Hospitality
In Jonah’s experience, God’s word is very powerful if we bring it to people in the name of God and if they are open to it.
A hospitable family or person makes guests feel at home and gives them the best available. But if we are truly hospitable, we are also listening to the guest and to receive from him or her, perhaps more than we give and in a deeper way. We receive the guest as a person. God presents himself in the Bible as a traveler on a journey. He asks for hospitality as a stranger or a poor person. Christ also says that in the homeless we welcome him.
Reading: Jonah 3:1-10
Next, God spoke to Jonah a second time: “Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They’re in a bad way and I can’t ignore it any longer.”
This time Jonah started off straight for Nineveh, obeying God’s orders to the letter.
Nineveh was a big city, very big—it took three days to walk across it.
Jonah entered the city, went one day’s walk and preached, “In forty days Nineveh will be smashed.”
The people of Nineveh listened, and trusted God. They proclaimed a citywide fast and dressed in burlap to show their repentance. Everyone did it—rich and poor, famous and obscure, leaders and followers.
When the message reached the king of Nineveh, he got up off his throne, threw down his royal robes, dressed in burlap, and sat down in the dirt. Then he issued a public proclamation throughout Nineveh, authorized by him and his leaders: “Not one drop of water, not one bite of food for man, woman, or animal, including your herds and flocks! Dress them all, both people and animals, in burlap, and send up a cry for help to God.
Everyone must turn around, turn back from an evil life and the violent ways that stain their hands. Who knows? Maybe God will turn around and change his mind about us, quit being angry with us and let us live!”
God saw what they had done, that they had turned away from their evil lives. He did change his mind about them. What he said he would do to them he didn’t do.
Gospel: Luke 10:38-42
As they continued their travel, Jesus entered a village. A woman by the name of Martha welcomed him and made him feel quite at home. She had a sister, Mary, who sat before the Master, hanging on every word he said. But Martha was pulled away by all she had to do in the kitchen. Later, she stepped in, interrupting them. “Master, don’t you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me? Tell her to lend me a hand.”
The Master said, “Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it—it’s the main course, and won’t be taken from her.”
Prayer
Our loving God and Father,
you have invited us to stay with you,
to listen to the message of Jesus, your Son,
and to accept from him your peace and love.
May we welcome him wholeheartedly
and learn from him to welcome him too,
in people who appeal to us
for forgiveness and a bit of warmth,
for patience and hope and joy.
Let them not pass your servants by.
We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen.
