“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?”

Matthew 10:40-42

Fritz Bogar: The theme of hospitality runs through the entire Bible, coloring everything with the call laid upon the faithful to open themselves to the needy and the alien, even at the risk of themselves.

David F. Watson: Hospitality would signal welcome not simply of the Christian, but of Jesus and the vision of God he represented. At stake, then, was not simply a cold cup of water or a place to stay for the night, but the success of the Christian mission.

[prayer]

The generic theme of today’s text is Biblical hospitality. Running like a thread through all of Scripture is God’s demand to extend hospitality to the stranger.

Today’s text is linked very closely with the Parable of the Last Judgment contained in Matthew 25:31-46. More often than not we interpret that parable in terms of a generic ministry of compassion to all who are in need: Christians, non-Christians, friends, family, strangers, and enemies. Within the overall context of Scripture such a generic interpretation is appropriate. As God is compassionate even so should we, his people, be compassionate.

But both today’s text and the parable speak to a more specific kind of hospitality. The close connection between those two texts is found in two similar phrases: “the little ones” of 10:42 and “the least of these” in 25:40. Those “little ones” and “least of these” refer not just to anyone, but specifically to the missionary-disciples of Jesus: those called and sent out by Jesus as part of his earthly ministry in Judea and those commissioned by him in Matthew 28 to go into the whole world and make disciples.

This connection is made very clear by Robert Obach and Albert Kirk as they deal with 25:31-46: “The entire Gospel has been preparing the reader for the criteria of judgment given here: deeds of love, compassion, mercy, and forgiveness.

Nevertheless, there is a surprising feature in this description of the final judgment. The Son of Man has identified himself with his followers. Those who were hungry and were fed, those who were strangers and were received into homes, these were the disciples Jesus sent out as missionaries. The disciples of Jesus were the ones hungry, sick, thrown into prison, and in need of clothing. Recall the instructions Jesus gave to his disciples as he commissioned them to share in his ministry [in chapter 10]. They were sent without money, without an extra shirt, even without shoes [according to verses 9-10]. [In verses 13-14] they were told to stay in the homes that welcomed them and to move on if they were not received. Jesus issued a severe warning concerning the people who refuse to listen to them: ‘On Judgment Day God will show more mercy to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah than to the people of that town’. Now that day of judgment has come. Jesus had said [in verse 17] that his missionaries would be arrested and taken to court. Those who visited them in prison, visited him [according to 25:36]… in that missionary discourse [in Matthew 10] Jesus identified himself with his missionary-disciple…

Matthew tells us that all the people of the world, whether Christian, Jew, or Gentile, will be judged on the basis of how each person responds to the needs of the disciple-missionary of Jesus! Audacious. Incredible. Yet that is what Matthew teaches and it is in complete harmony with his entire account of the Good News of Jesus. Matthew sees every believer as a disciple, and every disciple is seen as a missionary.”

In the first century world receiving or rejecting someone’s emissary was the same as receiving or rejecting the one who sent him. To receive and welcome one of Jesus’ missionary-disciples was to receive and welcome Jesus himself. Receiving and welcoming Jesus was the same as receiving and welcoming God his Father.

Jesus, the righteous Son of God, was God’s ultimate prophet. His missionary-disciples were righteous prophets in his name. They spoke God’s Word. They modeled God’s righteousness. They were Christ’s ambassadors and apostles. Those who received and welcomed them, those whose hospitality helped them in their mission, were themselves acting as agents of the Lord. They were enablers of Christ as they enabled Christ’s emissaries carry out his mission. Their hospitality was in itself a vital ministry in his name.

And neither this ministry nor its recipients had to be all that great, grand, and glorious. Such ministry could be as simple as giving a cup of cold water to an ordinary disciple of Jesus. A drink of water, a simple meal, a bed for the night, an hour or two of conversation, access to medical care, prison visitation: such were the simple acts of kindness that enabled the simple, ordinary, everyday missionary-disciples of Jesus to carry out their work.

Grace Church supports missionaries and mission projects. We send money. We share in correspondence with folks doing God’s work in various parts of our nation and world. Every once in a while we welcome a missionary or fellow Christian from another place by recognizing his presence among us as we worship, receiving a word of Christian brother- or sisterhood, feeding him, hosting her for a night or two, and viewing his slide shows.

Sometimes we are the missionaries, going out on mission trips to Mexico, rural West Virginia, upper New York State, urban Charlotte, NC, and in a few weeks, Jamaica. We are the recipients of hospitality: food, housing, and transportation. We are welcomed as brothers and sisters in the Lord and offered opportunities to minister alongside fellow Christians. It costs us time, energy, and money to go. It costs them time, energy, and money to receive us.

Before moving on I want you to know that I in no way belittle such missionary endeavors. I have been on both sides of the missionary experience more than once, and each and every one of those experiences has been a blessing. Mission money paid for most of my seminary education. Mission money has enabled me to take part in some wonderful continuing education events over the last thirty years. Mission money has paid my salary in some places I’ve served. My best “preacher suit” during my seminary days came straight out of Union Seminary’s mission closet. Some dear saint’s hand-me-downs made it possible for this old-boy to clean up real “purty.”

I’m not knocking any of that. But the truth is that none of the missionary work I’ve ever been part of has involved any real sacrifice. I’ve never lacked for anything during seminary or throughout my ordained ministry, even when living on various presbyteries’ minimum compensation packages. None of my financial contributions to mission work could be described as sacrificial. None of the mission trips I’ve been on have ever involved any real danger or risk. I may have been inconvenienced, maybe even uncomfortable a time or two. But I have never been endangered by my missionary efforts or suffered deprivation because of my contributions to mission work. And never, ever have I put myself or my family at risk by extending hospitality to a brother or sister in Christ.

Such was not the case for Jesus and his disciples, those first century Christians addressed by Matthew, and hosts of Christians through the ages. Such is not the case for thousands of Christians around the world at this very moment. Proclaiming the Gospel can be very risky. Witnessing for Jesus can be extremely dangerous. Welcoming a fellow Christian into your home can be and often is a matter of both financial sacrifice and physical danger.

There are places in our world where simple Christian hospitality goes far beyond clean towels and a few more pieces of chicken for dinner. In such places missionary work goes far beyond giving away some used pieces of clothing, bidding on a quilt, shopping at Wal-Mart rather than Nordstroms, staying awake during a PowerPoint presentation, or taking a missionary family to lunch. In such places that cup of cold water given to one of the “least of these” can land you in jail. For if your brother or sister in Christ is being persecuted, showing him or her hospitality will more than likely be a criminal act. Going to visit a fellow Christian in jail could lead you to sharing a cell with him or her.

The price of such hospitality can be quite high, but so, too, can be the reward: eternal life. To receive a brother or sister in Christ is to receive Christ himself. To welcome Christ into your home, come what may, is to one day hear our Lord say, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…” Amen.