Difference between revisions of "Sermon for June 22nd, 2014"

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Leviticus 19:33-34

33When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. 34The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

Matthew 10:40-42

40“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; 42and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple — truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

Radical Hospitality (or, Don't Shoot the Messenger)

Today's sermon will span over 4,000 years of history, so please forgive me if I just jump right into it.

In most ancient cultures, there are stories about the gods disguising themselves and knocking on the doors of unsuspecting homes. In Greek mythology, this was a favorite trick of the god Zeus. In Norse mythology it is usually Odin. They would disguise themselves as beggars and see what kind of welcome they might receive. If a home welcomed them in and treated them kindly, they would reveal themselves and then bless the home with riches and favor. If, on the other hand, they were rejected and rudely turned away, they would reveal themselves and curse the home, or worse, destroy it.

Like most mythology, these stories serve the purpose of teaching the principles valued by the ancient cultures that produced them, and also warning or threatening those who disregarded those principles. Stories about gods in disguise knocking on your door are usually meant to teach the ancient value of showing hospitality to strangers.

This was a necessary value, because in the earliest ancient civilizations there was no such thing as a hotel or an inn. Those came much later, with the Roman Empire. If you traveled, and all nomadic peoples traveled, you had to rely on whatever hospitality you could find among strange people and strange lands. If you expected to be welcomed kindly, you in turn had to welcome others kindly. For an ancient society to function, it was absolutely critical to promote the value of unquestioning hospitality through whatever means possible -- stories, religious teachings, promises of great rewards, and threats of doom and destruction.

In the earliest stories of the Bible, we find a similar motif in the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah, and in the story of the three angels who visit Abraham's tent. In the first story, God's emissaries are not welcomed, with disastrous consequences. In the second story, God's emissaries are welcomed generously, and God blesses Abraham with wealth, fame, and many grandchildren.

Fast forward about a thousand years, to the time when many of these ancient civilizations were beginning to put their values and beliefs into another format: Legal Codes. In many cultures, the value of hospitality becomes the Law of Hospitality, written and enforced. Today's Old Testament Scripture passage comes from Leviticus, part of the Hebrew books of law traditionally believed to have been given by Moses to the people of Israel.

"When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God."

As the years passed, these laws regarding hospitality expanded to include not just hospitality toward a person him or herself, but also toward that person's representative or emissary. In Hebrew tradition, this person was called the שָלִיחַ (Shaliah). Essentially, if you appointed someone to be your shaliah, that person had the legal power to act on your behalf, to negotiate and conclude deals, to act as a proxy, kind of like someone who has been granted power of attorney today. But it was more than that. The Jewish principle of agency taught that a person's shaliah is regarded as the person himself.

In other words, if a shaliah of low social status (a servant or a slave) brought you a message from a person of high social status, and you attacked or injured the shaliah...you could be punished as though you had attacked the person of higher status (which would bring a harsher punishment). If you insulted a shaliah, you insulted the one who sent the shaliah. If you were kind to the shaliah, you were kind to the one who sent the shaliah.

We have a saying in modern English: Don't shoot the messenger. This is really the opposite of the shaliah principle, because we're saying "Hey, don't get mad at me, I'm NOT the one sent me. I'm different. Get mad at him, not me." The shaliah says "We are one and the same. Treat me how you would treat the one who sent me."

Jesus, of course, was Jewish. It is this principle of the shaliah--and the whole underlying code of hospitality--that Jesus invokes in today's New Testament scripture passage, when he tells his disciples "Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous."

This is a promise to his disciples that they can rely on the hospitality of strangers because they have his legal standing as his shaliah. It's also a veiled threat to those who reject his disciples: You are rejecting me, and I am the shaliah of God. Treat my disciples like they are God himself in disguise.

In the first two verses, Jesus is talking about his disciples, but then he makes a subtle shift: "and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple — truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward."

Who are "these little ones?"