Near sundown one evening, Jesus and St. Peter entered a village and stopped by the home of a wealthy couple. "Do you have a place where two travelers can rest their weary bones?" asked the Lord. "Do I look like an innkeeper?" yelled the irate woman of the house as she slammed the door.

Without saying anything, Jesus crossed the street and knocked on the door of a very modest home. A woman carrying a small baby answered. "Would you be so kind as to give us a night's lodging?" asked Jesus. "It is an honor to share our home with unexpected guests," the woman said brightly. "You must be hungry and tired. Go sit by the hearth and warm yourselves, and after I put the children to bed, I'll gladly fix you something to eat."

As they entered the humble home, the Lord and Peter saw three young ones peeking out of a small bedroom. The woman excused herself and went inside the room. The two men sat down by the fire, and they could just barely hear the voices of the children saying their good night prayers.

When they had finished, the woman slipped out of the bedroom and began to fix Jesus and Peter something to eat. After they finished, they slept on mats on the floor near the fire.

When they awoke the next morning, they found a wonderful breakfast waiting for them at the table. "I trust you got a good night's sleep last night," the woman said. As the Lord and Peter ate their breakfast, the woman prepared school lunches for the children and put a pot of soup on the fire for the evening meal. As they got ready to leave, the woman handed Jesus and Peter a small sack each. "It isn't much," she said, "but it will be better than what you might get at some unfamiliar inn."

Now the Lord had been deeply touched by the treatment they had received from the woman. "We'd like to thank you for your hospitality. I am the Lord Jesus, and this is Simon Peter. I just want to say this: Whatever you start out doing this morning you will continue throughout the day." Then they exchanged good-byes and left on their way.

As soon as the children left for school, the woman started weaving at her loom. Never had things gone so well or had she weaved so fine. By the time the children returned home from school she had weaved enough cloth to fill a whole room in her house. After supper, she wove again and on into the night. Just before she was ready to quit her neighbor from across the road stopped by and was amazed to see all the cloth. The woman told her neighbor the whole story and how it was that she produced so much fine material.

"Had I know it was the Lord Jesus I would have found room for them at my house," the neighbor woman said. "Do you expect them again?" she asked.

"Actually, yes; they said they would be back through in a week or so." "Please be so kind as to send them to my house so they can bless me." "I would be happy to do so."

Sure enough, in a week or so the Lord and Simon Peter stopped by the home of their friend at about the same time of the day. The woman explained that her neighbor across the road had more room and would be honored if the two men would spend the night at her house.

"She doesn't really want us," muttered Simon Peter as they crossed the street. "All she wants is the blessing…" "Well, some people can turn a blessing into a curse," the Lord replied as he knocked on the door.

This time the Lord and Peter were treated with great kindness. The kitchen was filled with freshly baked goods. As the woman ran back and forth to serve the table, she barked out orders to her husband. "Pick up the kettle. Get me more firewood. Will you watch where you are going?"

Jesus and Peter slept in the guest room and awoke to find a sumptuous breakfast waiting for them. As they prepared to eat, the Lord said to the woman, "Whatever you start out doing this morning you will continue throughout the day." They finished their breakfast and departed.

As soon as the two men were out of sight the husband set up the loom so that his wife could begin weaving. "I will weave twice as much cloth as my neighbor," she bragged to her husband. But before she settled down to begin weaving, and so she wouldn't be interrupted, the woman decided to make one last trip to the outhouse. Well, once she started she found that she couldn't stop.

Several times she tried to get to the loom, but as soon as she sat down she had to run outside again. She spent the entire day there until it was time to go to bed; just as the Lord had said would happen.

Like all master storytellers, Jesus knew his audience well, because Jesus understands people and human nature well. In seven verses of Matthew's Gospel, Jesus tells us two quick stories. These stories leave us thinking, "Gee, am I behaving like that? I hope I'm not like that," much in the same vein as the story that I opened with. All three stories share a common thread of warning and consequences for selfish behavior or mindless assumptions.

