Welcoming people and doing it well is important, isn’t it? If you have people in your home, you go out of your way to make them feel welcome. You might offer them a drink. If they are staying for dinner, you set the table nicely and offer them a seat. You wait on them and ask them if there is anything they need. You treat people who come into your home, not just as visitors who might have interrupted your schedule for the day, but as honoured guests. That’s all in a good welcome. And it’s important to do this not just for visitors in your own home but for those who come to our church, some perhaps for the first time.
Welcoming others is important because that’s what we’re called to do. God wants us to welcome others. But of course, there’s a lot more to it than merely being friendly and nice to people. Our Gospel reading speaks clearly to the question of why it is so important to welcome others. Jesus says, “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me” (Matthew 10: 40).
This is a remarkable statement. Jesus has just finished warning his disciples that they will face rejection, persecution, and suffering. They will not always be welcomed. Yet wherever His Word is preached faithfully, Jesus himself is present. So, to receive those who come with Christ’s word is to receive Christ himself. And to receive Christ is to receive or welcome the Father who sent him. It’s all about how people get to know Christ. And we get to know Christ, not by sitting in the privacy of our own homes on a Sunday morning, far away in thought from God and other people, enjoying or not enjoying our own company, but by being part of the community of Christ, the church. By turning up where he shows himself to be.
And this teaches us something profound about how God comes to us. God does not ordinarily appear in overwhelming displays of glory. Instead, he comes through humble means. He comes through preaching and teaching. He comes to us in Holy Baptism and through the bread and wine of Holy Communion. He comes through ordinary servants carrying an extraordinary message. In other words, God’s mission is our mission. God doesn’t need us to do his work, but he wants us and calls us to do his work. That is how God chooses to work in the lives of others. This is how Christ chooses to welcome people- through your life and mine. And to know this is both comforting and offensive at the same time. Our sinful human nature wants a God who comes according to our expectations- powerful, impressive, and undeniable. We prefer signs of success, influence, and strength. We often judge God’s servants the same way and lose interest in what they have to say if they are not charismatic, popular, or impressive sounding speakers. But Jesus says none of this determines whether we receive him. The question is much simpler: Do they bring Christ’s Word? Or do they not? And, we might add, how is that Word received? By ourselves? With joy or indifference?
Have I always welcomed God’s Word when it challenged me? Have I ignored faithful preaching because it confronted my pet sins?
Have I treated God’s servants with indifference or criticism rather than thanksgiving?
Have I overlooked the “little ones”- the weak, insignificant, or needy members of Christ’s church?
Have I thought only spectacular acts matter while neglecting ordinary acts of love?
You see whether or not we receive Christ and welcome him with joy has implications. Eternal ones!
Earlier on in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus reminds his disciples that if people do not receive them, then they were to “shake of the dust from their feet.” To shake the dust off one’s feet when leaving a person’s home was a ritual act symbolic of God’s judgement against those who reject the Gospel. As if to say that the twelve should not even associate with these unbeliever’s dust. And Jesus tells us the consequences of such a response. In Matthew 10:15, he goes on to say, “Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.” But then comes the Gospel. Long before we received Christ, Christ received us. St Paul says, “While we were still sinners. Christ died for us.” (Rm 5:8). Christ welcomed us before we welcomed him. He did not wait until we got our lives together or deserved his love. We never do! Instead, he came to us while we were enemies of God. He took our sin upon himself at the cross. He bore the rejection that belonged to us. He died for the unworthy. And on the third day He rose again so that all who trust in him are welcomed into the Father’s house for ever. This is the greatest act of welcome and hospitality that the world has ever seen.
And then there is the promise of reward. A prophet’s reward to those who receive a prophet. (10:41) A righteous person’s reward to those who receive a righteous person. (10:41)
And then Jesus says, “… whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.” (10:42). In this simple act of hospitality, He will not lose what he already has as one who belongs to God and is a disciple of Jesus. He will not lose his eternal reward. Luther often remarked that faith is never alone. Faith naturally bears fruit. Not because we are trying to buy God’s love, but because we have already received it.
But lest you are confused, let me say a few words about that word reward, and what it means for Christians who are already saved by grace alone through faith. St Paul talks about this when he reminds us, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). So, what are we to make of rewards? And the words of Jesus that remind us that we will be rewarded?
This is a reward not in the way our world sees rewards. As human beings we’re conditioned to think of a reward as something we get for a special achievement, or for services rendered, or for the work or the time and effort I have put into something. And so, I deserve to be “rewarded.”
But here Jesus speaks to us of rewards based solely on God’s grace and goodness, not on the amount of work we do. Again, to quote Luther, our beloved church father, “Works do not make you righteous; rather, an already righteous person does good works out of love for their neighbour. Good works do not make a person good, but a good person, does good works.” Luther goes on to say, “Therefore, let the person who wishes to do good works begin not with works but with believing, for this alone makes a person good. For nothing is able to make a person good except faith, and nothing can make a person evil except unbelief.”
You see no reward can match the blessings of God’s grace already given to us. As children of God, we’ve already been rewarded in full. Rewarded by God’s grace that first welcomed us, that received us at the font, and that rewarded us with the gift of eternal life. And so, even a cup of cold water, simply caring for God’s “little one” will have its reward. Though the world hardly notices these little, hidden acts of love, God notices them and delights in them. And this is good news for ordinary Christians. You may never preach to thousands. You my never become famous by your faith or remembered in history books.
Yet every time you encourage another Christians, every prayer for your pastor, every gift of supporting the ministry of the Gospel, every kind word to a struggling believer, every act of mercy done because you belong to Christ- these are precious in God’s sight. And this also reminds us of the privilege we have as the Lobethal Lutheran Church. Each Lord’s Day we receive those who Christ has sent to preach His Word and administer his sacraments. Through my ministry to you, Christ himself serves us. And you gather here not because I am an extraordinary pastor, but because Christ has attached His promises to the words I speak. His Words. And having received Christ here, we leave this place with a blessing to become his servants in the world, wherever he has placed us. And this is what it means to live out our calling as church and to live daily in our baptism. We receive and then we give. God loves and forgives us, and then we give that love and forgiveness to others. Christ serves us. Then we serve our neighbour. Christ welcomes us as sinners. Then we welcome others in his name. This is what it means to live as “instruments for righteousness” (Romans 6:13), as Paul calls us. It is being freed from slavery to sin in order to be free to love and to serve, to welcome and to be welcomed, and so to receive Jesus, the Father, and life in his kingdom. This is the rhythm and the heartbeat of the Christian life. We have been received and welcomed by grace, and so we gladly receive and welcome others.
And remember all the while to pay attention to the little things, those ordinary everyday nice things we can do that can mean so much to someone else, and to the relationship you might form with them. Even if it is only a cup of water! Our Lord never overlooks even the smallest act done in faith. It’s all in a good welcome. Amen.
