Pears of Great Value: Today you are special!

 Pearls of Great Value: You Are Special Today!

In 1936, Hailie Selassi, Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974 gave a speech before the League of Nations in 1936. Ethiopia was a member state. The far-right Fascist Benito Mussolini of Italy had invaded and made Ethiopia part of the Italian Empire. The speech is considered by many one of the most important of the 20^th Century, despite the failure of the League to rush to Ethiopia’s  aid. In addition to his prescient declaration, “today it is us, tomorrow it will be you,” he said the following:

“On the question of racial discrimination…that until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned; that until there are no longer first class and second class citizens of any nation; that until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes; that until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race; that until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained.” The result: no response. We now know that much of Europe would soon be under Axis-Fascist domination, and later under the Totalitarian domination of The Soviet Union. In October, 1963, Emperor Selassie renewed his call to equality and human rights at the United Nations, acknowledging the progress the Kennedy administration was making in civil rights. Just a month later, President Kennedy was assassinated.

Fast forward: In Jamaica, 1976, Bob Marley echoed the words of Selassie in his song, War:

Until the philosophy which hold one race

Superior and another Inferior

Is finally and permanently

Discredited and abandoned

Everywhere is war

Me say war

That until there are no longer

First-class and second-class citizens of any nation

Until the colour of a man's skin

Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes

Me say war

That until the basic human rights

Are equally guaranteed to all

Without regard to race

There is war 

Marley was correct. Human rights had and have continued to be an unattainable dream, and the result is still,  “everywhere is war.” 

On the night of October 3^rd, 1992, a young woman who had been abused as a child by her mother; who had spent time in one of the infamous Irish Magdelene laundries for “fallen women;” was invited to sing on Saturday Night Live. Sinead O’Connor sang acapella, in what sounds like Gregorian or Anglican chant, as she delivered her own version of Marley’s War, adding a verse about child abuse:

Until the ignoble and unhappy regime

Which holds all of us through

Child abuse, yeah, child abuse, yeah,

Subhuman bondage has been toppled

Utterly destroyed

Everywhere is war

Children, Children

Fight

We find it necessary

We know we will win

We have confidence in the victory

of good over evil 

At that point she ripped a photo of Pope John Paul II three times, then said:

“Fight the real enemy!” Silence. The audience was stunned. Her career in music effectively ended that night. She knew it would. But she did not want to be a pop star. She did not want to make money for the music industry. She wanted to fight evil, and in particular the evil of child abuse. She was banned from NBC for life. Her performance has been removed from the official SNL video Archives. A week later SNL made her performance the subject of a skit as Joe Pesci held up the photo, taped back together, and said, “It wasn’t my show, but if it had been my show I would have gave (sic) her a smack!” That video remains in the SNL video archive. Sinead died this week at the age of 56. Far short of seeing meaningful attempts to eliminate child abuse. 

In her 2021 memoir, Rememberings, she writes, “A lot of people say or think that tearing up the Pope’s photo derailed my career. That’s not how I feel about it. I feel that having a No 1 record derailed my career and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track.” That track was to work for a world that recognizes the rights of every person. To put an end to child abuse. She believed in the words of the late Emperor of Ethiopia, “that until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion.” 

It would be sixteen years after her SNL appearance, , July 19, 2008, that the Catholic Church issued an apology for the ongoing child abuse by Catholic clergy. As of Sunday, July 30, 2023, it has been 11,257 days since Sinead made her prophetic demonstration on SNL, not unlike the kinds of demonstrations of the prophet Ezekiel. Those of us in Maryland know we are still trying to get a fully unredacted account of what has happened in the Baltimore Archdiocese over the last century. It’s a shame that Sinead died before a full confession and accounting will be made. 

I bring this up because in our gospel for today Jesus says, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” The Reverend William Rich, a priest from our diocese, once suggested in a meditation at a silent retreat in the Diocese of Connecticut: God values every single one of us. We are God’s beloved! Each and every one of us is the Pearl of Great Value. If there is anything that the church can teach us, it is just this: every single person is a Pearl of Great Value. For whom God “sold”, gave, everything to purchase us. To redeem us. To keep us. To free us from all bondage. To heal us from all harm. To remind us just who we are and whose we are. We are all, in God’s eyes, pearls of great value. 

In a related posting on Facebook this past week, an elementary and high school friend posted a photo of a cake plate her mother had painted years ago. It was her birthday, and she was having strawberry shortcake on this plate. Around the rim of the plate her mother had painted the words, “You are special today.” How wonderful is that? I thought. 

