Radically Welcoming

Have you ever tried to describe your values? Things like honesty or integrity, loyalty or liberty. We all have them - even if we’ve never tried to specifically identify them. We all have a mix of things we value over other things, and this mix is a significant part of our identity as a person. And what you value is important because they determine who you will be and how you will act in certain situations. A person who values the security of wealth above all may not exercise integrity in business. A person who places a high value on integrity will typically choose to lose popularity than compromise their convictions. Your values are your core principles that guide your decisions, actions, and beliefs.

Churches have values too. There are some like worship, scripture, prayer, and witness that all churches should have in common. But like people, they also have others values that God has impressed upon them and that sets them apart.

It’s important to routinely be reminded of who we are. Because our values are so essential to our identity and purpose, we’re starting a new series this morning called This Is Us. We’re going to spend the next four weeks looking at what I see as our core values.

Obviously, we value other things beyond what I’ll share, but I believe these values are ones God has impressed upon us, and that I have observed as part of our identity and DNA. They are both who we are already and what we strive to become.

Our first value is that we are Radically Welcoming.

Pray...

The Conflict:

Have you ever felt really welcomed somewhere? How about the opposite? Have you ever wrestled with whether or not you should extend a welcome to someone? Let me set up this message by asking you to imagine the following scenarios.

Scene 1: The Disruption

The service is about to begin when a man stumbles in. He doesn’t just bring a presence; he brings a smell—a jarring mix of stale alcohol and unwashed skin. As he slides into a chair, you notice the subtle "lean" - people physically shifting away to create a buffer. You feel a clench in your gut. You aren't thinking about his soul; you’re thinking about your comfort. Will he pass out? Will he be disruptive? Will he ask for money? You realize there is a war in your chest between your desire for a "peaceful" Sunday and the jarring reality that one of the "least of these" just sat in your row.

Scene 2: The Armor

A woman enters, her dress a little too short and her makeup a little too heavy—the kind of armor someone wears when they expect to be rejected. She keeps her eyes locked on the carpet, but the room gives her "the scan"—that head-to-toe look we use to categorize people. Two women nearby stop talking mid-sentence to track her movement. It’s not a gaze of welcome; it’s an evaluation of her reputation. You wonder: If I sit by her, what will people think of me? She is clutching a cloak of shame, but you realize you are clutching your own cloak of respectability even tighter.

Scene 3: The Border

A family walks in, smiling tentatively. Their skin is a different shade, and their clothes have a different cut. As they whisper to one another in a foreign language, a heavy silence descends—the sound of a church realizing a border has been crossed. You see a father nearby instinctively pull his child a little closer, turning a protective arm into a fence. Your brain starts whispering "What ifs": Are they safe? Will they try to change our culture? Will they really fit in? In an instant, an invisible "us vs. them" line is drawn right across the sanctuary carpet.

Scene 4: The Wall

Two young men walk in quietly, trying to be invisible. But as they find a seat, you see it: they’re holding hands. The atmosphere shifts instantly. A "hush" falls over the room that isn't holy; it’s rigid. As they sit directly in front of you and one leans his head on the other’s shoulder, your mind begins to race. What do I do during the greeting time? If I’m too friendly, will I be "affirming" something I don’t agree with? The space between your row and theirs suddenly feels like wall. Their presence is forcing you to decide, in real-time, what kind of "welcome" you actually believe in.

The Complication

That was fun! Each of these scenes either has or may one day play out in one of our worship services. As you imagined each of them, did you feel some tension mounting in your chest or between your shoulder blades? Was there a scene in particular that made you distinctly uncomfortable or made your skin crawl? Be honest! Why is that? What is it about these scenarios that would make us feel tense?

The truth is that one of the hardest things we can do is to welcome people who are not like us. Some differences are minor and we tolerate them pretty well: Ford vs Chevy, squeezing the middle of the toothpaste tube vs from the bottom (like you're supposed to), mayo vs mustard on a burger - and the weirdos who like both. Sometimes we can even tolerate the democrat vs republican divide - sometimes. Joke!

But some differences create chasms that are much harder to bridge. Culture, ethnicity, language, lifestyle choices, worldview - these all can seem like insurmountable obstacles. It becomes tempting to think that maybe birds of a feather SHOULD flock together.

Science shows that our “us vs them” tendencies is part of our wiring. It happens in that part of our brain called the amygdala that controls our fight or flight responses. We have a built in facial recognition center that causes us to do rapid threat assessments when we see unfamiliar faces. This unconscious bias makes us naturally favor those who are like us and distrust those who aren’t. This became obvious four years ago when Russia invaded Ukraine. Research has shown there was a far greater outpouring of financial support for Ukrainians fleeing into Poland than in other similar situations. Airbnb created a way to let you rent a place for a refugee family to stay. Our own denomination had a special giving fund to support Ukrainian refugees.

