Ordinary 13

The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

2 Kings 4:8-11; Psalm 89; Romans 6:3-4, 8-11; Matthew 10:37-42

A room, a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp.

A place to be. A place to rest and eat. A place to think and reflect, to read and write. A place of shelter from the elements.

A room, a bed, a table and chair, and a lamp. A person doesn’t really need much more than that, do we? This is the description of the monastic cell of every monk and nun down the centuries. It is what retreat centers and houses of prayer offer people who for a time come to pray. It describes every hotel room, college dorm room or adolescent bedroom.

A room, a bed, a table and chair, and a lamp.

It is more than what poor and homeless people feel they will ever be able to acquire. The people, who aimlessly wander past this Cathedral or sleep on its steps, who frighten people at Saint Francis and annoyingly ask for handouts outside of Saint Mary. “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”

A room, a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp.

It is a place beyond the dreams of the world’s refugees and immigrants who are refused entry by the nations. They seek only to live without threats to their life. While we bind their lives with judgement, governmental red tape and obscure legal fictions that treat people like livestock rather than with the dignity of a human being. “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”

It is a simple place, that room. People around the world would gladly welcome it, their homes having been destroyed by mega-hurricanes and tornadoes, monsoons and rising tides, and wild fires as we continue to drag our feet to address climate change.

It is an interesting twist on the Holy Trinity this, “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”  It is like a Russian nesting doll. The eternal God is enfolded by Jesus, the Word enfleshed who is enfolded by the human being. To encounter a human being is to encounter Jesus who is the encounter with the incomprehensible God. A oneness expressed in three. A oneness expressed in the act of receiving.

The woman of Shunem receives strangers passing by, the prophet Elisha and his servant Gehazi. The prophet accepts and receives her hospitality. I wonder what they talked about over all those evening dinners. Open, heartfelt conversation is also a giving and receiving, is it not? The giving and receiving of more than ideas but of the spirit of each individual that binds the two into one.

Elisha receives from the woman and her husband the use of a furnished room. The prophet will offer the woman and her elderly husband the promise of a first-born son whom they will receive in due time.

It is a gentle story, this encounter between a woman and a prophet. A story of God’s presence in simple acts of offering and receiving with implications that profoundly challenge us today. For the opportunity of a lifetime must be seized in the lifetime of the opportunity [Leonard Ravenhill].

Whom do your receive?

And what do you provide for them?

Whom does our nation receive?

And with what do we offer them?

Are we not all seeking a place to be? A place to rest and eat. A place to think and reflect, to read and write. A place of shelter. Are we not all seeking in some form a room, a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp?