Benedict and Welcome
When he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, "Rejoice with me..." (From the gospel of the day - Luke 15:1-10)
I am so sorry not to have been with you at this point last Sunday. It had fully been my intention that I - and, indeed, Alison - would be with you, as we usually are, for this, the principal celebration of the eucharist in the parish. However, someone else - someone who I think is likely to be the youngest person present in church this morning - someone else decided that Alison and I were not going to come to church last Sunday. That certain somebody decided that we would spend almost every single hour of last Sunday in the Maternity Wing at the General Hospital, and although being the youngest member of our church community, remarkably, he had his way!
But here we are, and it’s wonderful! It’s wonderful for Alison and me to have such a beautiful, healthy, wonderful baby - especially after so many years when we had prayed and hoped and tried. It was wonderful when, on Wednesday, I brought Benedict and Alison home from hospital, and we sort of realized that he was ours, really ours, to keep, and love, and look after from now ever onwards. And it is wonderful bringing Benedict here this morning, to meet so many members of God’s family - which is his family, and to which, when he is baptized in January, he will fully belong.
And you - you have all been wonderful. Alison and I have been overwhelmed, stunned, amazed by the depth of your support, prayers and love. We have been gratefully bewildered at the truly incredible number of cards, messages, bouquets, presents, and such like which have been arriving day by day at the Rectory. We have felt remarkably supported, loved and prayer for. Your behaviour has been a real reminder to us of what the church - God’s family - the Body of Christ - is meant to be about. And although I fear we will be hopeless at doing so on a one-to-one level, we want to thank you all so very much. It has been, and is, just amazing.
That is why, a few days ago, when I read through this morning’s gospel reading, I knew I had to grab the pulpit, and indulge my sense of joy at Benedict’s birth, and preach on the text When he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, "Rejoice with me..."
For Alison and I are rejoicing - and you are rejoicing with us - and it’s wonderful. And for a few days, that was all I was planning to say - a big ‘Thank you’, and we could have finished the service a few minutes early after a nice, warm, and short sermon. But then the penny dropped - and then I realized that to let Benedict down, on this, his very first outing to church, and to let you down, as you meet him for the first time, would really be to sell him, you and me short. For we can’t read these words of celebration from the gospel without reminding ourselves why the man in question was rejoicing with his friends and neighbours. He was rejoicing, because he had found his sheep - the sheep that was lost. And, this morning of any morning, we forget that at our peril...
Hospitals are lonely places. Hospitals see more than their fair share of those who are lost. I realized with a new insight in the dark hours of the very early morning one week ago, that a Labour Ward sees quite a number of lost sheep. There were the Bulgarian couple (I think they were), in the bay opposite Alison and me, anxiously waiting for her to be taken down to theatre for a Caesarian Section, nervously comforting each other in a language that sounded very foreign to me. I was very glad that Alison and I weren’t in a hospital in Sofia, or another unknown city, waiting for a major operation, far away from our families and friends, and not knowing the language.
And earlier that same Sunday morning, a young girl had walked in to the Labour Ward, on the very brink of giving birth - a girl they had never encountered before, with no medical records or history. Alone in our town, frightened and vulnerable, and about to go through the most major event her young life had seen. Hospitals see a lot of lost sheep - it is partly in the nature of the kind of places they are, and I was just so glad, this time last week, that there was nothing lost about Alison and me, despite the life-changing events we were going through that day.
For lost sheep are all around of us, and we don’t just find them in hospitals. You know, churches are also the kind of places that attract lost sheep. Some of them are folk who drift in here on a weekday afternoon as Robert and John and I are getting ready for Evening Prayer. They hear the bell send out its message of prayer, and their own prayer is to step through these doors, with all their needs and hopes and anxieties. And some of the lost sheep, well, some of them are sitting here this morning.
