Making Space for Grace:

 

The Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time 2026 

June 28, 2026

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2 Kings 4:8-16; Psalm 89; Romans 6:3-11; Matthew 10:37-42

 

 

Matthew’s Gospel presents hard sayings of Jesus. We are told that we must take up our crosses and put the welfare of our families subservient to God’s commands. They are difficult thoughts to understand. We have domesticated these sayings and have taken the shocking energy out of them. He ties love of God to hospitality. We are to go out of our way to make people feel welcome and to make space for God. The story of Elisha the prophet shows the life-sustaining value of hospitality.

 

The City of Boston experienced fun hospitality when people from Scotland, Iraq, and Norway converged on the city and brought vitality and joy. It raised our spirits and the ushered in an atmosphere of discovery and curiosity so much so that we want to build stronger relationships with them. Their visits changed us and made us light-hearted.

 

In the Book of Kings, the prophet Elisha visits a nameless woman of influence who extends hospitality to him. Elisha never asks for anything and the woman does not expect anything in return. Her generosity opens the door of an unexpected blessing – the birth of a son she never imagined she would have. The blessing may not come in the way we expect, but hospitality always changes the host as much as the guest. The moral of the story is: Whenever we make room for others, God quietly enlarges our life. 

 

          This previews the life of Jesus. Whenever he taught, he was dependent upon the hospitality of others. We know he stayed at the houses of Peter, Mary and Martha, and Zaccheus, and he gave instructions of proper visitor etiquette to his disciples. The hosts who welcomed Jesus and his friends discovered that they received far more than they gave. Is this not like the Eucharist? When we are host to Jesus in our lives, we carry our weariness, failure, hope, and gratitude, and Christ prepares a table for us to be nourished. He makes room for us with divine hospitality. 

 

In our Old Testament story, we see the progression of hospitality. It is not about entertaining guests or putting on a good meal. It is about seeing the dignity of a person of God and making room in our lives for them. It is about knowing that every person bears the presence of God. With Elisha and the woman of influence, hospitality progressed from a simple meal, to greeting him in passing, to building a room just for him. It grows from a single meal to a permanent place of welcome. 

 

The challenge for us today is to figure out what hospitality, what making room for God, means. We rush from one activity to another, and we care of those closest to us well. Still there is more. Hospitality means to offer rest to someone, to invite someone in for a conversation and social nourishment, to provide a place for someone to sit, to think, and to prayer, and to offer hope. We have to make room in our hearts before we make room in our homes. Our challenge today may be: For whom am I making room? We may discover that as we prepare our hearts to receive another person, God has already made room for us. God provides unexpected, unsolicited blessings. By making space for others, God quietly enlarges our own lives.