Scriptures: Romans 6:15-23
Matthew 10:40-42
Today we’re looking at the flip side of what we were talking about last week. You’ll recall (those of you who were here) that last week’s focus was hell, and specifically how we can often be hell for one another – using Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous line “Hell is other people” as our jumping off point. But we also said, you’ll remember, that heaven can be other people, too – and I want to take off from that insight in terms of where today’s scriptures take us.
These brief three verses from the 10th chapter of Matthew certainly find Jesus in a welcoming mood: “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” This mood is all the more surprising when you realize that this passage comes right after the harsh and condemnatory lines: “…I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother…and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.” Sounds like Jesus had been taking cranky pills, doesn’t it? So, maybe he felt he had to soften the blow and try to show his disciples how to be more welcoming.
But, of course, that’s not really what’s going on here, is it? This isn’t about Jesus’ mood swings or trying to soft-pedal the gospel message. As in so many places where Jesus is instructing the disciples, this is about what it is like to be in a kind of living death (hell) or in a state of grace (salvation). Paul is picking up on exactly this theme in Romans when he speaks about being slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness – that is, as Paul says, being “enslaved to God”. We’ll come back to that.
These verses in Matthew 10 have a certain familiar ring to them. They sound a lot like what we’ll hear in a much fuller treatment in the 25th chapter – you remember, that familiar passage about the sheep and the goats where Jesus says: “for I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you welcomed me; I was naked and you gave me clothing; I was sick and you took care of me; I was in prison and you visited me.” As in this passage, the question the disciples had was, “When did we do this?” – you can almost hear the astonishment in their voices; none of them had ever found the master in any of these kinds of situations. Jesus is to be found in the other. And again here he says, with such a sense of gentleness in his voice, “…and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple…..” We can certainly identify with the need to provide a cup of cold water after the last few weeks of temperatures in Las Vegas, can’t we?
Jesus is to be found in the other. One of my favorite inspirational stories is Henry Van Dyke’s “The Story of the Other Wise Man”, written in 1896, which many know as “The Fourth Wise Man” (it was made into a movie with that title in 1985, starring Martin Sheen as Artaban, the magi). I was fortunate enough to act in a dramatization of it in college. In Van Dyke’s fiction Artaban has foreseen the birth of Jesus and sells all that he owns in order to purchase three precious jewels – a sapphire, a pearl, and a ruby -- to bring to the Messiah. He hurries to join his three friends, but at a rest stop he sees a beggar who is about to die. Artaban stays to minister to him, selling his sapphire in the process to give him aid. This act causes him to miss his three friends and the journey to Bethlehem. But he is determined to find the new-born king, and so he journeys from Bethlehem to Egypt and back to Israel often just missing him. Along the way he discovers a camp of lepers, and using his second jewel – the pearl -- he stays for many years to minister to them – healing them and teaching them to become self-sufficient. Then, toward the end of his life Artaban has one last chance to see Jesus before he dies, but he arrives in Jerusalem after Jesus has already been arrested. Hurrying toward Golgotha he sees a young girl being carried away to be sold into slavery, and despite the fact that it means he will have no gift to give the king he uses his last stone, a ruby, to bribe the soldier and free the girl. As the old Artaban lies dying, thinking his life a failure, he hears a voice repeating the words of Matthew 25 – “as you did it to one of the least of these” – and knows that he has indeed served his Lord.
This is a fine fictional illustration of the meaning of Matthew 25, and while the 1st century setting and the use of wealth in the form of precious jewels perhaps make it difficult for us to identify with Artaban’s actions, we can perceive through this story why Jesus wants us to see him in the other.
One way to do this is, in what is perhaps now an old-fashioned term, to practice hospitality. You remember the story of Abraham and Sarah after they left their comfortable home to wander in a desert wilderness before they come to the Promised Land. It is a beastly hot day, and Abraham is trying to avoid the midday sun by sitting under the shade of the tent's opening. Suddenly Abraham sees three humans approaching almost from out of nowhere.
Now imagine you're in Abraham's shoes, out in the middle of nothing, and three strangers suddenly appear before you. Most of us would probably be sizing up these folks intently. "Friend or foe?" we'd be asking ourselves, looking for any cue. "Is there anything familiar? Anything comfortable that can relieve my anxiety? Are there hostile or friendly looks on their faces? What kind of backup do I have if they are not friendly? How far away is the phone and 911?" Those might be some of thoughts rushing through our minds. But Abraham apparently has none of those.
The story tells that as soon as he sees them, he leaps to his feet, rushes toward them, bows low and insists, "Sires, if I have deserved your favor, do not pass by my humble self without a visit. Let me get you some water to wash your feet and a little food to eat. I would be most honored if you spend some time with me before you continue your journey." At that point Abraham rushes inside the tent and directs Sarah to make a generous portion of breads. Then he runs out to his herd and chooses the finest calf to be boiled in milk. Abraham himself serves the strangers as they eat in the shade of a tree. And then the strangers reveal themselves to Abraham as angels and say to him: "About this time next year, we will be back this way, and Sarah will have a son."
