The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 8A
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Helena/West Helena
June 28, 2026
“When is the last time you experienced kindness, and what was that like?”
My husband and I were eating dinner the other night when he asked me that question (that had been asked of him by a mindfulness app on his Apple watch!): “When is the last time you experienced kindness, and what was that like?”
I reflected on a recent trip when my hosts had left me soy milk (I’m mostly vegan), homemade granola, and honey collected from their beehives out behind their home. Each piece of that early Sunday morning breakfast gift was seeped in kindness, in hospitality, in welcome.
It made me realize that welcome and kindness are intimately connected.
So, my husband could have just as easily asked: “when is the last time you truly felt welcomed? And what was that like?”
Think about that question for a minute: “when is the last time you truly felt welcomed? And what was that like?” (Just a heads up to the vestry…I’m going to invite y’all to share your responses to this question when we meet later, if you are willing.)
In our gospel reading for today, we see the end of chapter 10 in Matthew’s gospel, which we began reading three weeks ago. If you’ll recall, Jesus has been travelling all around his home region of Galilee, and Matthew says that he has seen the crowds and “he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” So he summons his disciples and then spends the rest of the chapter teaching them, preparing them to go out in pairs to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of heaven, to “Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.” He warns them that this work they will be doing will be divisive, and will get them into trouble with their families and the authorities, and he assures them that God will be with them, providing them with what they need. And then we get to the part from today, the part about welcome. Jesus concludes his teaching to his disciples saying, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me…”.
So, what does that mean? What does it look like to welcome Jesus, to welcome God, and to welcome the ones who Jesus sends? I was delighted when I received your service bulletin for this week to discover something I hadn’t noticed before, but I’m sure y’all have already made this connection: y’all actually have the word “welcome” in your mission statement that’s at the end of your bulletin!
St. John’s Episcopal Church Mission Statement: “To know God, love God, and serve God; By welcoming all, loving all, and serving all.” (That’s a great mission statement, by the way!)
So I wondered since welcome is so important that you included it in your mission statement, what have been the hallmarks of welcome for you here? Certainly part of why I am here with y’all today is to recognize the welcome, the mutual kindness you have shared with Father Hayden as he has cared for y’all, and y’all for him in these last months. And of course, part my work today with the vestry is to be a touchpoint for them and y’all as you prepare to welcome your new rector-Father Ryan Boyce. (I can’t wait to hear what all y’all have planned!).
As I’ve been reflecting on this notion of welcome this week, there were two different things I read that I found helpful. The first is from a daily meditation by the Franciscan priest Richard Rohr. This is from Wednesday, where Rohr writes about his time founding a vibrant community for youth in the early years of his ministry. He writes, “I believe we must be free to say ‘yes’ before we say ‘no’ but most of us aren’t that free. Our first response is normally dualistic, negative, and probably even fear based. We often respond initially with something like: ‘I don’t trust that. I don’t like that. I don’t want that.’ [He concludes,] The word ‘yes’ before ‘no’ allows for some enthusiasm…which means ‘filled with God.’”[ii]
This is an interesting complement to our consideration around what welcome looks like and how we welcome Jesus, God, and those who Jesus sends us. What if welcome is a saying ‘yes’ to the other in ways that go deeper than superficial circumstances? What might that look like? How might that challenge us as people of faith?
The other thing I read this week was by the writer Kate Bowler, who is a professor at Duke Divinity School. Bowler writes a weekly blog post on Substack that I read, and this week, I re-read her post from May 20 titled: Joyful, Porous. In this post, Bowler is reflecting on an interview she had with the former archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and she writes about a notion the two of them discuss in her interview: that is the spiritual practice of being porous.
Now, what does that mean? Bowler references Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor’s work about this, writing: “Charles Taylor describes two very different ways of being a person. The first he calls the porous self. The porous self has a permeable boundary—no firm wall between the inner life and the world outside. Meaning, grace, beauty, the divine, even sorrow can cross into you from elsewhere. Taylor calls this self vulnerable, and he means it as a description, not an insult. You are open to forces you did not generate. When joy arrives, it visits you. When suffering comes, it may be coming from somewhere larger than your own circumstances. The porous self is not the master of its own experiences with the world. And (mostly) this is experienced as a relief. You do not have to manufacture meaning to be living a deeply important life. Meaning comes to you.”
She continues, “The second he calls the buffered self. The buffered self is sealed. It is the self we have all been trained to become—the one who tracks her sleep, optimizes her morning, journals her gratitude, and audits her own progress at the end of every week. Meaning is something this self has to generate from inside its own walls. Significance is something it has to manufacture. Nothing reaches it unless it has scheduled the appointment. This sounds like freedom, and in some ways it is. But it also means that the entire weight of your life is yours to carry, alone, with the tools you happen to have. The buffered self is self-made…and it is very, very, very tired.”[iii]
I think this distinction between a porous self and a buffered self, and the spiritual practice of initially saying “yes” instead of initially saying “no” are both found at the heart of what it means to offer and experience true welcome. They are at the heart of what Jesus is saying about welcoming him, welcoming God, and welcoming those who he sends us and those he sends us out to.
When I go back to reflect about what it was about those simple gestures of hospitality—the soy milk and homemade granola, and backyard honey—were so profoundly welcoming to me, I think it is because they are manifestations of this porous life. Of offering true, authentic pieces of ourselves in an attempt to meet someone where they truly are.
Your invitation this week is to think about how you are being invited to offer welcome out of your porous self? Where are you being invited to say “yes” first instead of saying “no”? What does welcome really look like and mean to you as a community, and how is going inviting you all to embody that in this new season?
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