Welcoming the unwelcome
“He hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away”
The scripture speaks of a God who welcomes the unwelcome. These words are so important that no only do our choirs sing them every Sunday in Evensong, but today we hear them twice, both sung and said.
“He hath...exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things;” A God who welcomes the unwelcome.
Yet that is not always what everyone else does. Some of you may be aware of a certain immigration problem that has been large on our screens recently. It concerns a young bear called Paddington from darkest Peru. Our story begins in darkest Peru where a tribe of talking bears are visited by an English explorer. When he leaves he invites them to come visit London and promises “whenever you come you will get a warm welcome”.
Many years later climate disasters destroy their rainforest idyll, and so an economic migrant stows away on a cargo boat bound for London with nothing but jars of marmalade to sustain him, and a sign round his neck saying “please look after this bear”.
But when he arrives at Paddington, he does not find the welcome he has been promised. He is pushed, he shoved. he doffs his hat at people but they don’t greet him back. A pigeon comes clearly hungry, so Paddington tries to share what little he has (his Marmalade sandwich) only to be swamped by the flock of pigeons. It grows darker, it grows wetter, the train station grows emptier. But will anyone look after this bear?
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Lonely
That is how 86 year old widow Betty Williams felt. Small towns like Ottery in Devon can be full of wonderful community. Five generations of families can live within 5 miles of one another. People know one another. There is laughter. There is fun. But if you are not a part of that, it oh so hard.
For this 86 year old former teacher, that was how she felt. Twelve years ago her husband died. Before then, they had had each other. But it is lonely being a widow. People were very kind. Most of the time they were very welcoming. But at Christmas …. well they had their families and they invited all of them and … well for someone with no family, it wasn’t very welcoming.
So Betty walks down to the lamb and Flag pub in Ottery and for the Tuesday before Christmas books every table in the pub, stumping up £1,000 towards Turkey dinner and wine for whatever strangers might want to come that day - so that anyone on their own might no longer be lonely but have a Christmas dinner.
Would anyone come?
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People coming wasn’t the problem that the Revd Nadia Bolz-Webber faced. Pastor Nadia runs a rather unusual lutheran church in Denver, Colorado, “The House of All Sinners and Saints”. It is perhaps unusual because she is a rather unusual priest. Tatoo-covered, she is a recovering alcoholic, who when she speaks at church events, has to be given a “parental guidance warning” because of the explicit language she uses. Nadia’s church was unusual too - firstly because it was full of young people. Not your well groomed middle class twentysomethings holding down jobs in the city. A different sort of young. Trannies at various stages of their sex change. Lesbians and gays rejected by the parents and families they had grown up with. Ex-alcoholics and ex-junkies - and those, well, who are still alcoholics and still junkies. “The House of All Sinners and Saints” is a church where those who are usually unwelcome can feel genuinely very welcome.
And then something happended. Pastor Nadia got in the city wide news. She was interviewed. People read it. And on a single Sunday, the church doubled in size. The only problem was, it was the wrong sort of people.
Lawyers. Teachers. Middle aged white people, The sort of people who might be your mum or your dad. Respectable people.
“It’s all very well, I am sure they are very nice people” thought Nadia. “but they are not our sort of people. What are we going to do about these people who are so different who are flooding our church.”
An emergency meeting of the church was called to discuss what to do with the “problem people”.
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So anyway,
Mary sets out to see her cousin Elizabeth. It is a difficult journey. Not just the length of it from Galilee to Southern Judea; nor the steep roads up high to the Hill Country; Nor the fact that she is pregnant, possibly with morning sickness, certainly needing to go to be relieved far more often than she was used to. All this made the journey difficult. But it was not these that made the journey difficult.
Some miracles are wanted and welcomed. Dear old Elizabeth, she has been trying for a baby for decades, and finally it is on it’s way. Dear old Elizabeth, the heart and soul of the village, her husband a priest, so respectable.
Some miracles are wanted and welcomed. Some miracles are not so welcome. A fifteen year old girl, pregnant and unmarried, shaming her fiance Joseph. Best to get her out of Nazarath for a while until the heat dies down. Send her to the hill country to her cousin Elizabeth.