On any Sunday morning, here in this large and well-attended parish church, we have some people joining us at worship who we don’t know that well, and who are nervous about stepping inside a building such as this, and who are anxious about what kind of experience they will have - will they be able to follow and understand and enjoy the service? Will anyone help them, or speak to them, or make them welcome? Will they sit in the wrong place? Will they take someone else’s seat?
And there are other lost sheep, whose faces you may know extremely well. They may be part of the flock you would assume, from the outside, weren’t lost at all - but inside, in their hearts and minds, they may be equally lost, anxious and looking for comfort. Even amongst those of us who you might call ‘the regulars’ that are sitting here this morning - even amongst those of you who have been coming here for decades, and who confidently greet other people and sit in the centre of the church - even amongst you, there will be the full range of human anxieties and vulnerabilities and worries and griefs and concerns. There will be those who need a particular kindly word or prayerful moment - but who won’t really know how to find it or who to ask for it.
And then, out there, there are more and more and more lost sheep. The sheep who are so lost, they’ve not even given us the head-start advantage of walking through our doors. The sheep of God’s flock who are so lost, they truly have no idea which way to turn, and who need help even to find the beating heart of pastoral concern that is this church community. The lost sheep who, as the shepherd of that parable knew only too well, need to be sought out in far distant places, and brought to a safe and loving home.
And which home is the home that’s safe and loving? Which is the home where people’s hurts can be dressed and cared for and attended to? Which is the home, and which the family, that will provide true welcome, and, indeed, true rejoicing? I hope you don’t need me to remind you that this is the home, and that we are the family.
And what would Benedict say? Well, this Benedict, if he could do more than to gurgle and cry and to feed, this Benedict would, I hope, add his thanks to those of Alison and mine for your wonderful kindnesses towards him and us. But I hope he would do more than that - I hope he would look you in the eye (and I do warn you that when he does so, you will be melted by the beauty of his gaze!), and he’d say, "Thank you for doing it for me - thank you for welcoming me and making me feel safe, and loved, and welcome and accepted. But what about that baby over there, and his mum and dad? Are they equally welcome? And what about that lonely-looking lady over there - is she welcome? And what about those babies, and mums and dads, and pensioners, and teenagers, and all the rest of them walking by outside these doors - can’t we welcome them in to come and join the party? Because it’s so lovely in here with all of you...."
Benedict - Benedict Michael Barrington - can’t say all that himself this morning, which may be just as well, as he’d probably break my heart if he did, let alone yours. But there was another, even more famous Benedict, who lived in the middle of the sixth century, and who had such a remarkable and profound understanding of how the Christian family ought to work that his influence has spread across the western church, and lives on today in countless monasteries around the world. And it was that Benedict, of course, who wrote in his Rule that All who arrive as guests are to be welcomed like Christ, for he is going to say, "I was a stranger and you welcomed me."... And, just to make it even more daunting, he went on to specify that Special care is to be shown in the reception of the poor and of pilgrims, for in them especially is Christ to be received.
Pastoral care - real pastoral care - and even a proper ministry of welcome on a Sunday morning that extends past the odd smile as we hand someone a hymnbook, but which lasts all the way through the service and through coffee, and which makes them want to come back next week and tell their friends about this amazing church they’ve discovered. Pastoral care for our church family, and the ministry of welcoming are demanding things. We are better than we used to be, but we are far, far from perfect. And there are some practical things we can do to help us get better at it, which I am going to make it a personal priority to push forward in the coming weeks. But today, on this special morning, as you rejoice with Alison and me as we have brought home - really and truly brought into this home that is yours and mine and Christ’s - as we have brought home young Benedict into this house and family of God - let us not just rejoice today and be unchanged tomorrow. Let this young Benedict be an icon to us - an image to us - of what the family of God in Christ is truly called to be and to do - and let us take our welcome and our rejoicing out to all who are lost, within this building and outside.
And then this little boy will have a heritage in which he can truly rejoice - rejoice with you and with all his friends, now and always. Amen.
Dominic Barrington, 16th September, 2007
