Hospitality of Heart & Home

Sermon 429 St. Martin’s 183 (Riverway) 6/28/26

Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 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; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple-- truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

Matthew 10:40-42

The House at Pooh Corner

There is a story from Winnie the Pooh that I love, and that I recently read to Hannah, my four-year-old. It’s called The House at Pooh Corner.    

On one particularly snowy day in the Hundred Acre Wood, Pooh and Piglet decided to visit their friend Eeyore. Once they arrived near the area where Eeyore lived, Pooh realized that Eeyore did not have a house, and he thought it was a sensible idea to build him one.

Piglet, always helpful, pointed to sticks that were piled up just a little ways back. They could use those to build Eeyore a proper home. Pooh decided to name the area where they built the house “Pooh Corner.”

Meanwhile, Eeyore was slowly trudging through the snow with Christopher Robin, and, in his usual depressed state, he bemoaned the latest thing not to go his way because now he could not find his home.

It had been in its usual spot when he left earlier in the day, but now it was gone! At that moment, they ran into Piglet and Pooh, who had finished putting together the newly built house and were excited to show Eeyore the good thing they had done for him.

Confused, Eeyore thought that his house must have been picked up by the wind and gracefully fell back down, where Pooh and Piglet said they had built this house for him. It wasn’t a random pile of sticks Pooh and Piglet had taken from; they had removed, relocated, and remade Eeyore's home.

Like most things when it comes to Winnie the Pooh, a simple gesture turns into a silly (if not complicated) mistake by the self-proclaimed Bear of very little brain. And as usual, Pooh Bear goes about his life none the wiser.

Matthew 10 Today, Jesus’ message focuses on hospitality and on how we open our hearts and our homes to him and to others. How Jesus reorders our hearts and homes may not be exactly like Pooh’s deconstructing-and-reconstructing project, but for many, it can feel just like that.

What is fascinating is not just the content of Jesus’ teaching today, but also its placement. These are the final lines of what is known as Jesus’ Sermon on Mission.[i] We all likely know something of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, but the entirety of Matthew chapter 10 is dedicated to mission.

If you were here last week, you may remember we had the absolute worst reading for Father’s Day. Jesus said that he had not come to bring peace but a sword and that he would turn sons against their fathers and daughters against their mothers. I love how our lectionary calendar does not care what the secular calendar says.

Dane spoke about how following Jesus is not easy, nor should it be. Following him may lead to division with our closest earthly relationships. There can be a personal cost to the gospel. Jesus wants us to know that from the start.

What’s so intriguing is that our lesson on Christian hospitality directly follows Jesus’ warning about the division he will bring. We are picking up right where we left off with last Sunday's reading.

And yet, it would seem as if Jesus was making a complete 180 when he goes from talking about family division to gracious hospitality, when in fact he is weaving these two themes together. He divides to reunite; he cuts us from the old in order to graft us to the new.

You see, Jesus is deconstructing and reconstructing our understanding of the human family and how we relate to one another. When it comes to the Kingdom of God, it doesn’t matter who your parents are or who is in your bloodline; God’s family transcends and expands our notion of family.

All are one in Christ Jesus, united to him in faith, and bound to one another as brothers and sisters who dare to call God our Father.

The link to this family is Jesus, and Jesus alone. God has no grandchildren; we can’t opt in through someone else’s faith. We make that choice to follow him, and though that decision may create division with our earthly family, we will gain a much larger family that is made up of fellow believers both near and far.

The family of faith is bigger than anything we can imagine. Even if there is division within our earthly family because of our decision to follow him, Jesus reminds us of the vast reality we’re entering.  

Faith in Jesus opens our eyes to a much broader reality than we first imagine, but faith in him begins on a very personal level. Before we can consider the scope of what we’re getting into, Jesus first wants to transform our hearts and then our homes.

Jesus demands our heart; he requires to take residence there first and foremost, so that he may transform us from the inside out. And if he does that to us, then we must accept that he does that to others.

It is no wonder that Jesus ends this Sermon on Mission by likening the strangers who come through town to himself, sharing in his mission and work for the world.

Jesus is reminding his listeners that prophets and righteous people and disciples are not actually strangers in the family of faith, but they should be welcomed because they are from him. When you welcome them, consider that you are welcoming the Lord himself, he says.

