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Scripture Text (NRSV)
Matthew 10:40-42
10:40 "Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one
who sent me.
10:41 Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's
reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will
receive the reward of the righteous;
10:42 and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the
name of a disciple--truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward."
Comments:
steve souther
Friends, where I come from it's
called
hospitality. The symbols of welcome can
be seen
everywhere: pineapples and curved
together stairs.
There is a rich tradition of hospitality
in my
hometown, and it attracts people from
all over. I
drove a carriage one summer and gave
tours to
people. Never once did a car honk
because we were
going too slow. I even missed the green
lights
sometimes while engaged in a story.
Still, no
horns blared.
I wouldn't want to live in any other
city, yet
underneath the veneer of that
hospitality lies
something quite different. The full
depth of
hospitality needs a reservation that is
only open
to certain people. Others need not
apply. A bridge
is needed for them, one that requires a
tremendous
amount of will and resources to build.
it can only
begin, I'm thinking, with a group of
disciples who
demonstrate in their midst a different
kind of
welcome, one that is modeled by Jesus,
where the
'depths of welcome' are available to
even the poor
and the outsider and the ones who are
different...
those how have no reservation card.
pragmatic mystic
I love the reminder that whoever
welcomes us, (no
matter if we are friends or strangers,
of the same
faith or ethnicity or political
persuasion or not)
welcomes Jesus and by extension God. We
are not
required to convert them, to change them
to be
like us. That they offer welcome means
that they
have already accepted LOVE into their
hearts.
Rick in Canada, eh?
Hi all.
Sorry I've been away for a while.
Computer issues.
I've enjoyed your contributions, but
I've missed
the give and take!
So, about this text....
I think Pragmatic Mystic (love the name,
btw!) has
pointed toward something very important.
Crucial
even.
Note the language of these verses. This
is NOT a
sermon on being hospitable. This is a
reminder to
the disciples (and us!) that we are
always reliant
on the hospitality of others. We are
helpless
wanderers, and it is only because others
have
reached out to take care of us that we
are able to
do what we do.
Naturally, the ultimate Presence behind
all the
hospitality we have received is God in
Christ, and
yes, this will hopefully result in our
responding
by sharing hospitality as well.
But this particular passage is not about
that.
This passage is instead revealing the
starting
point, the beginning of what we are
about. That
is, God in Christ has welcomed us,
served us,
taken care of us. AND, God in Christ is
not done
doing this for us.
Every time someone offers us any kind of
hospitality, even just a glass of water,
this
passage reminds us to see that event as
part of
God's continuing care for us.
And if I were in the mood to go too far
(not that
that would even happen!), I might even
say that
the old phrase, "What we are is God's
gift to
us; what we become is our gift to God"
is
flat out contradicted by these verses.
We never
stop being cared for by God. We are
never in a
position of being able to give back.
Christ is always, always, always the
giver. We are
always, always, always the recipients.
Here endeth the rant. ;-)
steve souther
Friends,
I think we all of us have experienced,
at one
time or another, the truth in the last
line:
giving even a cup of cold water will not
result in
any loss. I think we actually gain
something by
giving.
Rick in Canada, eh?
Hi all.
Ok, let's dive in to the deep water.
Does anyone else see the homiletical
connection
between God's call to Abraham to
sacrifice his
promised, and promise-bearing, son, and
the
all-too-frequent call of the Nation to
sacrifice
OUR children on the altar of military
adventurism?
Or the all-too-frequent call of
financial lending
establishments to mortgage our future
for the sake
of some electronic trinket which will
consume even
more of our time and resources?
Or the all-too-frequent call of our
society's
obsession with success and winning and
prosperity
which insists that we blame the victims
of the
poverty we create to keep wages low and
benefits
non-existent? Naaaaa.
Let's just keep this safe and religious,
and
insist that God was trying to "teach
Abraham
a lesson." Right?
steve souther
Rick in Canada:
As you say, "Christ is always the
giver...and we are always the
recipients."
There is no question about this. You're
absolutely
correct in making this point.
But this has driven my sermon
preparation up
against the wall. I have been stopped in
my tracks
by these few lines from the gospel, and
I wondered
if anyone was going to break down this
barrier.
Maybe if I keep writing a crack will
form.
My greatest fear is to hear the comment
I got
some years ago: "Pastor, that was a good
sermon--- last week."
The homiletical work is like the
Egyptians
building the pyramids: They hauled the
very last
stone up to the top to make a point.
steve souther
Pragmatic Mystic: "...they offer
welcome
means that they have already accepted
LOVE into
their hearts."
I will second that motion.
The 'little ones' mentioned are, I
suppose, those
who can't offer anything in return for
this
welcome.
The opposite of welcoming is shunning,
which
has been used to punish and inflict deep
wounds.
Marriage partners (and entire
communities) know
this can be a lethal weapon. To offer a
welcome to
someone who has been publically shunned
is a
dangerous proposition. Think about it.
The
welcome, in order for to be truly
received as a
welcome, must be public. There is a kind
of death
involved for someone to extend this kind
of
welcome to a shunned individual. I think
of the
statement: "While we were yet sinners
Christ
died for us."
Accepting the love of Jesus moves us to
do this.
It is made real even as we die a little
because we
are willing to welcome one of those
'little ones'
who are, perhaps, shunned. We are
willing to be
shunned, in other words --a very real
kind of
death--on behalf of others.
When Jesus touched the leper he was
shunned by the
surrounding communities. That unclean
person
received a welcomed back into the
community
because of Jesus' touch. It all happened
because
Jesus was willing to be shunned.
Here ends the 'ramble.'
steve souther
Friends,
The welcome expressed here has
implications
far beyond anything we can see; it goes
all the
way to heaven. Jesus related this to the
final
judgment: "When you have done it unto
the
least of these..."
"A cup of cold water" --- The rich
man begged Abraham to send Lazarus to
"Dip
the end of his finger in water and come
cool his
tongue." Luke 16:24
Cold water is seen in that day as a
tremendous
blessing, bringing some relief to the
suffering.
We can take it, I believe, as a
metaphor.
pragmatic mystic
Thinking about giving. Seems to
me that unless we
(and God) are both givers and receivers,
unless
there is mutuality, we are not engaged
in the
practice of Love. The same for
hospitality. If
we only offer, but are never willing to
receive,
or if we only receive but never offer,
(even if
all we have to give or receive is a cup
of water)
then were are not engaging in the
practice of
Love.
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