Second Sunday after Pentecost Proper 6A, June 18, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz
Genesis 18:1-15 (21:1-7). When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them.
Romans 5:1-8. Because God’s love has been poured into our hearts.
Matthew 9:35-10:8 (9-23). When he saw the crowds he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless…the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.
O Lord of the harvest, may we have the wisdom, the strength, and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth – come when it may and cost what it will.
Sometimes we have readings from scripture that are difficult to imagine – obscure references, ancient ideas that are hard for our post-modern ears to understand, but not today. Today we have a vivid scene from the Torah of three men who visited Abraham and Sarah; we have an assurance that God’s love has been poured into our hearts through a spirit of holiness in Paul’s letter to the church in Rome; and we have the Gospel of Matthew’s account of when twelve disciples became twelve apostles, and the traveling instructions Jesus gave to them.
Those of you at Emmanuel who are trained to mind the gaps in the lectionary might have noticed that our reading from Genesis calls for the first 15 verses of chapter 18, and then the first seven verses of chapter 21. I have to tell you, a LOT of time passes in those chapters in between. But more important than time, what happens is the story of the city of Sodom. The same men who visited Abraham and Sarah, continued on their way to Sodom, a place full of unrighteous people.
What kind of behavior caused the people of Sodom to be considered unrighteous? The clearest answers are found in the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Jeremiah lists inhospitality, adultery, lies, and strengthening the power of evildoers. Ezekiel says that the inhabitants of Sodom had an excess of food and lived in prosperous ease but did not assist those who were poor and needy. [1] They were haughty and violent to strangers, to foreigners, to aliens. A Jewish midrash in the Zohar says that the sin of Sodom was that the people “possessed all the luxuries of the world, and its inhabitants were unwilling to share them with others.” [2]
What we miss when we take the story of the city of Sodom out of our lesson, I think, is the emphasis of the story on hospitality: what happens when hospitality is extended and what happens when hospitality is not extended. In the missing chapters from our reading today, people in Sodom treated the same strangers whom Abraham and Sarah had hosted with horrendous violence. In the Bible, violence is the opposite of hospitality. In the Biblical narrative, even the lack of hospitality is considered a form of violence. According to the Torah, it is a resident’s obligation, a religious duty, to feed and protect strangers and foreigners. The Talmud teaches that “Greater than the reception of God is the practice of hospitality.” [3]
In the New Testament, the word that gets translated into hospitality is philoxenia (philo = love, and xenos = foreigner, stranger, even enemy). Philoxenia is the opposite of xenophobia (fear of foreigners). Biblical hospitality is not extended simply by hanging a sign that says, “welcome;” nor is it offering refreshments and shelter to family and friends. Biblical hospitality is a commitment to kindness and caring for the well-being of outsiders and aliens, people who are not like you, and even someone who is potentially out to get you – an enemy.
Abraham exemplifies hospitality in the story of his encounter with the three men at the large trees (here, called oaks) of Mamre. The story goes that Abraham was sitting at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. When he saw three men come near, he jumped up and ran out to beg them to accept his offerings of water to wash, a place to rest, and some food to eat. Abraham ran to meet the men passing near his tent; he ran to tell Sarah to make a lot of bread out of her best flour; he ran to his herd to pick a fatted calf, which his servant prepared in haste. Abraham brought cheese, milk, meat and bread, and waited on the three men under the tree as they ate. It is after this that the men revealed their message from God that Sarah would bear a child, establishing the first of many examples in the Bible of God’s grace being revealed in the process of welcoming strangers, from the tall trees at Mamre to the stranger invited to supper in Emmaus. The Biblical narrative asserts again and again that, in caring for strangers, God’s grace is revealed; and when strangers are treated violently, God’s wrath is sure to follow.
The bosom of Abraham came to mean a place of comfort and abundance, of extravagant welcome and care. Israel had a deep sense that the Divine is experienced in travelers and strangers, and also that the Divine is the host. [4] By the time the Gospels were written, the realm of God was most often talked about in terms of abundant food and drink, comfort, healing, and rest. Jesus is depicted as feeding crowds of hungry people, and eating with tax collectors and other sinners, being anointed and washing others’ feet, receiving comfort and comforting strangers: hospitality.
So I’m struck by the Biblical idea that God is both host and guest. I can clearly see the Gospel idea that Jesus is both host and guest in the stories that are told about him in all four of the Gospels. In our Gospel portion from this morning, Jesus chooses twelve of his disciples, who presumably understand their obligation to extend hospitality, because that is an essential part of their cultural identity. Then he makes them apostles, who will have the obligation to receive hospitality. God is both host and guest. Jesus is both host and guest. Jesus’ apostles are to be both host and guest.
People often stumble over the description of the twelve – were they disciples? Were they apostles? (The answer is yes.) Disciple means learner or student, or follower of a teacher. Apostle means sent out on a mission, or dispatched. Of the many followers that Jesus had, he chose twelve to be sent to clean up (and clear out) people’s unclean spirits, and to cure every disease and every sickness. Twelve are dispatched. Twelve is the number that all the Gospels agree on; although when you compare the lists, the names don’t exactly line up. (I love that different Gospels have slightly different lists of names, and the Gospel of John says twelve, only names nine, and one of those nine doesn’t appear on anyone else’s list. But I digress.)
Recently I heard Bishop Laura Ahrens from the Episcopal Church in Connecticut give the most elegant illustration of the difference between a disciple and an apostle. Disciple, as I mentioned, means student or learner, or follower. A disciple, Bishop Ahrens said, breathes in – breathes in wisdom, breathes in knowledge. A disciple breathes in. Apostle means sent out. An apostle, Bishop Ahrens said, breathes out compassion, breathes out peace. Disciple – breathe in. Apostle – breathe out. It turns out that when it comes to breathing in and breathing out, we can’t do one without the other and live.
Now here’s a leap, but stay with me. Disciple — breathe in – offer hospitality. Apostle — breathe out – accept hospitality. Don’t bring baggage – no gold, or silver, or copper, no extra clothing or sandals, or a staff. In other words, when breathing out, being sent out, go empty-handed and needy. Offer compassion and extend peace. If your compassion, if your peace is not welcomed in, let your compassion and peace return to you and move on. The instructions continue beyond where our reading for today stops, and end with Jesus saying, “whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”
Jesus took twelve of his students and sent them out, according to Matthew, because he had compassion for the crowds who were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. He saw there was a huge amount of work to do and he needed help. Notice the way Jesus describes the work. It’s the work of harvesting the plenty that is ripe. The fruits of God’s harvest are freedom from poverty, hunger, oppression, legal jeopardy, violence, and even fear. Jesus wants his followers to understand that the fruits of God’s harvest are so ready that they are practically falling off the low hanging branches of the tree of life. All we need to do is step out into places that are plagued with poverty, hunger, oppression, legal jeopardy, violence, and other unclean spirits, for the fruits of the realm of God to start falling into our hands. (When you leave here today, you will be stepping out into those places.)
It’s all about the grace of God revealed in giving and receiving hospitality. You received without payment; when you’re sent out, give without payment. Or as St. Paul wrote to the church in Rome, “The love of God has been poured into your hearts.” Don’t stop up your heart. Let the love flow right back out, so that empty, your heart is ready to be filled again. It’s like your heartbeat—filling and emptying. God is both host and guest. Jesus is both host and guest. Jesus’ disciples and apostles are to be both host and guest. We are to be both host and guest as well.