May 2022

“So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.  God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”

– 1 John 4:16

We have two baptisms coming up this month at the Raymond church, so I have been thinking about what it means to be welcomed into God’s family. Y’all have heard me say many times, “We believe Jesus would never turn anyone away, so neither do we.” But what do we really mean by that?

To me, it means that we would never tell anyone that God does not love or welcome them. It means we would never look at someone who came to sit in our pews and say, “You are not welcome here.” That is not part of our culture, nor is it part of our theology. We believe in God’s abundant love for all and we do our best to live out that love in our community. As Christians in a church, we are representatives of God and so it is our responsibility to do all we can to love people the way we believe God would love them, and thus to welcome them into God’s family with open arms.

Now, that doesn’t mean we lack boundaries or accountability. Certainly, if egregious harms were done, we would take steps to address them. But we believe - and we practice - the tenet that just because someone has done something bad, doesn’t make them a bad person. It makes them a person who made a bad choice, and sometimes there are consequences to those choices. As a people of faith, we can set up boundaries and practice accountability while still seeing each and every person as a beloved child of God.

My friends, what I know to be true about God and God’s family is that there is nothing we can do, say, or be that could make God love us any less. But there’s more to it than that. I sat next to a retired pastor on a plane a few months ago and he reminded me: “There is also nothing we can do, say, or be that could make God love us any more.”

So many of us try to earn God’s love by doing good. But the truth is: God loves and welcomes us simply because we exist! There is nothing we have to do to earn it. In his book, Everybody Always, Bob Goff writes, “The promise of love and grace in our lives is this: Our worst day isn’t bad enough, and our best day isn’t good enough. We’re invited because we’re loved, not because we earned it.”

When we baptize and welcome someone into God’s family, we are simply just affirming what God has already proclaimed: that they are a beloved child of God. As we baptize these beautiful children this month, may we remember that there is nothing they - or we - ever need to do to earn God’s love or a place in God’s family. We are worthy just as we are: today, yesterday, and tomorrow.

With love,

Pastor Kelsey