Céad Míle Fáilte
A hundred thousand welcomes. It is a phrase that many of us have felt as though we’ve lived through. Being at home in Pictou County means we get opportunities to offer bed and breakfast to travellers and family members on a regular pilgrimage home. I love having people drop in for a meal on their way to or from the Newfoundland ferry or Cape Breton or en route to other destinations. The opportunity to provide hospitality gives me life.
Hospitality is a huge theme in the church, yet “welcome” means so much more that just saying it. According to Bishop Robert Schnase, who wrote about five practises for fruitful congregations, “radical hospitality” is one of things congregations need to work towards as they attempt to really live into the mission set by Jesus.
It is easy enough to be friendly to the people we know, and come early to chat with each other but when someone new comes, we are more interested in finding out who they are from each other than meeting them and greeting them as if it really matters that they are among us. We assume folks are just passing through or visiting someone else, and perhaps our own shyness is an inhibiting factor in our ability to offer welcome. Shockingly, our lack of welcome is often offered as well to those we do know. We put people into categories and welcoming those who are “different” from us is a big stumbling block.
As the church demographic narrows it is difficult to see how we are not welcoming, because mostly they are just like us, those who sit among us. Coming together in community challenging to our and learning what is happening with our neighbours and in our community is great but radical hospitality means welcoming those outside our usual circle. It calls us beyond our comfort zone. It’s what got Jesus in trouble. He welcomes those outside his social class, his religion, his community, his nationality. It includes welcoming those who had been excluded and cast out.
When we imagine who we’d love to have filling up our church pews, it is people just like us (except maybe younger). Naturally, it would cause less work and discomfort if our churches were filled with people just like us. Then we could just plod along without challenging in our prejudice or practice. Yet, this is not the welcome our Gaelic expression alludes to, nor the one the Christian faith calls us into. Congregational survival depends on rethinking how and who we welcome. It is hard work, but we are called to it; the welcome that moves beyond breakfast to the relatives, and calls us to give a little more, maybe in a hundred thousand new ways. Now that kind of welcome would be faith at work in the world today.