Since seeing that photo I try to imagine all of us having such a plate. I imagine all of us having a piece of cake, or pie, or strawberry shortcake on such a plate every day as we look at the words, “You are special today!” I try to imagine how much easier Sinead O’Connor’s life might have been if she had had such a plate as a child. I try to imagine how much closer we might be to Emperor Selassie’s dream of that day when the world recognizes the rights of every person. I try to imagine how much closer we might be to Jesus’s dream of the kingdom of heaven on earth, if each of us just had a plate that says, “You are special today!” Jesus says to us, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” If only we could hold such a plate in our hands every day, and believe just how special each of us is. We would know we will win. We would have confidence in the victory of good over evil. A dream that has persisted since 1936, since 1976, since 1992, since the time of Jesus Christ, will one day become a reality, thanks to the lives of people like Haile Selassie, Bob Marley, Sinead O’Connor, and the community of Saints. Amen.

I Will Not Leave You Proper 11A

 I Will Not Leave You

“I will not leave you,” says the Lord God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, to Jacob. Jacob the trickster who is on the run. Having effectively stolen the birthright of his older brother Esau, their mother has warned Jacob that Esau is out for revenge and urges him to flee. He is a fugitive; He is all alone. He takes a stone for a pillow to catch some sleep before continuing his flight. He has no idea what he has gotten himself into. He knows nothing of the promise to Abraham and Isaac. He knows not where he is going or what he is to do. He only knows that he is alone and on the run. Or, so he thinks.

 

Lying there he suddenly feels the brush of angel’s wings on his face. Looking up he sees stairs of some kind leading up to the heavens, with angels ascending and descending. It must be mesmerizing. Astonishing really. Before he can even begin to understand, there, standing beside him is YHWH, Adonai, the Lord God of Abraham his grandfather, and Isaac his father talking about a promise he is to carry on behalf of his family, but more importantly on behalf of the entire human family. “I will give this land upon which you land to you, and to your offspring; your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth; all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go… I will not leave you…” [i]

 

Suddenly, as he wakes up, for the first time in his life, Jacob knows he is not alone, and has never been alone. He is overwhelmed with the palpable presence of the Lord. He erects a pillar with the stone that was his pillow. He names the place, Bethel – Beth-el, the home of God. Forgetting, perhaps, that God did not say he was in the place. The Lord had said, “I am with you and will keep you wherever you are! I will not leave you.” Jacob seems not to fully grasp that he is a tabernacle of the Lord. Jacob is Beth-el, a home for God.

 

Like Jacob, we often make the same mistake. We tend to think that God is in some place. And why not? How could God be with me wherever I am? We begin our worship each week, “Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desire known, and from you no secrets are hid…”[ii] We sometimes think it is we who can open or close our hearts, when it is Almighty God who does the opening, because as it is for Jacob, the Lord is with us and keeps us wherever we go. God is with us – Emmanuel, God with us. Jacob thinks he is alone, but God is telling him, no, you are part of an “us.” You are essential to the community of my people on Earth. To make it even more clear, God eventually, after an all-night wrestling match with Jacob, renames him Israel – he who strives with God – and that God’s presence is in the community, the family, the clan that Jacob is to become with descendants like the dust to the earth.

 

God opens our hearts – we who are among the descendants that are like the dust of the earth! We who are gathered in this place to be a blessing to all the families of the Earth. We who become tabernacles of the Lord as we eat his flesh and drink his blood. We who feed on him in our hearts by faith, and thanksgiving. We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

 

There can be no more powerful expression of all of this than Psalm 139. [iii] “O, Lord, you have searched me out, and You know!” You know all the movements of my life: when I sit, when I stand, even when I lie down in my “resting places.” And there is no escaping the presence of the Lord, whether we were to shoot out into furthest regions of the universe, or be hidden deep beneath the surface of the Earth. “Even there your hand will lead me and your right hand hold me fast.” Even in the darkest of hours, whenever we feel as alone, or on the run like Jacob, the Psalmist reminds us, “Darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day; darkness and light to you are both alike.” Then even though this is the Lord who opens hearts and from whom no secrets are hid, the Psalmist urges us to invite the Lord to, “Search me out, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my restless thoughts. Look well whether there be any wickedness in me and lead me in the way that is everlasting.” We are to be those people who want, who desire, that the Lord search out our hearts, to weed out any and all wickedness, so we might without fear be lead in the way that is everlasting – everlasting life and light; so that we might truly be a blessing to all the peoples of the Earth.

