13th SUNDAY OF THE YEAR
‘Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me’
The practice of offering a stranger board and bed developed in a harsh desert climate, one in which everyone involved knew what it was like to be lacking food or shelter. To welcome the stranger could mean saving that person’s life. Hospitality then and now is about opening hearts and homes and Jesus Himself is our perfect model. He loves eating with people.
In Luke’s Gospel He is either going to a meal, at a meal or coming from a meal. He gets labeled as ‘a drunkard and a glutton, a friend of tax collectors and sinners’. He feeds the multitudes who come to hear Him. He breaks bread in the Upper Room, at Emmaus and Bethany. He prepares breakfast by the lake-shore. He mingles with people who are hated by society. He washes feet. He tells the story of the gracious hospitality of the Good Samaritan and He reminds His friends that they will be judged on hospitality at the end of life’s journey. To extend hospitality to a fellow human being in Jesus’ name is to extend hospitality to Himself.
In today’s Gospel extract He gives reassurance that the smallest act of kindness will be rewarded,not only on Judgement Day, but here and now. Hospitality is good for the giver. The guest in need becomes a source of blessing for the host. Hospitality is the mark of the genuineness of our Christian confession. It is an outworking of the Gospel. It is not only nice but necessary.
‘Kindness is moving the stone you didn’t put there, so someone else’s road is smoother’.