What are the ways that we welcome one another? Think about the different welcoming rituals or customs that you have experienced in life. Where did you learn them? Are they family or cultural traditions?
There are so many ways that we are able to extend welcome to one another, in our personal, professional, and faith lives. However there have also been times for each one of us where we have failed to be able to be as welcoming as we wanted.
This is a tough spot to be in, especially when we are aware of the spaces that we have not been as hospitable as we would like to be and yet it is important to talk about, to grow from, and to use to create a more welcoming and hospitality focused world.
Jesus says in Mark, “if a place doesn’t welcome you or listen to you, as you leave, shake the dust off your feet as a testimony”. I love this visual, I feel like this is an important message that we can take and use in our modern society. It allows us to really examine our own lives, to check the places where we might be feeling these piles of dirt line up.
The best way to minimize those piles, is to be honest with ourselves about where they exist. In doing that, we are able to build an awareness, an understanding of why, and ultimately to break the cycles that it is so easy to find ourselves in.
Where are the piles of dirt located in our lives? In our communities of faith? Have we created spaces in the world where there are little piles of dust all around us? Or have we become a space of open doors?
If we are people of faith who are provoking one another to love, it means that we are challenged to live a life where we embrace one another’s full testimony. To recognize the fact that everyone has a story to share, that there is beauty in that.
We are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus; to move our ministry out into the world and create faith communities where we are able to hear the authentic stories of those who come into our lives and places of worship, to minimize the piles of dirt, and to open our hearts to all.
Melissa Hurley is Pastor at Kelseyville United Methodist Church and Middletown Community United Methodist Church. Please join us in Kelseyville at 9 a.m. or Middletown at 11 a.m. as we explore the call of Open Hearts, Open Minds, and Open Doors. All are welcome.