 

Jesus appears to reflect on Psalm 139 as he tells the parable of the wheat that has been compromised with weeds sown by some nefarious source of wickedness. [iv] Yet, Jesus cautions not to be distracted by the weeds. Not to waste time and possibly damage the good wheat, the good news, by pulling the weeds ourselves. Attend with your hearts to the way that is everlasting. Move forward with the Lord who knows! Who knows us, and who knows the way. All else is a distraction from the promise of becoming a blessing for all the peoples of the Earth.

 

It has been suggested that if we would take the time each day for 30 days to read Psalm 139, our lives will be changed. And the life of all the peoples of the Earth will be blessed.  If nothing else, the psalm reminds us that our God will never leave us. We are not alone. That our God will open our hearts, weed out the wickedness, and help us to become ambassadors of God’s promise to all peoples of the Earth. Read this once a day for 30 days and see. And know. The Lord is with us and keeps us wherever we are. Yesterday, today and tomorrow. Amen.

 

1 Lord, you have searched me out and known me; *

you know my sitting down and my rising up;

you discern my thoughts from afar.

2 You trace my journeys and my resting-places *

and are acquainted with all my ways.

3 Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, *

but you, O Lord, know it altogether.

4 You press upon me behind and before *

and lay your hand upon me.

5 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; *

it is so high that I cannot attain to it.

6 Where can I go then from your Spirit? *

where can I flee from your presence?

7 If I climb up to heaven, you are there; *

if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.

8 If I take the wings of the morning *

and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

9 Even there your hand will lead me *

and your right hand hold me fast.

10 If I say, "Surely the darkness will cover me, *

and the light around me turn to night,"

11 Darkness is not dark to you;

the night is as bright as the day; *

darkness and light to you are both alike.

22 Search me out, O God, and know my heart; *

try me and know my restless thoughts.

23 Look well whether there be any wickedness in me *

and lead me in the way that is everlasting.

 

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[i] Genesis 28:10-19a

[ii] Book of Common Prayer (1979) p. 355

[iii] Psalm 139: 1-11, 22-23, BCP p. 704

[iv] Matthew 13:24-30,36-43

 

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The Promise: to Become a Blessing to All th Peoples of the Earth Proper 10A

 The Promise: To Become a Blessing to All the Peoples of the Earth

This is the promise God made to Abraham. So far, as the story is told in Genesis, the fulfillment of the promise depends upon Sarah and Abraham having a child, “and he as good as dead” as the treatise called Hebrews reminds us; [i] Isaac survives a near-death experience; Rebecca has the option to say “No” to marrying Isaac; and now one twin, Jacob, tricks his older brother Esau out of his birthright. [ii] And this is just the opening few acts of the story! One has to believe in miracles and/or God’s providence that the promise made it all the way to Jesus some 1800 years later! Along the way there are those who have, as Psalm 119 puts it, let God’s Word be “a lantern to their feet…and a light upon their path.”  And Matthew’s story of Jesus tells us that he applied his heart to fulfill God’s statutes of blessing, compassion, justice, love and forgiveness for all people by forming an ongoing community of disciples “forever and to the end.” [iii]

 

Chapter Thirteen in Matthew marks a new approach to Jesus’s teaching. Up to now he has been rather straightforward in his teaching like the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount. And he has been busy living out God’s statutes of hospitality for all people, including strangers, outcasts, resident aliens, widows, and orphans, all the while challenging those tenured to the status quo and the occupying forces of Caesar’s Empire, Rome. He calls people not to believe in him, but instead to follow him: to be with the people he seeks out, and to heal folks in body, mind and spirit. He encounters resistance, and promises those who choose to follow him that they too will encounter resistance.

 

Now as he speaks to crowds that will inevitably include those who resist the ways in which he fulfills God’s statutes and promises, he begins to teach in parables – parabolic stories that begin in one place and wind up somewhere completely different. That is, like a parabola, the meanings and interpretations continue all the way out to somewhere like infinity! And beyond! That is there is no one way to interpret a parable. In Matthew 13:1-9 the parable is about agrarian practices to a crowd that is largely made up of tenant farmers – indentured “farm hands;” practically speaking, debt-slaves working in a system that rarely allowed one to work off one’s debt – a not unfamiliar predicament within the financial systems of our own day.

