November 15, 2024
After finding some inexpensive off-season plane tickets, my son Aidan and his wonderful girlfriend, Kira, are traveling in Europe right now. They're away for two weeks and Ireland was their first destination. Shortly after touching down, Kira texted to let us know they were safe and sound, and heading off to explore. She included in her text this little interaction they had shortly after landing in Dublin:
Aidan went to the rental car counter to check in and they asked for his last name. When Aidan said "McNally'" the man at the counter looked up and said, "Welcome home."
For reasons I cannot quite explain, hearing this story brought tears to my eyes. It may have been imagining Aidan's connections to his Irish ancestors, and how those bonds cross time and space. But even more simple than that, I think my tears were just acknowledging the tender beauty of belonging, and the grace of a warm welcome. Especially meaningful at a time the world feels like it's leaning toward the unkind and unwelcoming.
Every single one of us needs a place to belong. A place to be seen and heard, celebrated and loved. I believe that when we each cross the veil we will be greeted by God with the most wonderful "Welcome home" we could imagine. But before that time, belonging right here and now matters too. Jesus offered us countless examples of inclusion and welcome, and we are called to draw our circles wide the way he did. To this end, I was grateful and proud last weekend when the ECMN passed two resolutions, at our annual convention, regarding how we as a church will continue to welcome people of refugee status: with dignity, protection, and care. Our baptismal covenant insists on nothing less. Jesus insists on nothing less.
My prayer for you this week is to know the warmth and grace of belonging. I pray you each feel this at Saint Anne's, where you (yes, you!) are part of the very fabric of belonging. And I pray you feel it in your soul, wherever you find yourself. That you, just as you are, belong. A beloved child of God. Then I pray you take your own belonging and use it to welcome others into the circles we will only draw wider and wider. Because "Welcome home" might be two of the most God-like words we can say to one another.