This spring I was standing in the front entryway at church when I looked down and noticed a little green sprout peeking out from a joint between window and floor…reaching a long, single stem into the rotunda…inside the building!

It’s since been removed…as I suppose is appropriate…but it made me smile. That tenacious little living thing had found its way through the cracks and up back into the sunlight again at the entrance to our building.

That plant found itself a place here. And worked hard for it, too.

I hope most of us don’t have to work that hard to carve out our places in this church community. I hope that we also have a desire to make a place hear for others that can match the tenacity of that little plant looking to find its place.

Some of us come here ready to make our way. Ready to claim our place. Confident. Some of us are probably not so sure…not so sure there will be a place for us here…or maybe even whether we want one. Maybe another church in our past made us feel like there wasn’t a place for us. Or maybe we feel our beliefs, our personal style, our priorities…don’t fit the church the way we usually see it.

But, when we look to follow in the way of Christ, we see how he offers a place and a purpose to each and every person…misfits, wanderers, and outsiders very much included. When we receive the sacrament of Holy Communion, it is with the words, “for you.” In this astonishing gift and calling, we have a guiding principle for our whole lives.

How do we live in a way that says to everyone, “There is a place here for you?” This is much more than living with a general well-disposed-ness towards everyone and everything. We can greet one another with a kind smile, for sure…but it goes so much deeper, too. Where have you been offered Christ’s welcome and love that goes so much deeper than a basic kindness? Where have you felt heard and seen…like you truly have a place? Not just because “all are welcome”…but because there is a welcome tailor made and ready for you, in your particular-ness? How can we continue to live and shape our life together so we can believe for ourselves and say to others, “There is a seat at God’s table with your name on it?” Because there is. There is a place. For you.

Thanks be to God!

Pastor Carolyn