 

He says, “Listen! A sower went out to sow!” Those of us who do listen may notice, that this sower seems rather wasteful, scattering the seed all over the place rather than carefully making cultivated rows. Some of the seeds land on rocks, some among thorns and weeds, and just a few, fall on “good soil,” to yield one hundred, sixty and thirty-fold! “Let anyone with ears listen!” That is, despite squandering and wasting much of the seed, this sower ends up with a bumper-crop of completely unheard-of yields!

 

Try to imagine the disciples and the farmers in the crowd hearing this tale as Jesus plays with them. No wheat on earth, then or now, would yield one hundred-fold. No doubt they would have laughed at the very mention of it. Jesus then says, Well how about sixty, do I hear sixty-fold? More snickering and a few cat-calls! People are right! You are a glutton and a drunkard if you think sixty-fold is possible! OK, he says, how about thirty-fold, which lies at least within the slim possibility of best agricultural practices.

 

In the section missing, the disciples take him aside and say, in effect, you are losing the crowd, and may be losing your mind as well! Why are you doing this? He says to them, you have seen how our Father’s world works if we fulfill his statutes of compassion, love, forgiveness and justice for all people, no exceptions, no exclusions. But there are those who just cannot hear this or understand what we are doing. Still, we need to be extravagant like the sower, sowing and practicing the good news of our Father’s kingdom, which is utterly unlike the kingdoms of Israel at present, and Rome at present. But you will understand, and there will be others who will understand – and if we are sworn and concerned to keep God’s righteous judgments, the yields will in fact increase. We must work and do the things we are called to do faithfully, forever and to the end! And most importantly, even those who scoff at us know what we all know: whatever yield we gather is a gift from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God and Father of us all. It is our Father who makes the rain to fall and the sun to shine and the seeds to grow.

 

We remember that Matthew’s story of Jesus is being told to those who have already seen the destruction of Israel, Jerusalem and the Temple, the very center of Israelite religious ritual for centuries. Everything has been burned to the ground. Yet, the gift of a great harvest still awaits us, says Matthew’s Jesus to the disciples and others who have ears to hear! The power and the witness of the people of God, always fragile and at peril in a world that does not have the lantern and light of God’s Word shine upon their path, nevertheless, the Lord shall be magnified by the generosity of God into a fruitful and extravagant harvest. “Therefore, the church is called to ‘waste itself,” to throw grace and love and compassion around like there is no tomorrow, precisely because there is a tomorrow and it belongs to God!”’ [iv]

 

As imperfect as the church has been in generosity and wasteful extravagance throughout the ages, here we are. The promise of being a blessing to all peoples, fragile and at risk as it may be, has been entrusted to us. We can be hearers and doers of God’s word. We can choose to welcome black, brown, yellow and red people of all nations and all cultures. We can choose to accept all male, female, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual, and queer people. We can choose to reach out to all who are free, enslaved, trafficked, oppressed, and in anyway restricted from living life to its fullest. We can offer a world of justice and peace for all people. We can choose to respect the dignity of every single human being – and every creature under heaven as well! We can choose to be responsible stewards of the environment God has created for us to live in – this fragile earth, our island home. And in fact, we have all promised, in our baptism, to choose to live out of all of these truths of God’s Word! Because we have been touched by Jesus and the example of his word and his works. Every day we read the good news, and every day Jesus picks us up and turns us around whenever we stray from his path.

 

There is a tomorrow. And Jesus makes clear to anyone who hears, that tomorrow will be given like the hundred-fold yield of wheat. When we walk with Jesus wherever we may be, we can and will bear bounteous yields with the seeds that he sows! We are the keepers of the promise that has been given to us just as it was to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus! Because he’s our friend he says will do the things he does, and greater things than these we shall do! We can become God’s blessing to all the peoples of the earth! Let anyone with ears listen!

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[i] Hebrews 11:12a

[ii] Genesis 25:19-34

[iii] Psalm 119:105-106, 112

[iv] Long, Thomas, Matthew (Westminster John Know Press, Louisville: 1997) p.151.

Devoted to God and One Another Proper 9A

 Be Devoted to God and One Another

O God, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor: Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart,

and united to one another with pure affection. Amen

 

That’s it. Devotion to God. United to one another “with pure affection.” One Another means, “all others”! No exceptions. No exclusions. That’s what is being asked of us. We come from Love = God. We return to Love = God. And Love is all around. That’s us being united to one another out of our devotion to God who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishment. [i]  We are the “one another” who are meant to be united to one another in this abounding steadfast love of God. We are meant to be the love that is all around.

