In the spring of 1987 I walked across the state of Massachusetts from west to east as a participant in a Lenten pilgrimage for peace in Central America. And as our little band went from village to village and town to town we received the hospitality of people of faith—mostly Christians-- Methodist, Baptist, Unitarian, Catholic, Congregational or Episcopal, but also Jewish and Buddhist communities where we were invited to share worship, prayer, and conversation, or given a meal, a place to sleep, or just a dry place to rest our feet and a clean bathroom and a drink of water or a cup of tea.
I could tell many stories about that journey, but the one I’m remembering today took place on a late afternoon as we were walking along Route 9 between Ware and Worcester. We came to a country crossroads and sat down for a rest, and we hadn’t been there more than about 5 minutes before a convoy of cars and pickup trucks pulled up, driven by Trappist monks. We piled in and were driven up a long road to the top of a high hill looking out over forests and fields, to St. Joseph’s Abbey. We were taken by twos and threes to rooms in the guest house, where we found snacks, and clean towels and hot showers. And after we cleaned up we went to the abbey church for vespers. Now, if you’ve been to a Trappist monastery you know that there is usually an area for visitors and guests off to one side of the church, at some distance from, or even out of sight of, the monks’. But that wasn’t where we were. Instead we were invited into the choir, to sit with the monks and stumble our way through the ancient chants, the psalms, canticles, and responses, with the evening light streaming through the great rose window above the altar.
And I’ll never forget the looks of puzzlement on the faces of the other guests, mostly Irish and Italian families from Boston in their Sunday best, at seeing us in our parkas and hiking boots coming out of the church after the service with the white-robed monks. We stood in a big circle out in front of the church as the abbot presented us with the gift of a branch from olive tree in the monastery cloister. It was a scion of a tree from their sister monastery in the Holy Land, and we promised to carry it with us to our journey’s end at the Statehouse in Boston.
I tell you this story because, as we leave behind the great experiences of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit, and move into the Season after Pentecost, our Sunday scripture readings turn set us down right in the middle of the practical problems of carrying on. You see the disciples of Jesus understood that they had been given these experiences to empower them for a mission, to continue Jesus’ work in the world. To make sense of that mission, they looked back, to the mission of Jesus. Looking back at the things he did and the things he said from the new vantage point of his death and resurrection, they could see with a new clarity how he’d been preparing them to carry on his work. And this process of telling and re-telling the stories about Jesus, as a way of understanding what we’re supposed to do now, how we’re to live now, that the apostles began, continues to this day. It is what we mean when we say the word “Gospel.”
And today’s Gospel lesson is from the 10th Chapter of Matthew, which is all about mission. Jesus calls together his Twelve Disciples and gives them spiritual authority and then sends them out on a mission to the villages of Galilee. They are to announce that the kingdom of heaven is coming near, to cast out unclean spirits, and to heal the sick. And the key to the success of the mission is the hospitality of the people who receive them. Because a lot of people don’t. A lot of people just aren’t interested, and in fact a lot of them are hostile. So Jesus prepares them for rejection, and there are sayings in this chapter about being thrown out of the synagogues, and dragged before governors to testify to their own defense, about being betrayed by your own brother, and about taking up one’s cross.
But when we get down to the final verses of the chapter, the part we heard this morning, Jesus also tells his disciples that there will be those who do welcome them, who will want a share in the mission. But it won’t be because of their charisma, or their fantastic preaching or their healing miracles, or anything else that they do. The secret X-factor that unlocks people’s hospitality to their mission is God. "Whoever welcomes you”, Jesus said, “welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” It is God who opened your minds to the Gospel. It is God who awakened your hearts, God who gave you hope for peace, confidence in the future, and love for the poor and the oppressed. It is God’s love working in you that looks at a stranger and sees a brother or a sister. And the same will be true for those to whom you are sent.
Now you may be thinking to yourself “that is all well and good for them. They are the twelve Apostles, Jesus’ own hand-picked helpers. Of course God worked through them.” But I think we sometimes forget that the disciples weren’t really “all that.” Notice the little twist Jesus throws in at the end: “Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward;”—“Yep. Prophet. Sure, anybody would welcome a prophet.” “And whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous;”—“Mm-hmm. Righteous person. Check.” “And whoever gives even a drink of water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple--truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward." —one of these little ones. Of course there are great spiritual rewards in recognizing a prophet, or a righteous person, and welcoming one of them. But the same goes for people like you and me, the little disciples of Jesus. What does the name”disciple” mean except one who is still learning, a student, someone still just struggling down the path.
None of us are too insignificant, too unimpressive or unimportant, too ignorant or spiritually un-enlightened to make a contribution to the mission of God in the world. We all have something to contribute just by being ourselves, and by making a little effort in the way that seems to us to be pleasing to God. And we have an impact on the lives of others that we don’t control and we can’t measure, because God works through us in ways we don’t even know about.
By the same token, none of us are in a position to look at another person and say, “that one doesn’t matter. I don’t care what that brother over there has to say about things, or what that sister over there thinks is important. They don’t impress me at all. They don’t seem well-informed or well-educated. They don’t have any clout in the community.” No, we need to welcome everyone, to honor everyone, for God’s sake, because everyone has something to contribute to God’s great reconciling mission in the world. They may not be doing it very successfully because of poor self-esteem or emotional trauma or errors of judgment of one kind or another, but just because they can’t see their own gifts, and we can’t see them either, doesn’t mean that they’re not there.
And we will never be able to help anyone do any better, including ourselves, if we don’t begin from a place of welcome, of looking for the common ground and listening for the shared story. The mission of the Gospel begins with simple gestures of mutual hospitality, of welcoming and being welcomed. The work of Jesus is founded on the little ones, and the little things, even if it’s only the gift of a cup of cold water on a hot, dusty day.
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