Patrick Comerford
We are in Ordinary time and today is the Fourth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity IV, 28 June 2026). This time of the year is known sometimes as Petertide, because of the ordinations at this time, close to tomorrow’s Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul (29 June).
Later this morning, I hope to sing with the choir at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Matthew 10: 40-42 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 40 ‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41 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; 42 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.’
Today’s Reflections:
We are preparing to welcome a new rector to the parishes of Saint Mary and Saint Giles, Stony Stratford. It is interesting that the word welcome is used six times in the three short verses in this morning’s Gospel reading.
The verb that is used here (δέχομαι, déchoma-ee), means to take by the hand, to receive, to grant access to, a visitor, to receive with hospitality, to receive into one’s home. It can refer to a way of responding generously to something said, to respond positively to teaching or instruction, to receive favourably, to embrace or to make one’s own.
Irish people like to think of Ireland as the land of a hundred thousand welcomes. English people have always put a high value on hospitality – although I fear that ten years after the Brexit vote that hospitality is widely cherished as an English value today.
Even then, our concepts of welcome and hospitality come nowhere close to the way these values are expressed by Greeks. In a village in Crete where I have stayed regularly and still go back to visit, the baker welcomes me back as I am buying bread for breakfast, wanting not only to assure me that he remembers me year-by-year but to be assured that I remember him too.
In the newsagents, I am asked how long I am there for ‘this time’ – it not only conveys the memory that I have been there before but contains the hope that I would be here many more times too.
The Greek concept of welcome implies that the stranger is becoming a neighbour, a friend. It is not a tourism marketing ploy. It is not a cheap expression of gratitude for return business. It is simply a part of the Greek nature and culture to welcome the stranger or the foreigner. And the Greeks have another word for it – φιλοξενία (philoxenia) – meaning literally ‘love of the stranger or outsider.’
In classical Greece, hospitality was a right, and a host was expected to see to the needs of the guests. There is a classical Greek term ξενία (xenia) or θεοξένια (theoxenia) that expresses this ritualised guest-friendship relation: θεοξένια (theoxenia, welcoming the guest, becomes welcoming a god. In classical Greece, someone’s ability to abide by the laws of hospitality determined nobility and social standing, and showed that someone was truly religious.
The Stoics regarded hospitality as a duty inspired by Zeus himself.
The word φιλοξενία (philoxenia) – from φῐ́λος (phílos), a loved one who is more than a ‘friend,’ and ξένος (xénos), a ‘stranger’ or ‘outsider’ – is used by many of the philosophers (Plato, Polybius, Philo of Alexandria and others) to express the warmth properly shown to strangers, and the readiness to share hospitality or generosity by entertaining in one’s own home.
It is a word that is used constantly in the epistles in the New Testament.
Saint Paul speaks of the importance of contributing to the needs of the saints – those inside the Church, and extending hospitality to strangers – those from outside who must be welcomed (κοινωνοῦντες τὴν φιλοξενίαν διώκοντες, Romans 12: 13).
In Hebrews 13: 2, the author uses a similar phrase (τῆς φιλοξενίας μὴ ἐπιλανθάνεσθε) when saying, ‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.’
The concepts of to be hospitable (Φιλόξεον, philoxeon or φιλόξενος, philoxenos), or to show hospitality (ξενοδοχέω, xenodocheo), occur throughout Saint Paul’s letters (see I Timothy 3: 2; Titus 1: 8, I Peter 4: 9, and I Timothy 5: 10). For example: ‘she must be well attested for her good works, as one who has brought up children, shown hospitality (ἐξενοδόχησεν), washed the saints’ feet, helped the afflicted, and devoted herself to doing good in every way’ (I Timothy 5: 10).
One of the requirements of a bishop in the New Testament Church is to be ‘hospitable’, to be welcoming to strangers (I Timothy 3: 2; Titus 1: 8).
But the NRSV translation shows its weaknesses in those passages. It is not enough to translate these words as hospitality or welcome; it is hospitality towards the stranger, it is welcoming the outsider, the stranger, the foreigner, the person who is different, who comes among us: the people who look different, smell differently, wear different clothes, speak different languages, have different family structures, different names, different religious beliefs and practices.
And in the list of priorities in the New Testament, care for others, for children and hospitality to the stranger come before looking after the needs of church members, described here are washing the saints’ feet.
