Pentcost 3

Pentecost 3 (Mathew 10:40-42)  “Whoever welcomes me welcomes the One who sent me.”

Hospitality was a fundamental virtue in the ancient world.

People did not always observe the sacred obligation of hospitality. But, everyone understood that it was a divine value and expectation.

Moses writes: welcome the stranger, for you were a stranger in the land of Egypt. Jesus states: whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.

Jesus expands this teaching by saying: how you treat the least among you is how you treat me.

Hospitality, along with the other ancient virtues such as piety, charity  and reverence, holds little value for modern people. Even in the church people in the United States argue over who we should welcome and who we should exclude, who are the righteous and who are the unrighteous, who deserves God’s grace and who does not.

Ancient people understood that from time to time the realm of the divine tests the world of humanity. From time to time God sends angels in disguise to test the mettle of man.

These angels appear in the least expected form, as Jesus Himself came in the least expected way. Jesus clarifies for us that how we treat those whom our society rejects is no different from the angelic test of the ancient world.

From time to time, God the Holy Spirit brings into the church people to remind the church that God is love. That love is universal and unconditional.

Grace is God’s unmerited favor towards us. None of us deserves God’s grace. None of us can earn God’s grace. Grace is an active dynamic expression of universal and unconditional love.

Salvation is a personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ. The apostle Peter learned the hard way that the sole qualification for salvation is faith. St. Peter once said: if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your hearts that God raised him from the dead you will be saved.

St. Paul writes; you are saved by grace and not of works lest any one should boast.

We are saved from separation. We are saved into a series of personal relationships. We are saved by the Father for the Son in the Holy Spirit.

Law based religion is fear based religion. The Law has its place as a tutor. The Law cannot save. No one is saved by the Law. People who use religion to judge, condemn and exclude live with the fear that God will punish them if they fail to punish sinners.

Their god is too small. Jesus is the incarnation of infinite and eternal love. God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved. God’s gift of salvation in Jesus Christ is universal and unconditional. Salvation is for everyone because salvation is a new life in Christ.

How we live that new life that our Heavenly Father gives us in the Son depends on our response to the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who reveals to us where we have distorted virtue into sin. The Holy Spirit assists us to transform sin back into virtue.

The greatest distortion is pride. Pride is a distortion of the original virtue of humility. Humility is essential for kindness and compassion. It is pride that led the religious and political authorities of the first century to kill Jesus. It was pride morphing into its dark aspect of despair that led Judas to kill himself, Peter to deny Jesus, and most of the others to run away in fear.

The gateway to salvation is the Triune love of God manifesting in our lives through Jesus Christ. The key to sanctification, which is the life long process of transforming sin back into its original virtue, is humility.

There is only one Lord, Jesus Christ.  How we receive him into our lives reveals more about what we believe than any statement we might make. How we treat other people God the Holy Spirit brings into our lives reveals how we choose (or if we choose) to live the new life of divine love and compassion Jesus offers us through the Holy Spirit.

The apostle John wrote: God is love and he who loves is born of God. By this do we know that we are of God, that we have love for one another.

Our Heavenly Father created us to manifest and enjoy infinite and eternal love. Our Lord Jesus Christ redeemed us from separation, sin and death to manifest and enjoy a new life. God the Holy Spirit is sanctifying our souls so that we might enter into a new way of living.

The triad of sin that subverts divine love in our souls is fear, self-will and pride. The triad of virtue that transforms our soul is faith, hope and charity. The agent of transformation is the indwelling real presence of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is the co-eternal Beloved of the Father. Whoever welcomes Jesus for who he is welcomes the Father who sent him. The reward is the new way of living an abundant life of joy by grace through faith.