Matthew 10:40-42 (NRSV)
Matthew 10:40-42 are sayings on hospitality that conclude the missionary discourse begun in verse 1. Fulfilling this mission is not always about grand gestures, but can reflect itself in the smallest acts of kindness. While Jesus focuses on the dangers of their mission, as well as the likelihood of rejection, these verses open the possibility for positive contact. Anything which is simply a hospitable exchange between two persons is an exchange between four - the host or hostess, the disciple, Jesus, and the one who sent Jesus. To receive the disciple is to receive Jesus, which is also to receive God. This means that even in the simplest relationships, God is the one who initiates by sending Jesus, and then Jesus sends the disciple. In a sense, qualifications for acceptance within the circle of Jesus drops dramatically. The tiniest hint of respect and interest for those who witness for Jesus qualifies as inclusion. Such persons are not opponents.
Verse 40 is from material common with Luke 10:16, but we also find it in John 13:20. 40 “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Such a saying considers that while relationships with the Jewish community will be negative, some people will welcome them. Sayings about welcoming a messenger were common in the Mediterranean world. To welcome an emissary was tantamount to welcoming the person who had dispatched the emissary. Jesus explains the inextricable bond between a master and an apostle, the sender and the messenger. The Mishnah, the ancient compendium of Jewish law, states that “a man’s agent is like himself” (Mishnah, Berakhot 5.5). In his writing and sending of letters, Paul had to rely on this cultural convention to ensure the proper delivery of his messages among his churches (Philippians 2:25). In the same way, according to Jesus, welcoming an apostle is equivalent to welcoming that apostle’s master. The connection is drawn not only from the apostles back to Jesus (“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me”), but also from Jesus back to God (“whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me”). Thus, while Jesus Christ is the revelation of God, he is not alone. He has witnesses and can therefore come to all people.[1] Such witnesses enter the gap created through the temporal limitation of revelation.[2] If Jesus truly is the light of life, we can believe this promise today. The Word of Jesus Christ is stronger than the power and hardihood of the mixed and relative secularism that confronts the Christian community in our time.[3] This chain of senders and sent ones became the backbone of the early Christian idea of “apostolic succession,” which was articulated especially by Irenaeus of Lyons in the second century. In that era, when Irenaeus perceived the threat that unsubstantiated teachings were to the Christian message, he defended and traced an unbroken line of authority from the current bishops back to the apostles, Jesus and God. Thus, we have an important statement for the future of the church in that Jesus sent out and authorized his disciples so that those who heard them also heard him. While the church has often applied this to clergy, it applies to all followers of Jesus.[4]
Verse 41 is from the source unique to Matthew. These sayings encourage followers of Jesus to welcome others. 41 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. The saying reassures Christians that, under the laws of hospitality, they would receive rewards commensurate with the people they welcomed. The early church would have found guidance here in receiving wandering prophets and “righteous ones” as well as missionaries proper. Behind these sayings is the church in which Matthew lives. It had wandering missionaries, prophets, and righteous people, who presumably have authority to teach the commandments of God and their interpretation by Jesus. They moved from one congregation to another, often despised and persecuted, always dependent on hospitality. In its original historical context, these examples encouraged the virtue of hospitality among the followers of Jesus; but scholars divide about whether the community directed their hospitality mostly toward other Christians or toward humanity in general. The categories of prophets and righteous persons would seem to suggest hospitality extended toward other Christians, those who prophesy and act in ways commensurate with the message of Jesus and Matthew.
Verse 42 is from Mark 9:41. 42 And whoever gives even a cup of cold, a rare pleasure, water to one of these little ones (ordinary Christians?) in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.” This seems to be a Christian proverb. The qualifications for acceptance into this network drop even more dramatically. Now all that Jesus requires is only the tiniest hint of respect and interest in those who witness in his name. Giving a “cup of water” is hardly a measure of exuberant hospitality.