 

After warning his disciples that there will be resistance to being this love in Matthew chapter 10, Jesus goes on to address the resistance in chapter 11. It begins with John. The baptizer. Who is in Herod’s jail. Herod who, at the beginning of the story, slaughtered children and any adult who tried to get in the way to eliminate the child born to Mary. The story begins with violent resistance. John is having second thoughts about this man from Nazareth he had recently baptized and announced as The One who with fire and a winnowing fork will separate the wheat from the chaff. Why hasn’t the winnowing begun? What’s with all this love? Where is the fire? Find out for me if he is The One, he tells his disciples.

 

Jesus says, Tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news of Jubilee, debt reduction, brought to them. This is what love is. Believe the works themselves.

 

Then Jesus then tells anyone who will listen, John is the greatest of all ever born of women. Do you doubt this because he ignores public opinion polls? Do you doubt him because he doesn’t dress in Givenchy and velvet robes like the rich, powerful and famous? But get this: the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. See what he does there? The poor, the lame, the unwashed and unclean are greater than John! And he’s the greatest.

 

Then he begins talking ‘bout my generation! To what can I compare you? You’re like children playing, dancing, and singing, but you’re too busy thinking you know it all to kick up your heels. You’re like children wailing and keening like professional mourners as the Empire crushes us, crushes our children, burns down the temple, and yet you do not mourn. Instead, you complain. John is too harsh, too demanding, neither eating or drinking! Then you complain that I eat and drink too much with the wrong kind of people, tax cheats, prostitutes and all manner of sinners. You call me a glutton and a drunkard! You look for hope, you seek salvation, and yet, you cannot recognize it even if it were to walk up and bite you on the nose!

 

Then he quotes a venerable proverb: Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds! The proof is in the pudding! Neither John nor I look at all like the kind of folks you expect we ought to look like.  We get that. But do you want fancy packaging, or the real deal?

 

Notice that Matthew 11:20-24 is missing. No doubt the editors of our lectionary thought that we could not handle listening to sweet baby Jesus, no crib for a bed, lashing into an all-out tirade against those who complain, crying, Woe to you! And, Woe to you! Get with the program here and now, or “on that day of judgment it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom than for you!” Think you are so smart? No! You will be brought down to Hades!

 

And then he prays. I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from those who like to believe they are wise and intelligent because they are rich and powerful, but you, O Lord, have revealed the to infants, too the little ones: to the lame, the blind, the deaf, the unwashed, and yes, to the poor and even the poorest of the poor; yes, Father, for such is your gracious will. I have been entrusted by you my Father who calls me his Beloved son, to live the good news of his gracious will; the works themselves reveal his love for you and for all; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. I choose to reveal him to you, and you, and you; for you are God’s Beloved. God is well pleased with you. Amen.

 

Finally, he offers a word to the weary from one who evidently is weary himself. Come and find rest. But he offers not a hammock to rest in, but a yoke. In Judaism, the yoke, an instrument common to the hardest working animals, was a symbol of obedience to the commandments of the kingdom of God’s mercy, love and forgiveness. The yoke of Jesus represents a willingness to serve others with humility and mercy. His yoke is not easy, and his burden light, not because there is little to do or the way is safely paved. It is “light” because it is light for all those of us who live in darkness. “There is a cross to be carried, and the world is full of wolves. The yoke of Jesus is easy and his burden is light because it is the way of God, and it is profoundly satisfying to the human soul.” [ii] And it is true light! Light which darkness did not and cannot overcome!

 

Jesus knows he does not look like a safe bet to everyone. Mercy, humility, forgiveness and love are hard to come by – and harder still to emulate; to become the very core of our being. To join ourselves with Jesus means to serve the world in the name of God his Father, our Father. It is a way of being the love that is all around. Devotion to God means to be united to one another with pure affection. With the pure love and light of the one who calls us his family.

 

We come from Love. We return to Love. And Love is all around. This is a way of being. A way of being with God because we know God is with us. And God is in all that God has created. It means being devoted to God and united with one another – all others – most especially the “little ones.” Those in greatest need. Set aside all expectations and join in the works themselves. You will do the things I do, he says. And greater things than these, he says. And you will be profoundly satisfied, he says. Listen to the music of the kingdom of God! Kick up your heels! For at the end of the day, and the end of days, when you join his dance, you will hear the divine voice of blessing, “Well done, good and faithful servant! Well done my dearly Beloved community of Love!”

