As Jesus sends his disciples out into the neighboring towns to teach, and perform healings in his name, Jesus desperately hopes that his disciples will be welcomed in his name. After-all, his name is starting to become famous. His name has started to spread as people have heard about the wonderful things that he has been doing and teaching. A girl has been raised back to life. Two blind men have been healed. A paralytic can walk. The mute can talk. Words of Jesus blessing the poor in spirit have spread and everyone is starting to talk about Jesus. Jesus is hopeful that people of the neighboring towns will be just as welcoming to his followers as they would be to him.
Jesus said to the twelve disciples, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me” (Matthew 10:40). Whenever someone welcomes one of the disciples, they are welcoming Jesus. And, if they welcome Jesus, then they are welcoming God the Father who sent them all. In other words, Jesus prays that the people of these towns see the presence of Jesus when the disciples enter into their towns.
Now, in order for the people to welcome these disciples (to welcome them as if they were Jesus) they would need to fight against a very innate assumption that we all have. This assumption is very powerful; it seems to be baked into our brains from the moment we are born. These townspeople would need to fight against the assumption that the stranger is evil and not to be trusted.
It is much more prevalent than we nice people would like to admit. You see it in the eyes of school children as they line up for the first day of school and stare at the new girl who seems to be invading their sliver of sidewalk. They could be nice and introduce themselves, but they do not. They stare, sizing her up, afraid of the unknown, afraid of the stranger.
In time they will likely become friends, but not without first assuming the worst. It makes sense. We can all come up with a story about how trusting the stranger has turned out bad. Just a few weeks ago the Emmanuel Nine were commemorated in churches across the nation. In case you were not certain what that commemoration was all about, we marked the anniversary of the evening that nine faithful church people were shot and killed during a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. These faithful, people did exactly what Jesus hopes that the people of these neighboring towns would do for his followers. They welcomed a young man, a complete stranger, into their Bible Study, offering him a seat, and offering him the hospitality that Jesus offered to everyone who came to him.
Horrifically, this young man squandered their hospitality, pulled out a gun, and murdered nine faithful followers of Jesus Christ because of the color of their skin.
Lutherans in particular commemorate this tragedy every year, even though the rest of the world has mostly forgotten, because that young man who murdered those nine faithful people was a Lutheran. He was born, bred, and raised Lutheran, yet he somehow did not learn to see the stranger as Jesus. Those nine saw him as Jesus, but that vision was not reciprocated. All he saw were people who had a hue of skin that somehow he thought deserved to be hated and eliminated.
Of course, that is not the only instance that welcoming the stranger has gone wrong. Unfortunately, there are many, many others. As a result, we very easily fall into our innate patterns of behavior that distrusts the stranger rather than welcoming the stranger. It causes us to regulate others, keeping them from helping the stranger. People who leave water for migrants are criminalized in some areas, as if caring about a person’s life and giving a cup of cold water is a crime. People who give food to the poor in some areas are arrested, as if multiplying loaves and fishes is a criminal act.
Now, I am in no way calling those who would try to keep others safe from the stranger evil. They are merely trying to build a wall of protection so that the stranger cannot accomplish the type of evil thing that the young man accomplished when he shot up that Bible study.
In fact, building a city with walls was one of the very first things that humans did after they were shut out of the Garden of Eden. Way in the beginning of the Bible, after Cain kills his brother Abel, Cain is worried that other people will retaliate against him and seek to take his life. God offers to protect Cain, but Cain does not trust God’s protection, so he builds a city with walls.
The walls are the important detail in this story. There is nothing wrong with creating a city that is vibrant, full of life, full of art, and overflowing with an abundance of great food and socializing. It is the walls that trouble God. The walls prove that we do not trust God. The walls prove that deep down we actually think that we must take matters into our own hands to keep ourselves safe. This mistrust of God just leads to an abundance of murder and mayhem in the early pages of scripture; so much so that God sends a flood to wipe it all away.
Obviously, this sort of mistrust is not the way to live an abundant life. This sort of mistrust where all we know is creating walls between us and others will never allow Jesus to enter into anyone’s life. This sort of mistrust literally blocks the love of Jesus behind a wall of fear.
Jesus hopes and prays that his followers will not come up against people who throw up such walls. Jesus hopes and prays that the people they encounter see his own face in the faces of his disciples. He hopes and prays that they give the disciples a cup of cold water, and welcome them into their homes and into their lives. After-all, when the people welcome the followers of Jesus, they are welcoming Jesus himself and his love.
Jesus hopes and prays that a basic sense of compassion, giving water to someone who needs it, is an opening into their hearts where Jesus can pour something much, much better. “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” (Matthew 10:42).
That reminds me of an individual who most people considered a racist, a bigot, and a misogynist. This is a true story by the way. By reading this person’s posts on social media, you would think that they were one of the most hateful people on the planet. I will not even get into the types of things that they post on social media, nor will I get specific about the types of people who they explicitly hate as they type out their posts, but I am certain that you could probably guess.
Well, it just so happened that their literal neighbor down the road, who fell into one of their categories of hated people, was thrown out of their home one night because of an abusive person. The neighbor in need walked barefoot to their house, with only a pillowcase of belongings. They knocked on this racist, misogynistic, bigot’s door asking for help…any sort of help…and the hateful person stared at them, looked at their bloody feet, and responded by inviting them in. More than giving cold water to drink and a bath that might, they let their neighbor live in their home for five months until they could get their feet under them.
The story seems too astonishing to be true, but I assure you that it is true. And, when asked why they did it, since it seemed to go against every personal value that the person held, they simply said,
“We are supposed to see people like that as Jesus, aren’t we? They asked for a cup of cold water and I gave it. Isn’t it what we are supposed to do?”
“But, you have actively and very publicly stated that people like them are sinful!”
“Well, I’m sinful too,” they responded. “I may not agree with them, but that does not mean Jesus can’t use them in some way. Again, they asked for a cup of cold water and I gave it. It is what we are supposed to do.”
This was the very person that I would have assumed would stand in front of the throne of Jesus in the end times and hear, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me” (Matthew 25:41-43).
But, I was so very wrong. The person, who I assumed was a wall, was actually an open gate. So, I am convinced now that when they stand in front of the throne of Jesus Christ, they will hear, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me” (Matthew 25:34-36).
Jesus never ceases to amaze me. I cannot tell you the amount of times that I have seen Jesus in the most unlikely of people. Jesus never ceases to amaze me. But, maybe I should not be so amazed. Maybe, I need to try looking harder at those around me. Maybe, I need to stop assuming the other person to be evil. Maybe, I need to start opening my eyes to the presence of Jesus in those around me. Maybe, there are more people out there who need a fount of eternal water gushing up in them than I have ever realized.
No comments:
Post a Comment