The term “little ones” is less clear than the terms in verse 41. Perhaps it refers to “ordinary Christians,” so that the series of examples would have a kind of descending order: from the rare prophet to the more common righteous person to the everyday ordinary Christian. The other usage in Matthew does not exactly resolve the issue, since it uses “little ones” to refer to actual children (18:6) and then symbolizes them in the parable of the lost sheep (18:10-14). Yet many scholars are quick to point out that “children” does not always mean literal children in the language of the New Testament. All Christians are children of God, of course, and Jesus refers to his followers as children on some occasions (Matthew 11:25; Mark 10:24). So “little ones” could mean “children” and “ordinary Christians” at the same time. In any case, the inconclusive interpretation of the “little ones” does not prevent the rhetorical effect of Jesus’ teaching from getting through.
Jesus elevates the virtue of hospitality among his followers and promising that those who practice it will receive a heavenly reward beyond what is owed. Just as those who work only the last hour of the day will receive the full day’s wage (Matthew 20:1-15), so will those who offer just “a cup of cold water” receive their heavenly reward. In this remark, Jesus promises a reward for even the most modest gesture of hospitality toward the disciples. There is no emphasis on a particular duty. God will not forget even a drink of water. The cup of cold water may be a symbolic metaphor representing any small but crucial act of charity. The cup of cold water may mean little to the owner of a home, but much to the traveler. However, in the world of the eastern Mediterranean, a cup of cold water might not have been such a small act. It might have been a potent symbol of salvation in those arid desert landscapes.
The “cup of cold water” itself is open to various interpretations. It is often interpreted as a symbolic metaphor representing any small but crucial act of charity. The cup of cold water does not mean much to the provider at home, but it might mean everything to the itinerant teacher. In this interpretation, the water is not prepared in any special way by the host; it is not heated, mixed or fermented, but simply poured from the household supply. Giving a cup of water is easy, and yet it reaps a heavenly reward. What do we have in great supply, which would not even be difficult to give up, yet which would mean a great deal to someone else? Moreover, preachers can raise the distinction between individual acts of charity and larger systems of justice. If offering one cup of water is pleasing to God and brings a reward, how much more would a disciple be blessed for building an aqueduct, an irrigation canal or a city water system? Charity is always needed, but it can be expanded into justice.
Another line of interpretation treats the cup of water literally in its historical context. In the terrain of Judea, Egypt or Syria, would a cup of cold water have been considered a small act, as suggested above? Or rather, would a cup of water have been a potent symbol of salvation in those arid desert landscapes?
God would reward even the simple act of offering a Christian a cup of water out of respect for Christ, Jesus states, even if the person making the offer has no other involvement in the faith. Jesus underscores his open, tolerant attitude to the one who gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ. Jesus' teaching flings wide the doors of discipleship. Jesus includes within his domain individuals his own disciples would never dream of embracing.
If we are to teach and preach only the great themes of the Bible and theology, we will ignore this passage. Yet, we would be poorer followers of Jesus if we did so. We often hear of the encouragement to practice random acts of kindness. In a sense, this passage has Jesus encouraging such acts. Yet, he also suggests that such kindness is not random. They show others something of who we are, so much so that God will not forget the one who shows hospitality.
Jesus is offering a blessing upon those who show hospitality to those whom Jesus sends forth. Strangers are not always a threat or a nuisance. Anyone can assume the stance of those who welcome guests into our lives. Ideally, of course, even the distinction between host and guest will evaporate into a new bond of unity.
The ethic behind these sayings is that of reciprocity. The messenger of Jesus is offering a gift through preaching, teaching, and actions. Some people will respond with the gift of welcome and a simple act of kindness that will bring refreshment. In general, the one who offers hospitality to a stranger is willing to welcome something new, unfamiliar, and unknown. Strangers have stories to tell that may stimulate the imagination in new directions. Coming from a different life-world than our own, hospitality to the stranger opens the door to a novel perspective that may expand us.[5] One who welcomes the messenger of Jesus welcomes Jesus as well, and welcoming Jesus means welcoming the Father who sent him. Jesus knows that within his ministry context, he and his followers will have a negative relationship with other Jews and with the occupiers from Rome. Therefore, when a person shows hospitality to the follower of Jesus, God will remember the person in eternity. Yet, allow me to suggest that if all this is so of one who does not follow Jesus, how much more should it be true of the follower of Jesus? Such hospitality is a way the follower of Jesus can show the world a different way of relating to the strangers that come into our lives.