But statistically there are far more people being displaced by conflict in Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, and the Congo than in Ukraine. But Americans responded twice as much to the Ukrainians. Why are we not as quick to respond in these other places? The uncomfortable answer is “Because they don’t look like us”. The good news is that this doesn’t necessarily mean we’re evil or racist. It means that ALL PEOPLE carry a bias to have more empathy toward those we identify as being like us.

Even though this may be conditioned in us because of sin and the fall, as followers of Jesus we have to recognize that this tendency is in direct conflict with God’s vision of a church from "every nation, tribe, people and language”.

The tension you felt from the above scenarios is similar to the tension felt in the passage we're looking at this morning. At this point in his ministry, Jesus had become very popular. People were flocking to listen to him. But in some people's eyes, it's the wrong kind of people who are coming. It was the “not like us” crowd.

“The tax collectors and sinners all came to listen to Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to complain: “Look, this man welcomes sinners and even eats with them.”” (Luke 15:1–2, NCV)

Let’s take a minute to look at the characters in this passage...

Pharisees and scribes.

When we read these names we've been taught to interpret them as "the self-righteous". And for sure, there was a lot of self-righteousness among them.

But we also have to keep in mind that these people were truly zealous for God. They loved his word and wanted to please the Lord. That some of them became self-righteous doesn't negate the heart behind their movement.

Yet their zeal for God had created a barrier for anyone who was not like them, who didn’t meet their standard, to come near to God. Welcoming sinners didn't fit their paradigm of what a life pleasing to God looked like. For them, pleasing God meant strict separation from sinners.

Tax collectors and sinners.

The text doesn't spell out what "sins" are included, but whatever you can imagine is probably correct. I’m sure the mix included prostitutes, thieves, people with addictions and mental health issues, the sexually promiscuous, Razorback fans, and so on.

Tax collectors were their own special brand of sinner. Even sinners didn't like tax collectors. We can all relate at this time of year! Tax collectors were Jews who were working for the enemy. They collected the taxes demanded by the Romans, keeping a portion of it for their wages. But many of them were corrupt, demanding more than they were supposed to collect so their cut would be bigger. In the eyes of everyone they were both traitors and extortionists.

These people were the outsiders, shunned by those who were insiders.

As it was then, so it can be now. There are people who may feel an attraction to Jesus, yet they often face high barriers of entry - barriers usually put up with the very best of intentions. As you think about this scene, you can likely imagine the tension filling the air as everyone - both saint and sinner - waits to see how Jesus will respond.

The Turning Point

The Pharisees’ complaint wasn’t that sinners were listening to Jesus. Their complaint was that he “even eats with them”. The “not like us” were coming to Jesus - and he didn’t turn them away. He didn't condemn them. He didn’t preach to them about their sin. Instead, he welcomed them. This was radical. He should know better. But we consistently see in the life of Jesus that...

What the religious reject, the Redeemer welcomes.

What does it mean in scripture to “welcome” someone. It doesn’t mean endorsement or approval. It doesn't mean affirming something that God has given a clear 'no' to. Jesus walked in the tension of welcoming “the not like him” without compromising his values.

The word the New Testament uses for welcome is "hospitable" - philoxenia in Greek. It means "love of stranger". Strangers we’re just people you didn’t know; they were people who in some way were “other”. One of the primary ways you showed hospitality in Bible times was to eat with someone. In their culture, a meal was never just "grabbing lunch". It carried deeply symbolic and social meanings.

Who you ate with served as a boundary. It was just understood that eating with the unclean made you unclean.

It was a way of gaining social standing. You ate with those like you to gain honor and greater status.

It created an unspoken covenant that you would protect those around your table at your own risk. This is why Judas' betrayal was so shocking - because he had eaten with Jesus.

New Testament Scholar Joachim Jeremias comments that in their culture, "Sharing a table meant sharing life."

In eating with sinner Jesus was effectively saying "I choose to be identified as one of you". Talk about guilt by association. By eating with the "wrong" people, Jesus was declaring that he welcomed them, that they had equal access to the kingdom of God. He wasn't merely being nice; he was dismantling the wall that separated sinners from God. This is what it means to be radically welcoming.

What the religious reject, the Redeemer welcomes.

Lest we’re too hard on the Pharisees, we must be honest that we can be prone to their same impulse. You’ve probably heard the saying that “If you lie down with dogs, you'll get up with fleas”. From as far back as I can remember in church, we were told that once we became Christians we needed to separate ourselves from our old friends lest they drag us down.