But will Elizabeth welcome the black sheep of the family? When everything is finally going right for Elizabeth, does she really want her controversial cousin showing up and stealing her thunder?
Don’t think that Mary had texted or emailed ahead to say she was coming. Perhaps she had written, but she may not have been able to afford to do so. Parchment and paper was expensive in those days.
So she sets out on a long and difficult journey not knowing what sort of welcome her cousin will give her.
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What sort of welcome do we give people when they come into our lives? The stories I am sharing with you this evening, are not my stories but they are stories that inspire me because they make me feel uncomfortable. They are Magnificat Stories. Stories where the rich are sent empty away and the hungry are filled with good things. What sort of welcome do I give people when they come into my life? I could share my stories - perhaps I would start by sharing the boastful stories that I am proud of, those rare times when I “got it right”. And then I might move on to share the other stories, the ones where I failed to welcome, the ones that involve baring my soul. But they would be my stories. What about your stories? What about baring your soul?
[pause]
What sort of welcome do we give people when they come into our lives?
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Nervously Mary approaches her cousin Elizabeth’s house. Will her cousin recognise the calling from God she has received, or will she believe the rumours, the lies?
“and it came to pass that when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leapt in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost. And she spake out with a loud voice and said ‘Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For Lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.”
The Holy Ghost fills Elisabeth. How do we know that the Holy Spirit has filled her? Because the babe in her womb leaps for joy and she welcomes her bedraggled cousin when so few other people have welcomed her. She sees God in Mary when everyone else has seen only shame.
And so the babe in her womb leaps for joy, the baby who will grow to be the prophet John who will tell of a new order, a new order in which people sell their goods to give to the poor. “He hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.” John will tell of a new order - and the point the way to his cousin who will embody that new order by feasting with the least welcome of all, prostitutes, tax collectors; quislings, sex workers. As Jesus dined with and welcomed the unwelcome, I wonder if he thought back to the welcomes his mother had and had not received when she was pregnant with him.
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And so pastor Nadia calls her church meeting. She is so uncomfortable with having to tell these respectable newcomers, these soccer moms and middle-aged executives that they are not welcome in her church for misfits.
And then one of House for all Sinners and Saints regulars stands up. The regular describes emotionally how her own parents rejected her because she had been through a sex change operation. How she hasn’t seen them since they kicked her out of the house. And then she says “and today I see new people coming into this church, who dress like my Mom and dad, who could be my Mom and dad. But you come here because you don’t reject me. Here in church, it is as if I am given new Moms and dads who can love me, to stand in for my real mom and dad who can’t yet love me”.
And as one speech witnessed to the power of prejudice overcome, Nadia realised how prejudiced she had been.
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Back to the Lamb & Flag in Ottery, well the story of the woman who welcomes the unwelcome, who makes sure the lonely are not alone at Christmas, well the story got taken up by the local press and then by the BBC, ITV, The Times, The Telegraph. Mayor Glyn Dobson got involved to help find people who might appreciate the invitation. Donations have flowed in from across the world from afar afield as America and Holland to help cover the costs of this generous enterprise. And as for Betty? Well she won’t be spending Christmas Day or Boxing Day alone. Friends who hadn’t even realised that she would be on her own have rushed to invite her to spend the two days with them.
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It took slightly longer for people to rush to cherish Paddington, that immigrant from darkest Peru. After hours of sitting lonely on the platform, the Brown family finally take him in (“Just for one night” now says Mr Brown). While Mrs Brown is all for cherishing this bear, Mr Brown is not so keen on welcoming this unwelcome guest. “Just one night and then we call the authorities” “No he can’t sleep in a bedroom, he can sleep in the attic.” And Peter Capaldi plays the next door neighbour who begins plotting “Well nothing against him personally, but we don’t want his sort round here, It will bring down the neighbourhood”
But Paddington Bear, through his clumsiness and his kindness, opens peoples’ eyes to discover a kindness in themselves they did not know they had. In his naivety Paddington is incapable of hating anyone, and so teaches the Brown family not to hate and indeed to love one another.
And so God fills the hungry with good things and exalts those of low degree, and so God ensures Mary and the Soccer Moms and lonely old people and an immigrant called Paddington all find a welcome. And so God challenges us. Will we welcome the unwelcome?
