Free of Charge

Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
6.15.08; Rev. David Williams

Scripture Lesson: Matthew 9:35-10:8

How do you measure hospitality? There are a bunch of different ways, I suppose. How welcome are you made to feel? How doted upon are you? How much do people put themselves out to receive you?

It’s a tough call, though. How do you measure it? Some folks might use a a standard like the Mobil Travel Guide, which awards restaurants and hotels awards based on the standard of their food and their service. Carefully trained inspectors secretly examine facilities against over 400 criteria. Then they recommend it, and if it passes muster, it gets somewhere between one and five stars. If a place doesn’t get any stars at all, it means that even the roaches don’t know their jobs. If it gets five stars...well...then it’s a place like the Inn of Little Washington.

From what I’ve been told, that place is the shmantziest, most impressively amazing and consistently marvelous place to go that’s anywhere near the Washington area. From the moment you arrive to the moment you step out of your car to the moment that you depart, you’re enveloped in service. Your every need is met. You’re given delectably tasty food in perfectly sized portions, prepared by the most gifted of chefs and served by waiters who have reached such a Zen-like level of skill at their trade that they practically float to your table. All around you, there are folks who are there to make absolutely, completely sure that your every moment is perfect.

That’s certainly wonderful hospitality. It also costs around $170 for the meal, per person, excluding tax, tip, and beverage. A room for the night...a small room...is around $505. For what usually ends up being a thousand bucks a night, the hospitality had better be good.

My family never went places quite like that on vacation. We usually drove to visit the grandparents. There, we just, well, we just were. The food was whatever we cobbled together. There weren’t little handmade truffles on our pillows at night. The waitstaff was nonexistent. You often were required to bus your own table. I think there was one visit when my primary source of calories was Count Chocula. I don’t the Mobil Travel Guide ever even noticed those little establishments.

But there are few places where hospitality is more alive than in the summer on the porch of your grandparents house, spitting watermelon seeds into the bushes while the grownups talk in the cool of the day.

Both of today’s readings tell us something of the meaning and purpose of being hospitable. The first reading, which Pastor Mike shared with us out of Genesis, tells us a little about what hospitality meant in the ancient world. As Abraham encounters three strangers arriving at mid-day, he rushes to provide for them. It’s one of the odder passages in Genesis, because on the one hand, it says that the Lord comes toAbraham. On the other, it says that it’s three guys. And no, it’s not the Trinity. Is it three holy men or prophets? Three angelic messengers? Three wise men? Three stooges? It doesn’t really matter.

What’s clear is that Abraham responds to the arrival of these men by offering up the full hospitality of his house. Why? Because offering up hospitality to a stranger in the ancient world was one of the signs of being a person of worth. If that stranger looked like they might be able to someday repay the favor...all the better. In verse three, we get a hint of that hope for a payback, as Abraham offers up the hope that he’ll be viewed favorably these three strangers. He gives, but there is this hope that somehow, someway, he’ll get something in return. As it happens, he does.

The story from Matthew’s Gospel today flips the equation. What we hear is Christ sending out the disciples into Judah, and in the telling of the story we hear Matthew’s unique spin on the tale. Unlike the version of this sending that we get in Luke and in Mark, Matthew’s remembrance of this event has Jesus sending the disciples only to those living in the southern kingdom of Judah, and not to the Samaritans.

Most notably, though, Matthew’s Gospel tells the story has far more details about what is expected of the disciples. What should they take? Jesus tells them...and it isn’t much. How should they respond to the folks who don’t respond to their message or treat them with hospitality? Jesus tells them.

But the passage I’d like to highlight here is verse eight, in which Jesus tells them that as they received without payment, they should also give without payment. Along with verses seventeen through twenty-three, this verse is among the reasons that bible scholars think that Matthew was written at a later time in the life of the church. Those later verses indicate that the church was being actively oppressed, but verse eight seems to speak to a situation that was of much contention in the early church: Should evangelists and pastors be paid?

What Jesus seems to be implying in this verse is that payment isn’t appropriate for sharing the Gospel message, which is, after all, something given free of charge. Again, it’s only Matthew that records this statement, and ultimately, we hear from the Apostle Paul that the early church settled on paying certain members of the community for their service, ‘cause having dedicated pastors and youth pastors is a good thing. I think.

There’s a deeper point here, though. This passage speaks to the way we give. It speaks to the way we serve. And it speaks what we should expect to receive in return. Church...that place where we live and proclaim the Kingdom of God...can’t show the kind of hospitality that comes when you’re looking for something in return.

Yeah, church members want their church to grow. But when you invite that person to come to church, or you set up a new program to give respite care to moms with toddlers...what’s the expectation? When you welcome that new person into the church, and follow up with them...are you expecting anything in return?

It’s the real challenge as you try to build a church. Are you interested in sharing the goodness of the Kingdom message with that new person? Or somewhere, right under the surface, are you looking at all those empty pews and hoping that this person will help fill them? If that hunger for growth and church success starts becoming the reason you’re reaching out to others, are you really showing hospitality? Are you really seeking to give without thought of gain?

All the programs, all the events, all of the activities and outreach strategies and plans...none of those things are real unless they are undertaken from a heart filled with excitement about the possibilities of the church or the movement or the Gospel.

Hospitality...real Christian hospitality...can’t be bought, or rented, or given on credit. It needs to be given free of charge.