HOSPITALITY: A CHALLENGE TO EXCLUSIVISM
Dr. Stephen D. Jones, preaching
October 21, 2007
Text: Luke 15:1-2; Mark 2:13-14
Second Baptist Church, St. Louis
Jesus was an Includer. Everywhere
he went, he crossed boundaries. He paid no attention to social, ethical, moral,
or religious limits. He included all kinds of people.
He included tax
collectors. These were Jews who had sold out to the Romans for their own
financial gain. They were encouraged by the Romans to not only collect the Roman
tax, but to assess enough more so that they could be rewarded a luxurious
lifestyle. Their wealth was assessed on the backs of the peasant class. They
were afforded protection by the Romans in return for their loyalty. To their
fellow Jews, they were traitors, having sold their souls to a corrupt,
oppressive imperial rule. They did the “dirty work” of the Romans by raising the
taxes necessary for the huge building campaigns and military campaigns of the
Empire. Tax collectors were shunned by fellow Jews. They were avoided lest they
also be viewed a turn-coat. Tax collectors often sat at booths on the major
roads so that no one could escape paying their tax.
Jesus included
Matthew, a tax collector. As Jesus passed by the tax booth, instead of being
interrogated and taxed, he said to Matthew, “Leave your tax booth, and follow
me.”
Jesus included
Zaccheaus, a tax collector. As Jesus entered Jericho, he went up to Zaccheaus
and said, “Come down out of that tree and bring me to your home.” Those who
entered the home of a tax collector and dined with him were viewed as traitors,
having defiled themselves by entering the home of someone who had turned away
from the Jews and from God.
Jesus once told a
story praising a repentant tax collector instead of a self-righteous Pharisee.
(Luke 18:10f)
Jesus said, “Truly I
tell you, tax collectors will enter the kingdom of God ahead of the
self-righteous.” (Mt 21:31)
Jesus was an includer.
Everywhere he went, he crossed all kinds of boundaries. He exceeded the social,
ethical, moral or religious limits of his day. He included all kinds of people.
He included
prostitutes and those of questionable sexual behavior (Matthew 21:31). Once when
a woman and a man had been caught in the act of adultery, the married man was
allowed to run away, but the woman was dragged before Jesus by a group of
condemning men. And Jesus stood between her and those wanting to stone her (John
8). One of his longest reported conversations was with a Samaritan woman at the
well who had had five husbands and was now living with a man who wasn’t her
husband. His respectful dialogue turned her life around (John 4).
Once he allowed a
woman who was a known sinner to wash his feet as a gesture of hospitality and
adoration, causing the righteous to criticize him for having physical contact
with such a notorious woman (Luke 7:37).
Jesus affirmed the
prostitutes who sincerely responded to John the Baptist, believing his message
and changing their minds and hearts (Matthew 21:32).
He once said, “Truly,
I tell you, prostitutes will enter the kingdom of God ahead of the
self-righteous” (Matthew 21:31).
Jesus was an includer. He
reached out to the sexual minorities of his day, those judged by others, and he
praised them. He spoke naturally and comfortably of the eunuchs, who were
impotent males and therefore rejected as sexual outcasts, that the kingdom of
God could be theirs (Matthew 19:12). One of his disciples baptized a eunuch.
Jesus was an includer. Children
were to be seen in the first century, not heard. They were to hang back, out of
the limelight, and certainly not distract men from their noble
conversations. One time the disciples were doing what was expected of them,
keeping children away from Jesus so as not to waste his valuable time. He
scolded his disciples saying, “Let the little children come to me and do not
stop them; for it is to such as these children that the kingdom of God belongs”
(Matthew 19:14).
Jesus was an includer. He
reached out to Samaritans, who were felt by the Jews to be an inferior,
compromised race. The Samaritans maintained a competitive faith, worshipping God
on the holy mountain of Gerizim instead of the holy city of Jerusalem. The Jews
used the word, “Samaritan,” as a dirty, derogatory word. Once his detractors
scorned him, saying, “Are we not correct in saying that you are a Samaritan and
have a demon?” (John 8:48). He once healed a Samaritan who was a leper, and of
ten healed that day, only the Samaritan returned to give thanks.
He told the story of a
good Samaritan, an oxymoron to most Jews (Luke 10:33).
Jesus was an includer. He
reached out to non-Jews, including the Gentiles. He visited the Decapolis, ten
Gentile cities, preaching his message of compassion. He healed a deaf man there
(Mark 7:32f). He cited how God had worked through Elijah in a time of famine to
bring food not to a Jewish widow but a Sidonite widow, and God worked through
Elisha to heal a Syrian leper but no Jewish lepers. His comments enraged his
hometown (Luke 4:25f).