Yet God’s kingdom turns this logic on its head. Because when the sinner comes into contact with the Savior it is they who are changed, not him.

Being radically welcoming means remembering that we were once the outsider and that we were welcomed by Jesus - before we got our mess together. It means acknowledging that even though we’ve come to Jesus we still don’t completely have it together. As we face this with honesty, Jesus’ posture of radical welcome begins to move from our heads to our hearts, and maybe the tension we feel of being with those who aren’t like us can begin to loosen.

The Resolution

To think this will be easy would be naive. I think this is the hardest value we seek to embrace. It means accepting that there will always be some tension. But radical welcome is the way of Jesus. It is how he welcomed you and me.

Using our earlier scenes, what could a radical welcome look like at the Vineyard?

It means for those who stagger in broken, we choose Presence over Preference. We stop holding our breath and open up space. We let the smell of their struggle rub off on us, imitating Jesus who smelled of those he associated with - causing the religious to accuse him of being a glutton and a drunk. We stop looking at them as a disruption to our peace and as a brother to sit next to.

For those that appear to have a past, it means we choose Connection over Categorizing. We trade in auditing their reputation for the grace of eye contact. Like Jesus with the woman at the well, we don’t start with a lecture about sin but with a conversation. Radical welcome means that their soul is more precious than our "respectability".

For those who don’t share our culture or language, it means choosing to embrace them as Family over Foreigner. We can do this by remembering that in the Kingdom of God there are no foreigners - only citizens we haven't met yet. Instead of asking how they will "fit in" to our culture, we ask what they can teach us about a God who speaks every language.

And for those who present a challenging lifestyle, it means we choose A Bigger Table over A Higher Wall. The tension in our chest relaxes when we realize we don’t need to present a theological stance in order to offer a handshake. Our job isn’t to be the Holy Spirit in their lives; it’s to be the face of Christ. Then we become free to begin praying about what God wants to do in their hearts.

Maybe the best compliment that anyone could pay our church is that we eat with sinners.

The Celebration

What the religious reject, the Redeemer welcomes.

This morning, if you recognize that there is still a Pharisee-like tendency in your heart, Jesus welcomes you.

If you have come near to Jesus but you have a past that still haunts you, Jesus welcomes you.

And if you are here and realize that you are far from God, having more in common with the “sinners and tax collectors”, Jesus welcomes you. As. You. Are. But he won’t leave you as you are. If you’ve never received his welcome before, his offer of forgiveness and wholeness, I’d like to offer you the opportunity now. At the cross Jesus took your sin and shame so that you can walk in freedom from guilt and condemnation. We can enter into life with him by turning away from our old life and putting our trust in him.

Heavenly Father, I know I have done wrong and that I deserve to suffer the consequences. But I believe Jesus died to take my place, and that he suffered death for me so that I won’t have to. I am making the decision right now to surrender myself to you and make Jesus my Lord. Please forgive my sin and make me your child forever. Amen.

Let me know if you’ve made this decision...

We are a church that values Radical Welcome, not because we are "progressive" or "tolerant," but because we were broken, we had a past, to someone we were once the strangers and the immoral. Jesus didn't build a wall to protect his holiness from our mess; he broke it down and welcomed us. He didn't wait for us to clean up, dress up, or wise up. He just said, "Come eat with me."

And now we get to pull out the chairs at the table for others.

Communion

Invite people to stand.

Invite Communion/ministry team forward.

Every Sunday we close our time by receiving Communion together. This symbolic meal reminds us of Jesus’ sacrifice. It proclaims the gospel that Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again. It is the source of our spiritual nourishment. We believe Jesus is present with us as we receive his body and blood.

We think Jesus invites everyone to this table. If it’s your first time, or you’re not even sure yet where you stand with Jesus, we think he would welcome you here. If you would like to participate, after I pray step into the nearest aisle. Someone at the front will take a piece of bread dipped in wine and offer it to you as the body and blood of Jesus. If you prefer not to have wine, close your hands together and that will be the sign for them to give you a sealed container with grape juice and a wafer.

What is the Spirit doing this morning?…

Let’s rejoice together with all God’s people in his promise to welcome those who seek refuge in him:

“But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you.” (Psalm 5:11, NIV)

Thank him that through the blood of his cross he has washed our sins away. Through his victorious resurrection he has guaranteed us eternal life. Through his ascension and the outpouring of the Spirit he has made us one with you.

We remember Him who for us and for our salvation, on the night that he was betrayed...

Come Holy Spirit and overshadow these elements. Let them be for us your body and blood so that we can participate in your redemptive work for us. May we find mercy, healing and salvation through the finished work of the cross. Amen.

Invite the worship team to receive Communion first.