All People Really are Welcome – 9 May, 2021

John 15:9-17

Human metaphors for God necessarily fail to convey the full richness of God’s love for us, and certainly fathering and mothering images, while among the richest we have in scripture. . . are nonetheless far from perfect. And so the image of friend, and particularly the mature friendship between a parent and an adult child, is one that more adequately comprehends our human experience of faith as well as God’s expectations of us as mature children loved by and loving of our heavenly Parent/God.

Is it too much of a stretch to think that the church itself as Jesus’s continuing band of disciples might profit from adding the metaphor of friendship to its various “models of the church,” as Avery Dulles once termed them [in Models of the Church, 1978]. At least it provides an alternative to the too often cloying metaphors of church as “family” or worse, “family system,” which seem to dominate our practical theology.

A fellow seminary classmate recently sent me the results of his sabbatical project, in which he surveyed and interviewed his fellow alums regarding the impact of friendships on their ministry. Particularly striking was the strong yearning on the part of his colleagues in ministry for friendship and yet a strong sense of their being underachievers in establishing and enjoying a wide and deep network of friends. His strong conclusion was that learning to nurture friendship is a practice that pastors need to master for their own professional and personal well-being.–– John Rollefson

1 John 5:1-6

This love that we extend, God’s love, is the kind of love that breaks down barriers and calls outsiders to be insiders. It is the kind of love that brings healing, and liberates those who are held captive. This is the kind of love that solidifies friendships and encourages communities of wholeness. Communities that cultivate friendships based on mutual love provide the sustaining power needed to persevere in our Christian walk through hard times as well as good times.

When was the last time you befriended someone that did not look like you, live where you live, or talk like you talk? When was the last time you felt a surge of energy because you offered hospitality with no expectation in return, but were surprised by inward overwhelming joy? The songwriter said it best: “Love lifted me, love lifted me, when nothing else could help, love lifted me!” –– Christ L. Brady

Acts 10:44-48

The Roman lectionary situates this reading [about the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch who was a gentile] within the story of Peter’s visit to Cornelius in Caesarea. It also reports that Peter stated that he now recognized God’s love for all peoples. Both lectionaries include the report that while Peter was speaking to Cornelius’s household the Holy Spirit descended on all present. The Jewish followers of Jesus were astonished that gentiles were filled with the Spirit. Peter then recognized that since God sent the Spirit, there was no reason that the members of Cornelius’s household should not be baptized with water immediately. Peter ordered that these gentiles were to be baptized in Jesus’s name. Peter and his companions stayed with Cornelius for a few days. –– Regina Boisclair

Regina Boisclair, a Roman Catholic biblical scholar, teaches at Alaska Pacific University, Anchorage, Alaska.

Chris L. Brady is lead pastor of Wilson Temple, United Methodist Church, Raleigh, North Carolina.

John Rollefson, a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has served congregations in Los Angeles, Ann Arbor, Milwaukee, and San Francisco.

Homily Service 42, no. 2 (2008): 146-153.