The message comes through clearly- always act wisely, seeking what God would have us to do, even in seemingly small matters. For what we do speaks loudly, even without words, about the true disposition of our hearts. Basically, Jesus says, "actions speak louder than words." On closer inspection the implication stuns us.

Apparently, in Matthew's text this morning, giving one's life over to the Lord doesn't mean much if one does not then serve the Lord in meeting the tangible needs of one's neighbor. When we turn others away, as the one woman in the story did, we risk turning our Lord himself away.

And one day we would say, "'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?' 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me,'" we hear Jesus say to his followers in the 25th chapter of Matthew.

At the heart of the matter lies the true original sin. I'm not speaking of mere disobedience in eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That is not the sin worthy of expulsion from the Garden of Eden. The temptation uttered by the serpent which led to the original sin was for something far greater than mere disobedience.

The original sin then, and to this very day, is still the same: the desire to be as God, and thereby to live completely self-reliant. The attitudes and actions of self-reliance are the death of God in the human soul- that is and remains the first and foremost sin- to not recognize our need for God, but rather trust in our own wisdom, our own abilities.

In the first story Jesus tells, the people say all the right words, use all the proper formularies, and yet are betrayed and condemned by the disposition of their hearts before the Lord who sees and perceives their true intentions. In his remarkable play, "Murder in the Cathedral," T.S. Eliot recognizes the pervasiveness of this temptation to hide our true motives when he has Archbishop Beckett utter the memorable line, "the last temptation is the greatest treason, to do the right deed for the wrong reason."

When Jesus says, "I never knew you; go away from me," in effect he says "you never took the time to get to know me well enough to invoke my name and follow me on the way. You only think you did." And if we only think we know Jesus, we might get surprised one day.

I love what Eugene Peterson did with this text in his modern translation of the New Testament called "The Message." Jesus said, "Knowing the correct password -- saying, 'Master, Master,' for instance -- isn't going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience- doing what my Father wills. I can see it now -- at the Final Judgment thousands strutting up to me and saying, 'Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, and our God-sponsored projects had everyone talking.'

And do you know what I am going to say? 'You missed the boat. All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You didn't impress me one bit. You're out of here.'"

In the second story that Jesus tells, we learn the difference between truly knowing Jesus, or only kidding ourselves that we know him. For Jesus, it comes down to what we do with what he says. And the stakes get higher when we consider the symbolism in this story.

Whenever we dream about a house or building, it is our subconscious speaking something to us about our lives. The notion of "My Life as a House," is an excellent analogy for the structure our lives that we build, and not just the title of a movie from late last year. The house of our life is, indeed, where we live and move and have our being, and we have built it.

Return to the text of the Matthew lesson, and think of those two houses as the lives of the builders. Suddenly, the issue in the story regarding the foundation of each house takes on a whole new and vitally important meaning. On what foundation do we build the house of our lives? The solid rock of Christ's teaching, or the shifting sands of our own ego? For whose benefit do we say, "Lord, Lord;" our own or someone else truly in need. To whom do we offer hospitality, those who can give us something in return, or to those who need it without any thought of return? Do we see ourselves in these stories? Do these stories speak to us still?

Master storyteller that he is, Jesus knows that a good story can make us squirm, Can cause us to look at ourselves a new, and help us act with integrity and love toward others. A good story can do that for all time and in all places and with all those who choose to really listen. Which is why being faithful to the Gospel of Jesus requires telling these stories again and again, in this day and age of people so dedicated to the dead end illusion of self-reliance.

May the ones with ears to hear, truly listen.

The Rev'd Timothy M. Dombek
ST. JAMES EPISCOPAL CHURCH
301 Piney Mountain Road
Greenville, SC 29609-3035
(864) 244-6358
stjamesrector@mindspring.com

Copyright © 2002 Timothy M. Dombek All Rights Reserved.