When Jesus refers to people who welcome the prophet and righteous person, he could refer to any preacher, teacher, or one who acts in a way commensurate with the message of Jesus. Even the simple act of offering a cup of cold water is a saving act for the one who gives and the one who receives.
In Chinese culture, a true act of hospitality is to take the time to offer hot water. Even the smallest act of hospitality to a “little one” is an act God will not forget in eternity. In the context of the ministry of Jesus, such a little one is a follower of Jesus. Yet, such a little one is also the one the beatitudes describe. They are the poor, the pure in heart, seekers of righteousness, and merciful. They might be the one who needs the welcome of forgiveness, as in the parable of the prodigal son. If we pay attention to the teaching of Jesus, such “little ones” will become quite broad and inclusive. God will remember those who offer such simple acts of kindness. Even if such persons have never heard of Jesus, they are living their lives in the way Jesus counsels here. The one who has heard of Jesus needs to hear these words and live in them. God has some surprises for those who do simple acts of kindness to the little ones of this world. We have the promise of Jesus that the Father will remember them in eternity.
The story of St. Francis of Assisi and the wolf of Gubbio is the most famous of all the St. Francis legends. We can learn from this little 13th-century saint who practiced the ministry of hospitality throughout his life. Francis went to the town of Gubbio where a wolf was terrorizing and devouring the townspeople who dared leave the city gates. When Francis learned of the problem, he said he would go and speak to his brother, the wolf. When the wolf saw Francis and his companions coming toward him, he charged out of the woods bristling and baring his teeth. But Francis made the sign of the cross over the wolf and the wolf bowed at Francis’ feet. Francis said: “Come to me, Brother Wolf. In the name of Christ, I order you not to hurt anyone.” Francis explained to the wolf that he had been killing and frightening the people of Gubbio and this was against God’s law. But he also knew that the reason the wolf had been eating the people was because there was no more food in the forest and he was hungry. Francis said he wanted to make peace between the wolf and the townspeople. Francis returned to Gubbio with the wolf at his side, where Francis preached a sermon in the town square on God’s love and mercy. The wolf agreed to stop terrorizing the people, and in return, the people agreed to feed the wolf. For two years the wolf lived among the people of Gubbio in peace, as their companion and brother, receiving bread and water from their hands. When the wolf died, the people of Gubbio wept, for the wolf was a reminder to them of the holiness of St. Francis and God’s gentle presence with them.
Offering the cup cold of water, becoming hospitable to the stranger, is not simply charity.
I know this must seem a strange message from a not particularly religious writer in an utterly secular newspaper, but I am increasingly struck by two phenomena. The first is the growing sense that America's major failings are not political or economic, but moral. The second is the discovery that most successful social programs are those that are driven ‑‑ even if only tacitly ‑‑ by moral or religious values .... Marvin Olasky, the University of Texas journalism professor, says he recently spent a few nights as a "homeless" person on Washington streets. Every shelter he visited plied him with as many sandwiches and soft drinks as he wanted, he told me. But nobody ‑‑ even at a church‑run shelter ‑‑ asked him the first question about how he became homeless or what he thought might help him toward independent living.
Doesn't this neglect of the spiritual at least help explain the persistence not just of homelessness, but also teen pregnancy, substance abuse, school failure and the whole range of problems that we tend to see as stemming primarily from bad economics or racism? Shouldn't organized religion take the lead in doing what the rest of us fear to try?
"We have," says Robert L. Woodson, Sr., head of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise (and a layman), "been looking for cures in all the wrong places. We don't have a crisis in recreation, or social services, or consumer capacity. Certainly, our children need these things and need jobs, too. But these things have no redemptive quality, and what our young people need above all is to be redeemed."[6]
Offering the cup of cold water, offering hospitality in a way that opens your life to the stranger, can have political ramifications.
Amazing Grace is a 2006 movie. Ioan Gruffudd played Wilberforce and Albert Finney plays John Newton. The film has grossed $21,250,683 domestically as of June 14, 2007. Worldwide box office as of August 26, 2007 stands at $29,949,690. "Amazing Grace" was named "Best Spiritual Film of 2008"in the third annual "Beliefnet Film Awards".
