Readings: Genesis 22:1-14 Matthew 10:40-42
Let us
pray: God of grace, be with us we pray
as we listen, reflect and respond to your word for us. May we be challenged and strengthened in the
way of Jesus, to your great purpose. Amen.
The fire and the
wood are here, says Isaac to his dad, but where is the lamb for the burnt
offering? His father couldn’t quite meet his eyes for he knew the answer.
This is a
difficult reading at first (and second) glance – just another example of the
barbarity and violence of the Hebrew Scriptures would be a common
response. And as I wanted to concentrate
rather more on the Gospel reading today, I wondered what, if any, connection,
teaching we find in this Old Testament passage to the words of welcome and
reward of the Matthew reading?
And let’s not explain it away. Far be it for me to decide that Abraham was
responding to some self-concocted fantasy of God’s wishes or that it was of
another age and therefore must be ignored.
A colleague
commented that Abraham got an A+ for his test on obedience but we can imagine
that he failed relationship 101 – Sarah – can you imagine when she heard, and
Isaac – today he would have a counsellor at the very least and might not have
been too keen on heading off again with his father into the wilderness.
Seriously
though, what is it that we can learn from this reading? One thing for me stands out quite
strongly. I hear a mature man of God
being taught that, with God at his side, he could venture into the most
unimaginably horrific scenarios and trust his God to be present and working in
that moment. I wonder if we all too
often forget that God is in control here. So let us hold that thought as we
explore the Gospel reading for today.
Three short
verses from Matthew – 6 times we hear the word ‘welcome’ and 3 times
‘reward’. Most translations use welcome,
others ‘receive’, another ‘accept.’
I invite you to
listen to the same verses as written in The Message bible – you may find this
helpful:
“We are intimately
linked in this harvest work. Anyone who accepts what you do, accepts me, the
One who sent you. Anyone who accepts what I do accepts my Father, who sent me.
Accepting a messenger of God is as good as being God’s messenger. Accepting
someone’s help is as good as giving someone help. This is a large work I’ve
called you into, but don’t be overwhelmed by it. It’s best to start small. Give
a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of
giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won’t lose out on a
thing.”[1]
This creates some different thinking doesn’t
it? It challenges us to figure out what
exactly is meant by welcome and reward for a start.
Welcome is one of
those words that has been firmly drilled into us – we are to be a welcoming
people, offer what we have and who we are to strangers. But is this what Jesus means? Well yes certainly. But not the whole meaning. Whether we are welcoming someone into our
church or our family or our work place, our club, we are inviting them into our
place. A place where we know how things
work and where we can be gracious in the midst of familiarity and relative
control, on our terms so to speak. You could say that it is our hospitality and
welcome that we are offering. And
sometimes we can get it very wrong –I’ve been to churches where no-one has
talked to me, greeted me, engaged with me.
I’m sure we all have and that begs the question that maybe we have also
been the people that, unintentionally, haven’t always welcomed well
either.
But not perhaps
like this story of a theologian researching a book and, having gone to a
Presbyterian church in Northern Ireland, was impressed by the team of two
greeting strangers at the door. They
invited conversation, asked some questions and especially asked for first
names. But she quickly realised it
wasn’t a desire to get to know you but rather an interview and if your name
fell into the obvious categories of Catholic names, like Maria and Catherine
and Patrick, they were told they were surely in the wrong place and were sent
on their way. Welcome – I don’t think
so. That is not what is meant by being
welcomed or giving a cup of water to those who are thirsty
When Jesus speaks
of welcome, he is asking more of us that even our very best practices - and
offering more too. Jesus is asking us to
accept others in the same way he has welcomed us, in the name of God. We are to greet the stranger not just with
the welcome of hands and hearth but fully with the expansive extravagant
hospitality of Jesus. And that asks
immeasurably more of us. This might well
mean that we are to be hospitable, welcoming, away from our place. It means putting ourselves into other people’s
places of need, not expecting them to come to us. It means accepting it will be out of our
control and firmly in the control and presence of God. There is that Abraham link.
What might it mean
for us?
I heard a story
last week of someone who is engaging in conversation (mostly listening) with a
hurting person who is on the very fringes of our traditional way of being
church. They believe in God but not much
the church. No way would they find their
way to our door, or our homes. They need
us to go to them, to take Jesus welcome to them in a way that they feel safe –
and that may well make us feel comparatively unsafe.
We do have to
remember, though, that practicing welcome in in Jesus name is definitely less
predictable, more of an unknown than accepting people into our familiar spaces
and practices - neither does it hold out any certainties. Jesus speaks often of the tribulations of
ministry. But we also know that in every
experience of care, of reaching out, of seeking to be people of the way of
Christ, God’s grace continues to work long after we have gone, in those we meet
and in ourselves.
This is a
compassionate welcoming where it is needed – a hospitality that goes where it
is needed. More than that, it encourages
the new, the unfamiliar and the unknown. It takes us new places. It opens up
our world views and perspectives as well as our hearts and souls. It’s a two way street. So is this the reward that Jesus talks about
– where, when we offer welcome in Jesus name, we too are deeply affected, we
are both servants and served, we give and we receive.
So as we gather
around the table this morning, we remember again that we are a people who are
welcomed by Jesus in all our shapes and hues to share food together, to
remember that as we are accepted and loved so we are to offer that to those we
meet. Then, as Eugene Peterson puts it,
we are intimately linked with God’s purpose, we are living that love in the
smallest act of giving or receiving and we are gifted as well as gifting in
every encounter. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Margaret Garland
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