The Magazine

In the biblical law books, particularly Deuteronomy, the clear command to welcome and care for strangers and aliens comes from the mouth of God. In the Gospels, Jesus could take it for granted that when he sent his disciples out to exercise ministry and proclaim the good news of the Kingdom, they would be offered hospitality wherever they went. His own teaching puts the welcome offered by God to all at its centre.

When I planned the carving of different lines of poetry into flagstones at various entrance points onto the cathedral green in Exeter, the one that spoke most to me was George Herbert’s Love Bade Me Welcome. The words are the first half-line of a poem that designates ‘God’ simply as ‘Love’ and speaks about a gentle insistence that, despite all the poet’s attempts to resist the generous welcome he is offered, brings him to a simple and thankful acceptance of the welcome that God is offering.

Those four words inscribed on the back of the pectoral cross I wear most of the time is a reminder to myself that this welcome by God, who is love, is at the heart of what he offers to us all.

Last year the three bishops of the Diocese began a series of deanery pilgrimages which will take us round each deanery of the Diocese over three years. They are part of the Mission Strategy leading up to 2021. Together with the rural dean we aim to travel around the deanery during the course of a day, mostly out in the wider community; we seek to serve and to offer God’s blessing on a wide variety of people, institutions and places. We go to each other’s deaneries, rather than the ones for which we have prime responsibility.

I have just spent a day in Norwich South and returned to one of its parishes for the Sunday which effectively gave me the weekend there. We started by blessing three to four hundred ‘park runners’ as they set off for their weekly 5k run around Eaton Park, blessed several local shops around Earlham and Heigham – even a Muslim barber’s shop where I had my hair cut as well, two community centres and a regular jazz session in the sanctuary: all places that in various ways offered a welcome within their local communities.

Perhaps the most unexpected was the opportunity to rejoice with and bless several hundred students at the UEA as they prepared to ‘Pimp Their Barrows’, fundraising for The Big C in an array of different costumes. The whole day was redolent with different ways of living out what it means to be a welcoming community and the blessing that can bring.

The welcome that we offer (and that we learn to receive) is a key part of the blessing God seeks to give to his whole creation. It is one of the most important parts of our witness to love.