: Jesus' Words from the Cross).

Are we a welcoming congregation?  By God's grace may we become so!