 

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[i] Jonah 4:2b, Exodus 34:6-7, Psalm 86:15, Psalm 103:8

[ii] Long, Thomas, Matthew, (Westminster John Knox Press:1997) p.132

Whoever Welcomes You Welcomes Me Proper 8A

 

Whoever welcomes you welcomes me,

and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.

Welcoming. Hospitality. Providing for those who show up unexpectedly, was a keyl dimension of life for nomadic peoples. Beginning with the Abraham saga, the Bible reflects upon the lives of peoples throughout an ancient world who were constantly on the move. Specifically, on the move throughout the middle east, but including herders and traders from as far east as Asia, and as far west and north as Europe, and as far south as Africa.

 

Paleoindian people crossed a land-bridge in the Bearing Straits some 40,000 years ago to populate what has come to be called the Americas - north, central and south America. Humans are migratory by nature – seekers, people risking everything to find new grazing lands, new bodies of water, new locations capable of sustaining life for animals, clans, tribes, and families.

 

As settlements began to appear some 5,000 years ago in the Americas, still many of the Paleoindian people continued nomadic and migratory lifestyles, either as hunter-gatherers or as traders. Fast forward to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries of the modern era, the Spanish began to explore and settle the south and southwest of north America, the French in the Midwest and Canada, and eventually the English arrived along the east coast. To understand the relevance of the Bible’s stories of nomadic and settled cultures half-way around the world, we need to remember that the earliest English settlements failed, until the Powhatan Confederacy provided intervention and assistance at Jamestown (1607), just as the Plymouth Colony was assisted by the Wampanoag Confederacy (1620). That is, without hospitality and know-how shared with those who showed up unexpectedly, the English immigrants might not have succeeded at all.

 

Sadly, such hospitality was not returned in kind, despite many of the euro-settlers representing a variety of Christian traditions. This ought to strike us as odd. Jesus instructs his disciples to go throughout the middle east and beyond to preach the good news of his Father’s kingdom of love, forgiveness and a just society for all, and to follow his example of offering hospitality to “the least of these, my sisters and brothers.” He identifies himself and his mission with welcoming the stranger, the homeless, the sick, the hungry, the thirsty, widows, orphans and resident aliens fleeing famines and oppression in their homelands – those without resources, family, or tribe to sustain them.

 

Although this conclusion of his instructions in chapter 10 of Matthew speaks of a reward for those who welcome the “little ones,” and those who welcome his disciples, such reward is not quantified or described. Likely, because Jesus knows that offering such welcome and hospitality to strangers is rewarding in and of itself. And that creating a kingdom of those who welcome the unexpected stranger is an essential building block toward a world of women, men and children who love and respect one another – a peaceable kingdom as described by the prophet Isaiah. [i]

 

This talk of welcoming and hospitality is the summation of his instructions to those of us called to travel this world “in his name.” That is, our lives, the lives of Christians, are to reflect his life of radical love, acceptance, and inclusion for all others. Further, he says that those of us who adopt such a culture of hospitality will be welcomed by others, and will ultimately be welcomed by God, his Father. The disciple, Jesus and God, he asserts, is the nucleus of a new kind of family. A universal family that transcends all other families. A universal family of hospitality and welcome for all.

 

This vision, this understanding of what God his Father intends and wants for all people, is breath-taking. And yet, he is saying, it all depends on those of us who are disciples of his to become a welcoming and hospitable presence in a world that is divided against itself. Divisions that were exacerbated by the Age of Exploration and Colonization, and continue down to this day.

 

As we pause on July 4^th to recall the lofty notions in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” and that all persons are worthy of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” we find we need to take time to contemplate how the “American Experiment” succeeds and/or fails to embrace the ideals that Thomas Jefferson and others boldly asserted as essential of all persons. And whether or not those ideals square with the radical kind of hospitality and welcome of all others who come our way to experience just what it is America wants to be. We might begin such contemplation with the poem of Emma Lazarus that is still fixed at the base of the Statue of Liberty: The New Colossus (November 2, 1883):

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

 

Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever 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; 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.”[ii]

 

It appears that Jesus believes that welcoming strangers in need, “little ones,” with a cup of cold water is capable of making all the difference in the world. May we, and all the people of this land, have grace to welcome the stranger and one another, and maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace for all people, from sea to shining sea.

Amen.

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[i] Isaiah 11:1-9

[ii] Matthew 10:40-42