In his book, Faith in the Future, the former British Chief Rabbi, the late Lord (Jonathan) Sacks, says: ‘The Hebrew Bible contains the great command, “you shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Leviticus 19: 18), and this has often been taken as the basis of biblical morality. But it is not: it is only part of it. The Jewish sages noted that on only one occasion does the Hebrew Bible command us to love our neighbour, but in 37 places it commands us to love the stranger. Our neighbour is one we love because he is like ourselves. The stranger is one we are taught to love precisely because he is not like ourselves.’
In the New Testament, the concept and the duty of philoxenia is in contrast to ordinary love, φιλία (philia), for it is easy to love those who are like us, from the same family or locality, and is in contrast to xenophobia, the fear of the stranger or the other, which is both unfounded and obsessive – and which is on the rise everywhere and finding expression in disgusting far-right and so-called ‘populist’ movements.
The Christian virtue of philoxenia has its roots in the injunctions to hospitality in Leviticus 19: 18 and 34. We are not just to love our neighbours as ourselves, but: ‘The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.’
Despite what is being said in the current debate dividing Anglicanism and many other Christian traditions, the sin of Sodom (see Genesis 19) was to refuse to welcome the stranger. The Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 109, makes it clear. For 1,700 years after the destruction of Sodom, ancient Jews linked the destruction of Sodom to the refusal of hospitality, not to homosexuality.
What we often call ‘hospitality’ is really entertaining, and typically we offer it to friends who reciprocate by inviting us back. Hospitality to strangers is not entertaining friends or neighbours. Philoxenia is much more than that. Philoxenia turns on its head xenophobia and any other irrational attitude to those who are different, those who are strangers, those who come from the outside.
And Christ reminds the disciples in this Gospel reading this morning that whoever welcomes them welcomes him. And that welcome begins not in the large gestures, such as accepting a whole, complex set of dogmatic statements and teachings, but in small, gentle gestures, such as offering a cup of water to those who are thirsty.
There can be no limits or bounds to our welcomes, to our hospitality, to our openness to others who are different or who are outsiders.
Today’s Prayers (Sunday 28 June 2026, Trinity IV)
In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 28 June to 4 July 2026 (pp 14-15), is ‘Living Stones’. This theme is introduced today with a reflection by the Very Revd Lydia Kelsey Bucklin, President and Dean of Episcopal Divinity School:
As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, I find myself taking stock of the hopeful and brutal legacies I have inherited as a citizen of this country – and the liberated communities I feel called by my faith to build. In 1 Peter 2: 5, Peter urges believers to “let [our]selves be built into a spiritual house”.
This image stands out to me: the Church as a house made of living stones. Each of us is a stone, chosen and placed by God, not to dominate or exclude, but to support and strengthen the whole. Being chosen does not mean superiority; it means belonging, responsibility, and care.
When our theological lens is too narrow, we risk building houses that exclude God’s people and the earth itself. Often, the concept of 'chosenness' has been weaponised to justify the displacement of Indigenous peoples, the enslavement of African peoples, and the denial of rights and justice for those outside its walls. The promise of 'We the People' was a curated liberty, denied to many whose labour and lands were stolen.
Today, the promise of freedom remains unfulfilled as our nation prioritises war and state violence over structures that would make us more free: healthcare, education, restorative justice, and more. We continue to witness exclusion in the denial of rights and protections for immigrants, those made and kept poor, those in prison, our trans siblings, and others whose lives have been politicised rather than cherished.
This week, let us imagine ourselves as living stones, placed together by God’s hand to support rather than dominate, in a living wall where everyone can find a home.
The USPG prayer diary today (Sunday 28 June 2026, Trinity IV) invites us to pray as we read and meditate on Matthew 10: 40-42.
The Collect of the Day:
O God, the protector of all who trust in you,
without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy:
increase and multiply upon us your mercy;
that with you as our ruler and guide
we may so pass through things temporal
that we lose not our hold on things eternal;
grant this, heavenly Father,
for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Eternal God,
comfort of the afflicted and healer of the broken,
you have fed us at the table of life and hope:
teach us the ways of gentleness and peace,
that all the world may acknowledge
the kingdom of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Gracious Father,
by the obedience of Jesus
you brought salvation to our wayward world:
draw us into harmony with your will,
that we may find all things restored in him,
our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Collect on the Eve of Saint Peter and Saint Paul:
Almighty God,
whose blessed apostles Peter and Paul
glorified you in their death as in their life:
grant that your Church,
inspired by their teaching and example,
and made one by your Spirit,
may ever stand firm upon the one foundation,
Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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