This story is echoed in the book of Hebrews in the New Testament which says, in the Revised Standard Version translation: “Do not neglect to show hosp-itality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” (13:2)
When CBS launched the show “Touched By an Angel” in the fall of 1994 it had very little enthusiasm for a program that network executives saw as “too soft”, “too religious”, and not something that very many in the TV audience would relate to. But the response was astonishing, as a wide variety of people resonated with the idea that there may be “angels unawares” relating to us. Perhaps in part this response was driven by a sense of self-interest -- an angel might just be available to help me out of my difficulty – but I would like to think that another part of that response was that people were hungering to be able to entertain angels unawares – to offer the kind of hospitality to others, as Jesus teaches us, and as Abraham did, which just might mean that we are offering it to angels.
That wonderful spiritual guide, Henri Nouwen, a Dutch Roman Catholic priest, reflects on hospitality, strangers, and angels in these poetic words:
“In our world the assumption is that strangers are a potential danger and that it is up to them to disprove it. When we travel we keep a careful eye on our luggage; when we walk the streets we are aware of where we keep our money; and when we walk at night in a dark park our whole body is tense with fear of an attack. …
“When we have become sensitive to the painful contours of our hostility we can start identifying the lines of its opposite toward which we are called to move: hospitality. …
“Hospitality … means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines. It is not to lead our neighbor into a corner where there are no alternatives left, but to open a wide spectrum of options for choice and commitment. It is not an educated intimidation with good books, good stories and good works, but the liberation of fearful hearts so that words can find roots and bear ample fruit. It is not a method of making our God and our way into the criteria of happiness, but the opening of an opportunity to others to find their God and their way. The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free; free to sing their own songs, speak their own languages, dance their own dances; free also to leave and follow their own vocations. Hospitality is not a subtle invitation to adopt the life style of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find his (or her) own.” (from Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life; pp. 71-72)
We cannot see God. And yet we know that God is always and forever present. So, to practice hospitality – which is another way of saying: do something for someone else – is to do it knowing that God sees our action, that God affirms we are doing it in the name of and for the sake of Jesus the Christ.
These kinds of actions have consequences on the human level as well. Last week in conjunction with understanding the reality of hell in our lives we talked about the anger and violence that is afoot in our culture, and how focusing on this aspect of human life often leads to a sense of hopeless cynicism. But when we find it in us to perform some kindness, some healing act, some self-sacrificing act of giving we help ourselves and others overcome this kind of cynicism.
There was a movie eight years ago called “Pay It Forward”, with Haley Joel Osment as a young student who is given a social studies assignment to find a way to change the world. He decides to do three good deeds for three different people and then tell them to “pay it forward”. Trevor is trying to change the world by performing what people came to call “random acts of kindness.” The idea was that as people were recipients of these unmerited acts of goodness, they would in turn do the same for others, and in so doing, transform the world. Initially, this idea is met with the kind of cynicism we might expect, until a reporter (who was a recipient of one of these “random acts of kindness”) traces back the origin of the idea. The whole idea, and indeed the way the movie portrays it, seems somewhat sappy…..until you begin to feel the cumulative power of how people’s lives can be changed by even the smallest act of kindness and self-service. These are what we mean by signs of hope.
A similar kind of hopefulness is at play in our scripture from Matthew. This passage is part of a much larger commissioning of the disciples that takes up most of Chapter 10. Jesus has issued a call to the disciples to follow him and to take up his work, and he sends them out into the mission field with very particular instructions about where they are to go and what they are to do. And while they have all voluntarily accepted the duty, he does not sugarcoat the call. He warns them about how hard it is going to be; he promises them that they are going to meet up with plenty of opposition. Jesus’ lengthy instructions raise the possibilities of division and treachery, and even death. But the disciples are not sent out without any word of encouragement. The disciples Jesus called into service are told that they will find people who will hear their words and respond to them. They are told that they will meet up with people who will receive them and welcome them, and it will be the same as if these joyful souls had welcomed Jesus himself.
I said we’d come back to Paul in Romans and what he means by being freed from sin and enslaved to God. Paul puts it in terms like “sanctification” and “eternal life”, but what these esoteric theological phrases boil down to is that when we find ourselves bound to God through Jesus Christ and thus in covenant one with another such things as random acts of kindness flow so naturally that we hardly know we are doing them. But the world sees. And so does God. Just as eternal hell is defined by selfishness and separation, so eternal life with our God is defined right here and right now as a life of caring that is so second nature to us that we act without having to think about it. “Enslaved to God”? Has a negative ring to it, doesn’t it? But if we interpret Paul to mean that we are surrounded by a God who is constantly moving us to acts of kindness that are not, after all, quite so random in the name of Jesus, then it is a slavery – a servanthood, really – to be welcomed with joy – just as we welcome the stranger. Perform acts of kindness this day and every day and so proclaim to the world that our God is alive!
Amen.
Dave Pomeroy
First Congregational Church, UCC
Las Vegas, NV
June 29, 2008