The movie tells the story of the life of William Wilberforce (1759-1833), who was responsible for the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807. At that time, the British Empire was heavily dependent upon the slave trade. Wilberforce dedicated his entire life to fighting the injustice. Wilberforce was idealistic, compassionate, eloquent, and tenacious. Being the heir to a sizable fortune, he was elected to parliament at 23 years old. He experienced a dramatic spiritual conversion a few years later. He struggled with his political vocation. He was not convinced that he could serve God and Parliament at the same time. He met John Newton, a former slave ship captain and author of the hymn “Amazing Grace.”
It might be helpful to cover some of the story of Newton at this point, something only hinted at in the movie. Newton was born into a seafaring family in England. His mother was a godly woman. Faith gave her life meaning. She died when he was 7, and he recalled as the sweetest remembrance of childhood the soft and tender voice of his mother at prayer.
His father soon married again, and John left school four years later to go to sea with him. He quickly adopted the vulgar life of common seamen, though the memory of his mother's faith remained. "I saw the necessity of religion as a means of escaping hell," he would recall many years later, "but I loved sin."
On shore leave, he was seized by a press gang and taken aboard HMS Harwich. Life grew coarser. He ran away, was captured and taken back to the Harwich and put in chains, stripped before the mast, and flogged. "The Lord had by all appearances given me up to judicial hardness," he recalled. "I was capable of anything. I had not the least fear of God, nor the least sensibility of conscience. I was firmly persuaded that after death, I should merely cease to be."
The captain of the Harwich traded him to the skipper of a slaving ship, bound for West Africa to take aboard a human cargo. "At this period of my life," he later reflected, "I was big with mischief and, like one afflicted with a pestilence, was capable of spreading a taint wherever I went." John's new captain took a liking to him, however, and took him to his plantation on an island off the African coast, where he had taken as his wife a beautiful but cruel African princess. She grew jealous of her husband's friendship with John, and was pleased when it was time for them to sail once more. But John fell ill, and the captain left John in his wife's care.
The ship was hardly over the horizon when she ordered him from her house and threw him into a pig sty, and gave him a board for a bed and a log for a pillow. He was left alone, in delirium, to die. Miraculously, he did not die. She kept him in chains, in a cage like an animal, and fed him swill from her table. Word spread through the district that a black woman was keeping a white slave, and many came to watch her taunt him. They threw limes and stones at him, mocking his misery. He would have starved if the slaves, waiting for a ship to take them to the Americas, had not shared their meager scraps of food.
Five years passed, and the captain returned. When John told him how he had been treated, he branded John a thief and a liar. When they sailed again, John was treated ever more harshly. He was given only the entrails of animals butchered for the crew's mess. "The voyage quite broke my constitution," he would recall, "and the effects would always remain with me as a needful memento of the service of wages and sin."
Like Job, he became a magnet for adversity. His ship wrecked in a storm, and he despaired that God had mercy left for him after his life of hostile indifference to the Gospel. "During the time I was engaged in the slave trade," he would write, "I never had the least scruple to its lawfulness." Yet the wanton sinner, the arrogant blasphemer, the mocker of the faith of others, was finally driven to his knees: "My prayer was like the cry of ravens, which yet the Lord does not disdain to hear."
Rescued, he made his way back to England, to reflect on the mercies God had shown him in his awful life. He fell under the influence of George Whitefield and John Wesley, and was born again into the new life in Christ. He began to preach the Gospel, which at last he understood.
Two days short of Christmas 1807, he died, at the age of 82, and left a dazzling testimony to the amazing miracle of the Christmas story. "I commit my soul to my gracious God and Savior, who mercifully spared and preserved me, when I was an apostate, a blasphemer and an infidel, and delivered me from that state on the coast of Africa into which my obstinate wickedness had plunged me." This is his testimony, which, set to music, has become the favorite hymn of Christendom.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me;
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind, but now I see.
'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
and grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear,
the hour I first believed.
Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come.
'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far
and grace will lead me home.
Newton convinces Wilberforce that combating slavery would be doing the work of heaven. “The principles of Christianity require action as well as meditation,” says Newton. Newton told him:
“God has raised you up for the good of the church and the good of the nation, maintain your friendship with Pitt, continue in Parliament, who knows that but for such a time as this God has brought you into public life and has a purpose for you.”
