Welcome Home

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist

Song of Songs 2:8-13; James 1:17-27

“Bienvenidos,” we say, at the beginning of every worship service here at Madison Square. “You and I, the People of God, are ‘welcome home.’”

And for a brief moment time stands still. And whatever has come before and whatever is yet to come fades into the space that surrounds us, like carbon dioxide fades into the plants that breathe it for air. And the peace of Christ settles in right here among us, and you can almost touch it and taste it and smell it and see it growing within us and among us like a lush garden. Like the Paradise we were always meant to tend. From the very beginning. Made real in our midst for one brief moment of grace.

“Welcome HOME!” we say. And a silent stillness fills the sanctuary . . .

No matter who you are or what you have done or what you have left undone or what you have had done to you, you are welcome home here at Madison Square. And not just because we say so but because Jesus says so.

Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church puts it this way, in a posting that has gone viral on Facebook, having originated on a website called “Stuff Christians Say”:

We extend a special welcome to those who are single, married, divorced, gay, filthy rich, dirt poor, yo no habla ingles. We extend a special welcome to those who are crying new-borns, skinny as a rail or could afford to lose a few pounds.

We welcome you if you can sing like Andrea Bocelli or . . . (and this is my favorite) . . . like our pastor who can’t carry a note in a bucket. You’re welcome here if you’re “just browsing,” just woke up or just got out of jail. We don’t care if you’re more Catholic than the Pope . . . (or for us more Presbyterian than Hilary Shuford) . . . or haven’t been in church since little Joey’s Baptism.

We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet, and to teenagers who are growing up too fast. We welcome soccer moms, NASCAR dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegetarians, junk-food eaters. We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted. We welcome you if you’re having problems or you’re down in the dumps or if you don’t like “organized religion,” we’ve been there, too.

If you blew all your offering money at the dog track, you’re welcome here. We offer a special welcome to those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, don’t work, can’t spell, or because grandma is in town and wanted to go to church.

We welcome those who are inked, pierced, or both. We offer a special welcome to those who could use a prayer right now, had religion shoved down your throat as a kid or got lost in traffic and wound up here by mistake. We welcome tourists, seekers and doubters, bleeding hearts . . . and you!

You are welcome, says Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church. Bienvenidos, people of God, welcome home, says Madison Square. And all is somehow miraculously made right.

At least that is how we want it to be . . .

In the Presbyterian Church we call it the kingdom of God. This sense of a time beyond time when pain and suffering and sin and oppression become no more. When we feast with our God in the fullness of grace, and we have finally learned how to live in peace. With God. With our neighbor. With ourselves. This kingdom “breaks in” for one brief moment when we hear that “welcome home.”

But it is still a kingdom that is yet to come, is it not? Because, let’s face it, we really aren’t there yet. We really aren’t. Not even in the church. Especially in the church. Where we are racked with bitter disputes and deep misunderstandings and pure pettiness and just plain self-inflicted-nonsense, it seems on a daily basis. And no I don’t just mean the big, bad, denomination out there somewhere. I mean even here. Even at Madison Square. Even when we think we are getting it quite right.

We are, as our Presbyterian Book of Order says, just a “provisional demonstration of the kingdom of God.” Emphasis on provisional. And there are lessons we still need to learn. Just like the early church learning from the letter of James.

We can, the author of James says, and we should, he insists, allow ourselves to get caught up in the great generosity of the God who will always welcome us home. We can and we should know the kingdom in an instant, when we hear those bienvenidos, and we know the deep embrace of Christ. But we should also admit when we are more quick to speak than we are to listen. When we are more quick to anger than we are to compassion. When we are more quick to nurse our own wounds than to build up the beloved community. Mere “hearers” of the Word, as James says, who deceive ourselves, instead of “doers of the word” who “care for orphans and widows in their distress and keep [our]selves unstained by the world.” Which translated for our own time would mean something along the lines of “watching out for the vulnerable and also for our own vulnerability.” Pursuing social justice and our own spiritual formation. With neither more important than the other.

We who are still so provisionally demonstrating the kingdom of God need the author of James to remind us to listen. To speak slowly. To transform whatever anger and rage we still carry within us into a virtue of grace. To tend the roots of God’s Wisdom dwelling deep within that we might “become a kind of first fruits” of God’s new creation, as James tells us. Blooming forever in the Paradise we were always meant to tend with joy. Seeking justice and non-violence and love. But we have to keep working at it over and over again. Because we are surely not there yet.

Which brings us to Bob Frere, whose life we remember today in our worship. Beloved husband of Carol. Beloved father of Suzette, John, Jennifer, Lisa, Mark, Lori, Karl. Beloved grandfather of Lauren, Ethan, Holden, Molly, Helen. Beloved “pastor to pastors” in Mission Presbytery and before that in Louisville Presbytery. Beloved child of the God who created him good, and in him is well pleased.

Throughout his long ministry, Bob saw the best and the worst of who we in the church can be. But he called us over and over again to the Wisdom of God set forth in the book of James: actively supporting civil rights; ordaining women as deacons and elders and pastors; uniting churches that had split over the civil war; strengthening struggling pastors and churches; supporting programs and ministries that empower people living in poverty; promoting spiritual depth as the foundation for seeking social justice; and just plain being a decent human being.

Surely Bob has, as James says, “become a kind of first fruit of God’s new creation.” Surely Bob is blooming forever in the Paradise we were always meant to tend. With joy, with justice, non-violence, and love. He was, after all, a “Master Gardener.”

And so we celebrate Bob on this day of “bearing witness to the resurrection.” Which, I have been insisting all year, is what we do every Sunday and not just Easter Sunday. And not just at special memorial services we title “Witness to the Resurrection.” On this day, every Sunday, we come with our warts and our wounds and our crying out for wholeness to proclaim with conviction that our resurrecting God is not yet done with this provisional kingdom that is the messed up crazy world we call the church and the world beyond the church. That God is and has already and forever been about the business of transforming us into a resurrection redemption. That God’s resurrecting promise can lead us through whatever “lonesome valley” is stretched out before us and behind us. And that not one thing, not one thing in all of creation can separate us from the love of God we know in Christ. The kind of love that brings us back to the garden. Restored to its present goodness. As in the Song of Solomon. Which is our other lectionary text today.

“Arise, my love, my fair one,” our beloved says in this “most excellent song,” “and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come. The voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance.” And can’t you just hear our God saying these words to Bob?

And can’t you just hear in the fresh, fragrant, and flagrant erotic real-human-beings –desperately-in-love-with-each-other poetry of the Song of Songs the Word of God to us this morning? Allegorizing forever the love match between Carol and Bob Frere. And the lush garden we were always meant to tend. And the sacred union between God and God’s people. And between Christ and the Church. Can’t you just hear in this Song of Most Excellent Songs the voice of our beloved God, in all of our struggles, and all of our woe, and all of our hope-filled fruitless and fruitful seeking of Wisdom, “leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice.”

Saying, “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”

Bienvenidos, people of God.

Welcome Home.