Jesus was an includer. Nicodemus,
a leader of the Jews in Jerusalem, came to Jesus quietly by night and they
shared a revealing teaching session together (John 3:1f) He had such a
respectful relationship with many Pharisees that they once warned him to stay
away from Jerusalem for the leaders there were plotting against him.
Jesus was an includer. He
treated women with greater equality than had ever been considered in his day. He
refused to consign women to the kitchen only, and applauded Mary when she wanted
to sit at his feet and learn. He included wealthy women as full members of his
itinerant entourage (Luke 8:3). He healed many women of their infirmities, evil
spirits and demons, treating them just the same as men with the same condition
(Luke 8:2). He once praised a woman who was far ahead of his male disciples in
understanding the tragic nature of his destiny (Mark 14:9).
Jesus was an includer. He
elevated poor people. He lived in a society, as do we, in which poor people were
downtrodden, disregarded, and oppressed. And he lifted them up, saying that it
would be the poor who would more easily enter the kingdom of God. He taught that
those who puffed themselves up and promoted their own self-importance would be
the last, and those who were humble would become the first.
Jesus was an includer. He
said that he came not for the righteous, not for the famous, not for the elite,
not for those of super-status, not for the purest of the pure, he came for
sinners. He said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who
are sick. . .I have come, not for the righteous, but for sinners” (Matthew
9:12-13).
You could exclude
yourself from Jesus by your own elevated self-importance, by seeking to be
better than others, by your own self-absorbed narcissism, by your own greed, by
being an exclusivist.
But Jesus was an
includer.
The largest force of
exclusivism in our day is religious fundamentalism. Whether Christian, Islamic,
Jewish or Hindu, such extremists want to enforce their views upon others. They
know that they are right and everyone else is wrong. They know that the path
that is right for them must be the only right path for others. And they are
ready to resort to almost any means, including coercion, violence, manipulation,
and oppression, to ensure that their way comes out on top. Fundamentalism is the
opposite of Jesus’ message of inclusion.
Are we inclusive? Do
we include those who have serious issues with the church? Do we include those
who feel they have been wronged by God? Do we include couples who are living
together but not married? Do we include persons whose first language is not
English? Do we include people who are deaf, or have special needs? Do we include
someone who hasn’t bathed and comes to us in dirty, ragged clothes? Do we
include an openly gay couple who comes to us sincerely wanting to be honored for
their love of each other and their love of God? Do we include a transgender
person who is finding authenticity by transitioning from one gender to
another? Do we include people who don’t like Baptists? Do we include judgmental
or prejudiced people? Do we include someone who is angry at white people? Do we
include someone who has made a terrible mistake and comes to us repentant? Do we
include an abused wife and her children? Do we include single parents? Do we
include those who have experienced the pain of divorce? Do we include children
with serious behavioral problems? Do we include ex-convicts?
Jesus was an includer. Is
our welcome as wide and broad? Everywhere he went, he included all kinds of
people, crossing all kinds of borders. He paid no attention to social, ethical,
moral, or religious limits. Jesus’ welcome, his hospitality, was a direct
challenge to the exclusivists of his day. Those who wanted to be with only their
own kind, to maintain themselves righteous, pure and uncontaminated, were
insulted by Jesus’ heterogeneous, rag-tag band of disciples. There was a
tendency within Judaism of his day to divide the world between the clean and
the unclean, between the righteous and the unrighteous, between the pure and the
impure. Jesus walked all over those boundaries.
If we wish to follow
him, then our discipling community will be as inclusive as his. And it begins
with the hospitality we extend to those who might be very different from
us. Such hospitality doesn’t require us to be all things to all people. We need
only be ourselves. We need only be the people whom God calls us to be.
What it does require
of us is that we stand on the edge, not safely in the womb, but on the edge,
where we are more likely to encounter the neighbor, the stranger, the person in
need. Jesus asks us to stand at the margins so that we might encounter those who
have been marginalized by life. “Come, follow me,” he says to us.
The greatest news of
all is that Jesus included me. Selfish, stubborn, noisy, brash, he included
me. I don’t have to earn my way into his circle of inclusion. I don’t have to be
good enough. I don’t have to be perfect enough. I don’t have to be righteous
enough. And neither do you. He included you. In the words of the old Gospel
hymn, “Jesus included me, Yes, he included me, when the Lord said ‘who-so-ever,’
he included me” (Johnson Oatman). Amen.
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