Welcome! No, really!
The Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt, c. 1669, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Knock, knock!
No corny joke to follow! Just a door opening, then a voice that greets you in the entrance. What do you hope happens next? Which of the following words would you prefer to hear? asks OTN Secretary Neil Rees:
‘Hey, so good to see you! Come in, how are things? Grab a chair, can I get you a coffee or something? How have you been keeping?’
Or:
‘Oh, er, hello, yes, um, so… Why don’t you come in for a minute, I guess? [Awkward pause.] Is there something you wanted?’
Any votes for the second option? No? I didn’t think so…
Welcome! This one short word can set the scene for abundant hospitality, friendship and acceptance. At its heart, welcome expresses delight or pleasure in another person’s appearance, inviting them into the warmth of relationship. In theory, at least…
But, as many of us know from personal experience, this isn’t always what is meant when being told we are ‘welcome’. Somehow it can fall short, and we end up feeling tolerated rather than received with open arms.
You probably know the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the absurdly forgiving and compassionate father (which you probably know better as the parable of the prodigal son - though how a story that begins ‘A man had two sons’ can become a story about just one of them beats me…). But have you ever noticed what was going on when Jesus told those parables? Luke narrates the situation that gave rise to this stream of consciousness from Jesus:
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming to hear him. But the Pharisees and the experts in the law were complaining, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them’. - Luke 15:1-2
This wasn’t the first time that these self-appointed gatekeepers of the kingdom of God had objected to Jesus’s behaviour. Earlier, when invited to eat in Levi’s house - along with a bunch of Levi’s tax-collector colleagues, of course - Pharisees and their experts in the law complained to his disciples, saying,
‘Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and “sinners”?’ - Luke 5:30.
(By the way, just to be clear, ‘sinners’ here does not mean people that have sinned - that’s all of us, every single one. Rather, it was shorthand for those at that time who did not live up to the standards of the rabbinical interpretations of the law, those who had given up trying even, and as far as most other Jews were concerned, were simply ‘beyond the pale’. As far as possible Torah-observing Jews would have nothing to do with the like, and certainly not recline at the same table with them - dipping their hands in the same dish, which is what eating with another person always involved - thus becoming unclean themselves.)
You see, Jesus’s welcome was never awkward or forced. It was always more of the ‘so good to be with you’ sort. And that was whoever he was with, whatever status or place in the social pecking order his host claimed to have, however ‘unacceptable’ they were in the eyes of the professional religious crew. Yes, Jesus ‘welcomes “sinners” and eats with them’.
An interesting word for welcome is used in the New Testament Greek here that gives some insight into all this - prosdexomai. The Pharisees and teachers of the law accuse Jesus not just of spending time with ‘sinners’, or even of simply giving them an ‘ordinary’ welcome - there’s a different verb (dexomai) used four times as often in the New Testament for that. No, Jesus jumps at the chance to be with these folk and - horror of horrors - go so far as to delight in their company, and this is what really puts their backs up. Jesus receives people ‘in a personal (open) manner’; he welcomes others ‘with warm reciprocity’, as one Bible dictionary puts it. In other words:
...prosdéxomai (‘wait actively, expectantly’) means being ‘ready and willing’ to give and receive, [and] then expresses expectant waiting where a person is ready and willing to receive all that is hoped for (note the force of pros). This is active ‘looking-for-and-waiting!’ - HELPS Word-studies, Discovery Bible.
‘Looking and waiting’ - doesn’t that just remind you of the father of the prodigal, watching, waiting, hoping for the day he could embrace his son again? No wonder the recalcitrant, returning wanderer gets the welcome he dared not for one minute even imagine, much less hope for.
Jesus is the visible image of the unseen father. Those who saw him, saw the father. Jesus is ready and willing, expectantly waiting, actively looking and longing for our companionship. He doesn’t have to carefully conceal his true feelings or attempt to conjure up a welcoming smile to mask the revulsion he feels inside. No, and a thousand times no. Jesus tolerates no-one; he welcomes all.
And Christians? ‘What Would Jesus Do’ isn’t a motto to wear on our wrists, it’s meant to point us to our model for daily living. ‘I have given you an example,’ Jesus said to his gathered disciples on the night that he was betrayed, ‘you should do just as I have done for you.’ (John 3:15)
Stop for a moment and let those words sink in - ‘just as I have done for you’. Or as Paul said to the Corintians, ‘Imitate me as I imitate Christ’ (1 Corinthians 11:1). Put simply, ‘welcome’ is the first stop for Christlike behaviour. When those we are with feel genuinely welcome, then the acceptance and desire for companionship that hang like perfume in the air build friendship between the unlikeliest of people and heal countless wounded hearts.