A series of clipart images are included in this article/sermon which I believe are free to download and royalty free. The first, at the head of this article is a picture of a welcome mat.

People place welcome mats outside the front door of their houses. Do you have one? ….. I think they carry a mixed message, something like this: “It is nice to see you but please do wipe your feet before you come into my house!”

It conveys a sense that visitors are welcome if they …..?

A true welcome is really about greeting someone in a warm and friendly way. A few pictures to illustrate what we do to welcome people into our homes. …..

What things do we do when someone comes to our house to make them feel welcome?

Pretty much naturally, when we do welcome someone into our home we offer a warm drink, some biscuits, a comfy chair, a warm room, a welcoming smile and an invitation to return.

But, has anyone ever come to your house who you don’t want to welcome in? … Sometimes we get people selling us stuff we don’t want, or someone we find it difficult to likecomes to the door. I remember letting a bathroom salesman into my house and then spending the whole time he was there wishing I hadn’t.

Or what above a Jehovah’s Witness or a Mormon missionary….. Perhaps we keep them standing on the doorstep rather than let them in.

A challenging question for clergy might be what constitutes a true welcome be for the awkward and abusive homeless person on the vicarage doorstep?

How do you feel when someone you don’t want around is on your doorstep? Perhaps you feel a bit aggressive and defensive, or maybe mean, awkward, uncomfortable or even guilty, as you turn them away?

It’s not always easy welcoming some people into our homes, our places of work, our schools, or even our churches – is it?

Towards the end of our Gospel reading today, we heard about some people who were not made to feel welcome by Jesus’ disciples.

Jesus was teaching and people were bringing little children to have Jesus touch them. The disciples criticized the parents and told them to stop bringing their children to Jesus. When Jesus heard what his disciples were saying, he was very upset. “Let the children come to me and don’t stop them!” Jesus said. “The Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. Anyone who doesn’t come like a little child will never enter.” And the Gospel tells us, that Jesus took the children in his arms and blessed them.

Jesus really knew how to make a child feel welcome. Perhaps you might be able to imagine how those children must have felt when Jesus took them up in his arms and blessed them? That image – that we often see in stained glass windows in churches – of Jesus with the children in his arms is one that should reminds us to make everyone feel welcome like Jesus did!

The kind of welcome we offer to others is critical. It says so much about us. When we welcome people into our homes or into our churches, we are sharing something of ourselves with them, and in doing so we make ourselves vulnerable. Because, at times, our guests can ride rough-shod over our hospitality.

The temptation is to respond like the disciples – to try to exclude those who don’t understand our ways of doing things – and there are plenty of churches that do just that. To come to the main service in the church that I grew up in, you were expected to have a letter of introduction from another similar church before you could be part of the worship!

Some churches refuse to have baptisms in their main services – because the wider baptism party may disrupt their quiet worship. Some churches refuse to even make their building available to the community – a great sadness when those churches are the only large indoor community space available.

In our Gospel, Jesus models a response of loving welcome – an acceptance of the mess and the noise that goes with children being around, but a true acknowledgement that they have so much to offer us. This is the response that we are called on the make in our churches, not only to children, but to all who need the love of our Saviour – open, loving, vulnerable welcome!

Back to our welcome mat and that gallery of welcome pictures. …

What does our figurative welcome mat say to those who cross the threshold of the church for the first time? Is our welcome warm, open and true? Or is it grudging and perhaps motivated by fear that we will have to be different, to change, if we truly welcome them?

Do we do our best to extend that welcome – perhaps with a warm drink, something to eat, comfortable seating, a warm space, a welcoming smile and a heartfelt invitation to come again?

What does our figurative welcome mat say to people? Wipe your feet, clean yourself up, sort yourself out and come in – or does it really say that people are welcome as they are?

The God we worship worship week after week offers an open, inclusive welcome to all. God includes everyone without exception and God calls on us to do the same.