Love in Action

I suppose people often find they receive kind and loving support from close friends. Perhaps just as often they receive it from family members. What fascinates me is sometimes people are completely surprised: they realize kindness and benevolent treatment at the hands of one from whom they never expected it. It can come from a stranger or even from a person you thought held you in disfavor.

Here is another surprise: once in a while people thank you for a kindness or favor you did for them, and you didn’t even see it as a major thing at the time. You may barely even recall it at all. Love in action can have all kinds of surprises that come with it. I say “love” and that might need clarification. It is easy to think of love as an emotion, a feeling. Over the course of our lives love can be encountered much more profoundly as a decision or an action. A decision to be loving or to manifest kindness is the way love moves beyond the realm of sentiment.

Today when we use the word “charity,” we often mean a generous kindness, or a donation or benevolence to a person or a cause. This is the dominant, current connotation of the word, and has been from about the turn of the nineteenth century. Before that it often was used to mean the love of one’s fellows. In the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, sometimes called the “love chapter,” the apostle characterizes the greatest spiritual gift: selfless and sacrificial love. In early English translations, the term used instead of “love” was “charity”. Perhaps you are familiar with the final line of it from the 1611 Authorized or King James Version of the Bible. It reads, “And now abideth faith, hope, and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”  — 1 Corinthians 13:13. So, the greatest gift is love.

Kindness and hospitality shown to the stranger or the traveler was a deep practice and code among ancient Semitic peoples and tribes including the Hebrew people. There is an iconic story of Abraham and Sarah in Genesis. These two received three traveling men and served them hospitality. As it happened, it was the Lord in the form of three angels visiting them to deliver a divine promise. These angels of the Lord appeared as men passing through. This fits into the patriarchal story and underscores the important desert custom of kindness. The idea is, help the stranger in this harsh desert; it may be you in need one day. Take a look:

The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. He said, “My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.”  — Genesis 18:1-5

Two millennia later, a contemporary of St. Paul, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews seems to reference this story and underscore the same code of kind responsiveness, as a Christian golden rule. Serve as you would God, or as though it is you in need.

Let mutual love continue.  Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. — Hebrews 3:1-3

You know the phrase, “Charity begins at home.” It is a proverb that one will never see in scripture, and may have originated in an early seventeenth century play of satirist John Marston, Histrio-Mastix, 1610. We do quote it, and want to assert the proverb, meaning that before offering charity to anyone, make sure all is plentifully full with you and yours. And don’t we worry sometimes charity will begin at home and will never leave home? It might be something of a concern if charity began, abided and ended at home, never venturing out to find others who could be so blessed by generous love.

These roaming thoughts intend to set us up to listen to one of the most challenging stories of Jesus, which is our Gospel this Sunday. Perhaps rather than say one thing more about these topics, I should simply let you read, and prepare your heart for Sunday, and for all of your coming days of ministering to Christ, without even knowing it.

Jesus said, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘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.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘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?’ Then he will answer them, ‘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.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”  —Matthew 25:31-46