Hospitality is a bedrock of cultures and countries across the Middle East. Everywhere travellers go in the Middle East, they are overwhelmed by hospitality. This culture derives in part from the experience of nomadic peoples in desert landscapes where one had to travel significant distances to find water. To refuse travellers refreshment in such places would have been to let them die which would have threatened the openhandedness that nomadic peoples must depend on to survive. For Jews, Christians and Muslims, the story of Abraham receiving three travellers who turned out to be divine was key, as he was seen to have entertained angels unawares. This story is then contrasted with the sinful response of the people of Sodom to the same three travellers; instead of offering hospitality, the people of Sodom seek to abuse them.
The rabbis teach that Abraham left off a discussion with God to greet these guests when they arrived at his camp. He ran to greet them during the hottest day on record and served them the best food he could put together. Based on this example, the rabbis say that taking care of guests is greater than receiving the divine presence. The fundamental wickedness of Sodom was their hostility to vulnerable strangers and the violence they enacted on the innocent. The people of Sodom had a moral responsibility to offer protection and hospitality to vulnerable strangers, as all the ancient laws of the East demanded, and they stand in scripture as an example of extreme wickedness because they attacked and abused those they should have protected.
Jesus called his 12 disciples to an itinerant ministry which involved going ahead of him to prepare people for his coming and his message. As a result, they took nothing unnecessary with them, they weren’t distracted by small talk along the way, and they welcomed hospitality when they received it but simply moved on to the next place and the next person whenever they were not made welcome. We’ve been listening to and reflecting on the instructions Jesus gave to his disciples in our Gospel readings for the past couple of weeks (Matthew 10). This passage (Matthew 10.40-42) comes as the conclusion to Jesus’ teaching. His concluding words are all about the importance of welcome and they are, therefore, based on Middle-Eastern understandings of hospitality.
Before the disciples go Jesus warns that those who fail to welcome them are not only turning God’s messengers away from their homes and lives but God himself too. As he says, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me” and earlier, “Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” When the disciples return to him, he rejoices at the welcome which they have received and the sense that the Gospel has been received from “the diverse and motley group he has chosen as his associates.”
The emphasis in these passages is on the hospitality provided by others to Jesus’ disciples. We tend to think of ourselves as being called like them to take the good news of Jesus to others, so we naturally identify ourselves with the disciples in the passage and think about the response we receive from others when they know that we are Christians. But to really get the force and challenge of what Jesus is saying in this passage we have to put ourselves in the shoes of those the disciples went to and ask ourselves how well do we receive others? The challenge in this passage is about the quality of the welcome provided to others. The great sin here is to be inhospitable and to be inhospitable is actually to reject the divine in our lives.
So, how do we rate on that basis? We think of ourselves as a friendly, welcoming church but it’s important not rest on our laurels and instead ask ourselves how we can be more welcoming, more hospitable to those who come for the first time and those that we don’t know well. When we are here in church, let us make those people our priority, always seeking to speak first to those we don’t know, don’t know well or haven’t spoken to for some time.
Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York has written: "Nurturing a generous attitude of welcome to newcomers is something that needs to be worked at over many years … Welcome is not just what we do when someone comes through the door. It is an attitude which seeks to get inside the shoes of the other person so that they can be welcomed and accompanied at every point of their journey."
We get six mentions of welcome in the three verses that form today’s short reading which suggests the importance that welcome of others held for Jesus. We see this, too, in his teaching that we should love our enemies and bless those that curse us. We see it in his statement that those who feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked and visit those in prison are doing those things to Jesus himself. We see it, too, in his concern to be with those who were excluded from worship and society; those with disabilities, tax collectors, publicans, prostitutes and others. In Jesus, God became one with those who are rejected by others, but the rejected one became the cornerstone of our faith. The experience of Jesus provides a model for ministry. In Jesus, we see that God is most clearly seen among those who are marginalised or rejected (whether by Church or state) and, therefore, those on the edge are the gifts from God which have the most potential to renew us.
Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields says: ‘In his crucifixion [Jesus] was rejected by the builders – yet in his resurrection he became the cornerstone of forgiveness and eternal life. That’s what ministry and mission are all about – not condescendingly making welcome alienated strangers, but seeking out the rejected precisely because they are the energy and the life-force that will transform us all. Every minister, every missionary, every evangelist, every disciple should have these words over their desk, their windscreen, on their screensaver, in the photo section of their wallet, wherever they see it all the time – the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. If you’re looking for where the future church is coming from, look at what the church and society has so blithely rejected. The life of the church is about constantly recognising the sin of how much we have rejected, and celebrating the grace that God gives us back what we once rejected to become the cornerstone of our lives. That’s what prophetic ministry means.’
Whoever welcomes, welcomes Jesus and welcomes God. If we truly want to see and hear God, then all we need to do is to welcome those we encounter as we will see the face of God in them. God calls us not just to be those who follow him but also to be those sent out to prepare the way for him to come into the lives of others and challenges us, too, to be those who are always welcoming, always hospitable towards others.
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Little Richard - Great Gosh A'Mighty.
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