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All Are Welcome in This Place
Reflections on Matthew 10.40-42
RCL Proper 13A [i] 28 June 2026
Saint Helen’s Anglican Church Vancouver BC
“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous, and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.” [ii]
Won’t you be my neighbour? If you had visited my fraternity house on a weekday afternoon between 3.00 p.m. and 5.00 p.m., you would have found most of us upstairs in the television lounge watching a children’s program on the Public Broadcasting Service. A slender, middle-aged man would enter the stage set, remove his outer coat and put on a cardigan. As he was doing this, he would be singing, “It’s a wonderful day in the neighbourhood, a wonderful day in the neighbourhood, would you be my neighbour?” His name was Fred Rogers, and he was an ordained Presbyterian minister who was among the first to grasp the impact that children’s television could have on raising responsible, compassionate adults.
Now you might wonder why a group of often rowdy, irreverent college students would gather around the television watching a children’s program with the attentiveness of someone attending a papal mass in Saint Peter’s Basilica. We did so because Mr Rogers had the gifts of speaking to us as young men who were legally adults but not yet who we might become. In a society that still tries to mould young people after celebrity models rather than meaningful models, Mr Rogers liked us for who we were in that moment and offered us some wisdom about how we might become wise, welcoming adults.
Every week Mr Rogers would leave his set and wander the neighbourhood, accompanied by a camera crew. He would connect with interesting people – beekeepers, bakers, librarians, emergency services – the ‘usual suspects’. But he would also spend time with people digging ditches or collecting garbage or fixing fences. After each of those conversations, it was impossible not to realize that Mr Rogers was teaching us the dignity of every human being and that we depend upon each other for the creation of a just society. He embodied a hymn, well known to Lutherans and only recently to Anglicans:
Let us build a house where love can dwell and all can safely live, a place where saints and children tell how hearts learn to forgive. Built of hopes and dreams and visions, rock of faith and vault of grace; here the love of Christ shall end divisions: All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place. [iii]
Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? Although the gospel text for today focuses on welcome, I could not help but hear the word ‘neighbour’ throughout it. A careful reading of the Scriptures – the Hebrew Scriptures, the Apocrypha and the New Testament -- will reveal a unifying theme throughout them that is at risk in our highly partisan and increasingly ‘other’-phobic culture: the arc of welcome and inclusion is long but bends inevitably towards unconditional acceptance of every human being as our neighbour.
We do not have time today for an extensive Bible study into this theme, but a familiar text from the New Testament but rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures will suffice.
When the Pharisees heard that [Jesus] had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, an expert in the law, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” [iv]
Our current tragedy is that many of our leaders seem to imitate the young lawyer in the Gospel according to Luke who asks Jesus, ‘But who is my neighbour?’ The young lawyer is rewarded with the Parable of the Good Samaritan, but its message does not seem to reach into the hearts of many with power. [v]
Love of neighbour is not easy. Loving one’s neighbour is not easy. It is a prophetic ministry – bringing God’s word into the present moment with a call to action. Prophets are rarely the most loved members of a community and are often rewarded with scorn, persecution, ridicule and death – both physical and social.
It’s not easy because love of neighbour includes loving those whom we would rather ignore or exclude – each one of us has a list of those we would prefer not to have to encounter in our prophetic ministry. I am reminded of a story about Bill Burnett, the Archbishop of Capetown from 1974 to 1981. During the anti-apartheid struggle he would invite leaders of the government to breakfast or lunch. They would arrive expecting a lecture, but instead they were treated to a gracious and compassionate conversation about their families, their hopes, their fears. It was only then that Archbishop Burnett would talk about how apartheid was corroding the perpetrators as well as the victims. Burnett was criticized by many, but I think he planted seeds that later bore fruit.
It’s not easy because human beings have an uncanny ability to create ‘us’ and ‘them’ categories. Rather than navigate the challenges of human diversity, we all have moments when we would prefer to paddle in a pond of sameness. I remember speaking with one of my professors in seminary who had been an outspoken and courageous advocate for the ordination of women. He had been in a funk and I asked him why. He responded, ‘Because since 1976 the club has changed.’ He wasn’t wishing to return to the past; he was simply acknowledging that ‘stormy future’ was just that – stormy.
In the weeks ahead Pride events will be taking placed throughout the Lower Mainland, our country and the world. Many of us know from personal experience the conflicts that have raged over the recognition of the dignity and rights of the LGBTQIA+ community. To this day there are too many places in the world where people are not free to be who they are and actively prevented from becoming truly free. I cannot help but see this as a symptom of our human weakness and our failure to love our neighbours as fully as God loves every beloved in whom God’s image dwells.
But the arc of welcome and inclusion continues to bend towards unconditional acceptance of every human being as our neighbour. And the question asked by Mr Rogers continues to be the question God asks of us each day, in every encounter, in every relationship, ‘Won’t you be my neighbour?’ Dare we say ‘No’?
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