“The Death of the Hired Man” by Robert Frost is an extraordinary poem. In a deceptively simple narrative style, it relates the discussion between a farmer and his wife over whether to offer shelter to the itinerant labourer whose work has been somewhat unsatisfactory in the past.
Silas has arrived at their doorstep, “a miserable sight — and frightening too”. Warren is unwilling to offer him employment again, but Mary’s kind heart won’t allow him to turn away a man who has “nothing to look backward to with pride and nothing to look forward to with hope”. She believes that he has “come home to die”, which feeling gives rise to the well known phrases: “Home is the place where, when you have to go there They have to take you in,” and “I should have called it Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.” Warren is persuaded to offer Silas work in order to keep his pride, but this offer is redundant: Silas, worn out by life and aware of reaching sanctuary at last, has died.
In a strange, lyrical way, this poem sums up the joy and the challenge of the “welcoming church”: the grace-filled obligation to accept in Jesus’s name every person who seeks entry to the worshipping community, no matter who they are or what they might believe. Every church leader, I suspect, secretly prides themselves on their welcoming attitude to stranger and seasoned churchgoer alike, and, if we are occasionally troubled by a feeling that perhaps not everyone feels instantly “at home”, then how easy it is to reassure ourselves that the fault lies, if not with the congregation, then certainly with one or two trickier members of it.
Enter the mystery worshipper….
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