Wilberforce recalled the meeting in this way, “When I came away, my mind was in a calm, tranquil state, more humbled, looking more devoutly up to God.” In his first speech to Parliament regarding the slave trade, he described the unfathomable conditions upon the slave ships and the despicable practice of slavery. After three hours, he concluded by telling he colleagues:
Having heard all this you may choose to look the other way, but you can never again say that you did not know.
Between 1787 and 1807, Wilberforce campaigned tirelessly for a legislated end to the British slave trade. He introduced the measure repeatedly, and repeatedly moneyed interests that supported political leaders defeated his “perennial resolution”.
In 1791, John Wesley wrote what be his final letter to encourage Wilberforce.
“Unless God has raised you for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.”
In 1807, the vote went in his favor 287 to 16, an event historian G.M. Trevelyan called “one of the turning events in the history of the world.”
In later decades, Abraham Lincoln remembered Wilberforce, saying he recalled the man who ended the slave trade, but could not name one man who tried to keep it alive.
While the slave trade ended in England in 1807, he continued to work to abolish slavery in England. In 1833, a bill passed that finally outlawed slavery. Remember, it took a costly civil war to end slavery in the United States. Wilberforce died three days later.
Trafficking in persons is still a global threat to the lives and freedom of millions of men, women, and children, according to a U. S. State department report in 2006. burma and North Korea still sponsor slavery. Human trafficking, however, involves organized crime groups who make huge sums of money at the expewnse of trafficking victims and our societies. In his book Not for Sale, David Batstone says that 27 million slaves exist in our world today. Millions of children experience exploitation for their domestic labor.
In one scene (0:18:23 to 0:21:00), Wilberforce, in the woods, starts speaking to God that he feels as if he must speak to God in secret. Richard the Butler arrives to ask him what he is to do with a beggar. Wilberforce has him feed the man breakfast. I know that laying down on the grass is not a normal thing to do. I know I have been doing many odd things lately. I have 10,000 engagements in politics today, and all I want to do is stay out here and look at spider webs. I have found God. “You have found God,” Richard said. I think God found me. Do you have any idea how inconvenient that is and how crazy it will sound?” Richard responded, “It would be sad thing for a man to be so well known to everyone else, and so little known to himself.”
In one scene, (at 23 minutes into the film) William Pitt, who would soon be prime minister, said, “Will you use your beautiful voice to praise the Lord or change the world?” In one scene (26:03 to 30:25) a table conversation occurs around slavery. “We understand you are struggling with whether you should do the work of God or the work of an activist. We humbly suggest that you can do both.” In the following scene (until 36:05), he meets John Newton, who tells him that he still lives with the ghosts of 20,000 slaves that he delivered to slaveholders on slave ships. “Do it John, for God’s sake.”
In one scene (44:31 to 47:11) the former Equino brought William Wilberforce to a slave ship. For amusement, they chained women and raped them. During storms, they threw slaves overboard to lighten the load. Wilberforce believed that if the members of Parliament could see the horror of the slave ships, they would stop it. In one scene (55:11 to 56:51), he encourages the people who are on a tour ship to look at the slave ship Madagascar. Smell the odor of death. “Remember that God made men equal.” People boycotted sugar grown by slaves. He believed they should have the won the vote in one session of Parliament. He brought a petition to Parliament, signed by 390,000 people.
The accusation against Wilberforce is that he obeys “the preacher in his head.”
In one scene (1:25:53 to 29: 48) John Newton finally writes his confession of his complicity in the slave trade. “We were apes. They were humans.” “I am weeping. I couldn’t weep until I wrote this confession.”
[1] Barth, Church Dogmatics I.2 [19.2] 487.
[2] Barth, CD I.2 [19.2] 500.
[3] Barth, CD IV.3 [69.2] 121.
[4] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume III, 366, 372, 375, 396.
[5] Thomas Ogletree, Hospitality to the Stranger: Dimensions of Moral Understanding (Westminster John Knox, 2003), 2-3.
[6] Syndicated columnist William Raspberry, "Churches Ought to be Doing What Government Can’t,” Tampa Tribune, Fe 14, 1995.
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