Matthew 25:38

Stranger Math: How Welcoming the Stranger Means Grace for All
By Ron Allen

The 2005 Week of Compassion theme text is embedded in the dramatic parable of the final judgment in Matthew 25:31-46. Matthew, with many other Jewish writers, believed that God would end the present age with an apocalypse, raise the dead, judge all people, and inaugurate a new era called the realm of God. The scene is the moment of judgment, with the resurrected Jesus judging sheep (faithful) and goats (unfaithful). The criterion for judgment is whether people responded to the needs of the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick and imprisoned.

For Matthew the judgment is not based on “works righteousness,” that is, on performing works to earn God’s favor. God already looks with grace (unmerited favor) on the community. The people are to respond with works of love and provision even as God provides for them. Those who do not are unfaithful and condemned.

Hospitality as a Custom
Matthew 25:38 draws our attention to one particular act. “When was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you?” This line evokes the core Jewish practice of hospitality to the stranger. Hospitality was much more than a politeness. The custom began in the harsh period when travelers could carry limited supplies and were easily robbed or attacked. Hospitality called for receiving strangers and providing food, shelter, security, and relationship. As we learn from Genesis 18, hospitality could transform the welcoming ones. Indeed, hospitality could even change enemies into friends.

The custom of hospitality continued when Israel settled in the land. The stranger was usually a Gentile who was physically present but not a member of the community. The Jewish people often distinguished between “sojourners,” that is, strangers temporarily in the community, and “resident aliens,” or strangers residing for extended periods.

Strangers and Sojourners
The First Testament uses the notion of hospitality to interpret the relationship of God and Israel. The Israelites had been strangers in a strange land, but God showed hospitality toward them (e.g., Lev. 19:34). The community knew and trusted resident aliens. Sojourners, however, were unknown and sometimes threatening. Nevertheless, the Jewish people were to respond to sojourners as God responded to Israel. Not only did such behavior bless the sojourners and show them the providential love of God, but it contributed to the security of Israel by bringing sojourners into the bond of community.

Matthew uses the Greek word xenos (as in our word “xenophobia”) for “stranger.” The Septuagint—the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek—usually uses xenos for sojourners (e.g., Ruth 2:10; 2 Sam. 15:19; Ps. 69:8 LXX, Eccl. 6:3; Lam. 5:2.). Some Jewish texts use xenos and its cognates to speak of the painful experience of Jewish people in the Hellenistic age when they were repressed by foreign powers. Jewish people perished as strangers in a strange land (e.g., 2 Macc. 5:9; 9:28; 3 Macc. 6:3). Strangers could be enemies of Israel (2 Macc. 10:24).

Who did Matthew have in mind when referring to the “strangers?” The answer may surprise most laity. For the “least of these” are likely itinerant followers of Jesus who went from place to place announcing the realm of God (e.g., Mt. 10:42; 11:11; 18:6, 10, 14). Many were rejected and persecuted (e.g., Mt. 5:11-12). Their existence was similar to that of sojourners: strangers in a strange and foreboding land.

Welcome
The word that is translated “welcome” is synago, which can mean simply “gather together,” or it sometimes implies gathering with commitment to one another. Elsewhere in the Septuagint it refers specifically to taking a sojourner into one’s own house.

Matthew means that one criterion whereby people are judged is whether they have been hospitable to the followers of Jesus. A preacher needs to handle this perspective carefully. The gospel writer has already stated plainly that the disciples of Jesus will be judged according to whether they have lived the realm of God (e.g. Mt. 7:21-27, 13:24-30, 36-43; 24:36-25:30). The author of the first gospel intends for this text to prompt the Matthean community to practice hospitality toward those who are as strange to them as the itinerant witness to Jesus was to the worlds to which they went.

From this broader perspective, strangers in Matthew’s world may have included sinners, tax collectors, and gentiles. Combining Matthew’s admonition to love the enemy (e.g., 5:43-48) with the use of xenos to refer to those who menace Israel, Matthew 25:38 may imply practicing hospitality toward those who threaten the community.

Means of Grace
This text puts the same questions to the congregation today as to those of old. “Who is the xenos among us? Who is as strange to us as the early itinerant witnesses were to the people they encountered? Who around us experiences the world as a realm of vulnerability and threat, much like sojourners in antiquity?” The text then puts its hands on our shoulders, looks us deep in the eyes, and asks, “Do you welcome them in the biblical sense? Do you practice hospitality in relationship with them?”

A remarkable motif comes to expression through this parable. “Truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Mt. 25:40). The risen Jesus is present in the stranger. Hence, welcoming the stranger is a means of grace. The act of entering into hospitable relationship with another can deepen one’s experience of the presence of the risen Christ.

Sharing with Strangers
To be honest, participating in Week of Compassion is usually not quite full-bodied biblical welcome. Optimally, hospitality brings people into immediate relationship with one another so that both parties can be fully and inescapably present with one another. However, contributing to Week of Compassion is a significant symbol that says, “I hereby enter into commitment with the strangers of our world.” In the process, we may discover that participating in the offering is, indeed, a means whereby God’s presence becomes more real.

Many Christians today believe that in a single moment God will end this age, judge all peoples, and begin a new world just as Matthew described. For such Christians, the implication is obvious: participating in Week of Compassion is a way of responding faithfully to the strangers in our world. Some other Christians do not believe that God will (or can) end history with a single, dramatic interruption. However, this text is significant for them as well, for it underlines the fact that all decisions have consequences. Rejecting strangers reinforces values and behaviors that lead a community to collapse. By welcoming strangers, Week of Compassion not only relieves suffering, but helps create a community that mediates security and abundance for all and, thereby, embodies essential aspects of the realm of God.

Written by Ronald Allen, Nettie Sweeney and Hugh Th. Miller Professor of Preaching and New Testament at Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis.

Ron Allen teaches preaching and Second Testament at Christian Theological Seminary. His most recent book is Wholly Scripture: Preaching Biblical Themes (Chalice Press, 2003) from www.chalicepress.com.