Whenever I have a sense that my verbosity is not being helpful, or that a particularly complex turn of phrase of mine obscures more than it reveals, I find comfort in texts such as Matthew 10:40-42.
[Jesus said to the twelve:] Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever
welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in
the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a
righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the
righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones
in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.
Complex though this text be, what Jesus is saying is roughly this: All you good Jews understand shaliah – the notion that “the emissary sent by the man is like the man himself.” Well, God the Father sent me, so if someone receives me, they receive the Father. And, I send my disciples, so if someone receives them, they receive me, and….Well, you get the drift. (It is worth noting, that implicit in this text is the notion that the opposite is also true!)
I do not knows quite what to make of the section about a “prophet’s reward.” But it is interesting to note that a very influential 1 st Century treatise, The Didache, uses the terms ‘apostle’ and ‘prophet’ interchangeably to describe the itinerant missionaries of the Early Church, and the same may be true here. And so, Jesus may well be saying: Look, I’ve told you that you, my disciples, are loved by God, that you are blessed, right? Well, the ones who welcome you, take you in, listen to you; well, they will be just as blessed as you are!
The closing section can be a wee bit tricky also. It helps to know that Matthew has a double meaning for “little ones.” On the one hand, they are the children of whom Jesus speaks in 18:6, 10, 14. These children are also something of a visual aid in Jesus’ teaching. And so, the ‘little ones’ are also the believers who have a child-like faith, and they are the ones who acknowledge their humility before God (here, ‘child’ is analogous to ‘servant’ and is the opposite of ‘greatness’ – they are ‘the least of these.’) In this sense, Jesus may be saying: When someone performs even a small act of kindness towards someone who is lowly and can offer nothing in return, even if it appears to be an insignificant act, even if the person showing kindness is as lowly as the person on the receiving end of their kindness… Well, that person is as beloved as the disciple who taught them how and whom to love. Both are blessed.
