We welcome you, O Christ

We welcome you, O Christ our Lord;

            We lift our praise in one accord.

We give you thanks in everything;

            We honor you as now we sing.

 

Yet your own word has called us out;

            The very welcome that we shout

Is called in question – doubt, indeed – 

            By how we turn from those in need.

 

The hungry stranger at our door,

            The one who scrubs our dirty floor,

The migrant, homeless; yes, our call

            Is always to receive them all.

 

While we your church have argued loud

            For power, for strength, for status proud,

You welcome these whom we’ve reviled

            As once you welcomed one small child.

 

Recall us to true welcome, Lord, 

            That all in you may be restored

To health and hope in everything,

            And we true praise to you might bring.

 

 

Text: Charles Spence Freeman, September 2021, after Mark 9:30-37.

Music: Suggested tune ROCKINGHAM, Second Supplement to Psalmody in Miniature, 1783; harm. Edward Miller, 1790.

A cursory reading of the indicated lectionary passage will make clear this is no close paraphrase; it is perhaps best described as a response, perhaps with some repentance about it, to that passage and Jesus's instruction to the disciples in it.