He speaks of welcoming a prophet (meaning a preacher) and gaining a prophet's reward (which I’ve always wondered what that is…just glazed eyes looking at you…I’m assuming Jesus actually meant something good by it). The same promise for a reward is given in those moments we welcome a righteous person or a disciple.

Who are these people exactly? Who should we be ready to receive with open arms? A helpful way to think about this is: a prophet speaks God’s word. A righteous person lives God’s word. And a disciple loves God’s word.[ii] So essentially, anyone in the family of faith. 

Welcoming the outsider as an honored insider had been an aspect of Jesus’ ministry from the very beginning, and he wanted to make sure it was an important part of our ministry as well.

Just think of the memorable time Jesus walked through Jericho and looked up to see Zacchaeus sitting in a sycamore tree, hoping to get a good look at him. Not only was Zacchaeus short, but more importantly to that story, he was a hated tax collector.

And what does Jesus do? He says, “Zacchaeus, I must stay at your house today.”[iii]

People were shocked that Jesus sought the hospitality of a questionable character like Zacchaeus, but what they should have been surprised at was how Zacchaeus’ heart was transformed when he offered Jesus hospitality. His life is forever changed by allowing Jesus into his heart and home.

I think this Zacchaeus-type of transformation was what Jesus had in mind when he ended his Sermon on Mission by talking about how we should welcome others in his name.

Hospitality would be an important aspect of the church’s growth. As the early church expanded its footprint, it was essential that teachers, preachers, and fellow believers were welcomed as they traveled. Jesus said that the Son of Man did not have a place to lay his head, but he wanted to ensure, through this teaching, that others would be welcomed in as they proclaimed the Good News throughout the empire.

Hospitality has certainly been an essential characteristic of the Christian witness from the beginning because of what is said in Matthew 10. And it has continued through the ages.

Fast forward to the sixth century for one of my favorite examples. Monks are a serious group of people. They adhere to a very particular way of life and a strict daily schedule that consists mostly of prayer and work.

And yet, when St. Benedict created his rule for monastic communities, he was clear that when a visitor knocked on the monastery doors, the monks should welcome that person as Christ himself. Drop what you’re doing and care for that person, he said.

And if the monks were fasting on that particular day, Benedict even stated that they were to break the fast so that their guest did not have to eat alone.

Benedict understood the spirit of Jesus’ command; he had gotten the memo loud and clear: keep your heart open to the Lord and open to others. In this way, hospitality superseded other forms of religious piety; better yet, hospitality was the preeminent sign of religious piety.

Conclusion And so, let’s think for a moment about ourselves: how have you been in opening up your heart and your home to Christ and those who come in his name recently? Like the monks, have you dropped what you’re doing when Jesus comes knocking at your door? 

Life is busy, right? There is so much to do and so little time. Summer always promises to be a bit slower, but it ends up being just as hectic as any other season.

But have we made space for Jesus to reside in our hearts recently? Have we invited him in to take up space and transform us from the inside out? If it’s been a while, let this week be the week. Set aside some time today and offer hospitality to our Lord in your heart. Let him come in and do his work in you.

Photo by Etienne Boulanger on Unsplash

Once we’ve done that, who are the people in our lives we can offer space to? Whether that is welcoming them into our homes, or offering ourselves to simply listen over a cup of coffee or a meal, the gift of hospitality is giving our time and attention to someone else. It could be a friend or coworker, neighbor, a church member, or yes, even a stranger.

Christian hospitality does not require you to be an award-winning chef or to own the most beautiful house on the block; it is, first and foremost, opening up your heart to another and welcoming them (in whatever way that looks like) as you would welcome Christ himself.

But let me warn you, you will be changed in the process. We live in echo chambers; we surround ourselves with voices that repeat what we already think; we are attached to screens and have become only dumber and more cynical for it.

But when we allow Jesus to break open our hearts to him and to others, and we begin to listen to their needs rather than solely be focused on our own, well, we start becoming the hospitable family Jesus envisioned.

One where the highest form of piety is welcoming another in the name of our Lord because he has welcomed us into his family. Where even a cup of cold water is a sign that the Kingdom of God has come near.

[i] According to Dale Bruner.

[ii] Dale Bruner’s characterization in Matthew vol. 1 pg 496.

[iii] Luke 19:5