Proper 8a; Matthew 10:40-42; St. Paul’s, Smithfield
July 2, 2017
Jim Melnyk: “In My Name”
The
little boy’s name was Danny, and he liked to watch his mother run. She liked to participate in the many road
races that took place throughout the year near their home. Danny liked to watch his mother run – but he
loved getting to stand with his father alongside the route his mother would
take, holding out cups of cold water for any of the runners whose eyes might
catch his. Someone would come along on a
dead run and snatch the cup from his outstretched hand and Danny would jump up
and down with glee – until his dad placed a new cup in his hand for the next
runner. And as much as he wanted to keep
jumping up and down Danny would settle down, holding the cup steady; realizing
how important the water was for the next person who would come by.
Jesus also knows how important a
cup of cold water can be. He lives in a
land where water isn’t plentiful in many places. Rain in Jesus’ tradition, and therefore water,
is seen as divine gift, and therefore one’s willingness to share the gift of
water is to share a divine blessing. The
simple act of sharing water becomes a powerful act of hospitality and welcome. And, in essence, Jesus tells us the act of
sharing a cup of cold water with “one of these little ones” – with one of the
newest and most vulnerable of his followers – becomes an act of compassion and
mercy – it becomes an act of love.
“The statement about giving a cup
of cold water to one of these little ones points ahead to the parable of the
judgment in Matthew 25 – where the Son of Man says to the righteous, ‘I was
thirsty and you gave me something to drink’ (25:35), and when the righteous don’t
understand, Jesus then says, ‘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’ (25:40)” (Elizabeth
Johnson, Synthesis, 7/2/2017).
Jesus also knows that the ability
to give a cup of cold water in his name, or in the name of one of his followers,
can be a challenging task for some to understand. He’s been preparing his disciples for their
first mission trip with an expectation that they proclaim the Good News of the
kingdom of heaven. And if we were to
read just a few verses before this morning’s lesson from Matthew we would find
Jesus explaining to them that not everyone will welcome his message. They’ll be going out like “sheep into the
midst of wolves” (10:16). That certainly
doesn’t sound very promising.
On top of that, the message of Good
News they have been given to share, will just as likely bring a sword, as much
as it will bring peace – causing strife even between family members who
struggle with the message of Good News for the poor, for the sick, and for the
thirsty – causing conflict between those who take notice of the world’s
hardships, and those who prefer to look away (10:34-36).
But,
says Jesus, there are those who will welcome you – and when they do that, they
welcome me as well – and they also welcome the One who sent me – they welcome
God. So we don’t lose hope – we take the
risk – we welcome others – and we proclaim the coming kingdom of heaven – even
if some will turn away from us, or some will turn on us – because the Good News
cannot, and will not, be shut down by this world.
However,
there’s more to welcoming someone than simply smiling and saying hello. Welcoming someone “is an attitude…it’s the
constant openness of [our hearts]” (Jean Vanier, Synthesis, 7/2/2017). Dare we say it’s as simple as offering a cup
of cold water, and as complex as changing whole systems that place fellow human
beings at risk.
And
one truth about the Good News is that it will shake up the lives of anyone who
follows Jesus. We remember how Jesus
calls all who follow him to love God with every fiber of our being, while at
the same time calling us to love our neighbors as ones like ourselves. And since the disciples who follow Jesus
throughout his earthly pilgrimage are fellow Jews, they recognize his commands
from Torah – and they remember what follows “love your neighbor” almost
immediately in Leviticus: “and love the sojourner – love the stranger – love the
alien – in your midst, welcome them as a citizen, for you, yourselves, were once
sojourners in Egypt” (Leviticus 19:33-34, paraphrased). We know this is a challenging commandment for
many people today.
Now,
our little friend Danny is too young to fully understand all the Biblical
imperatives about loving our neighbor, or about loving and welcoming the
stranger as a fellow citizen. But Danny
knows how thirsty his mom gets when she’s running, and he figures everyone else
running – including the strangers – well, they are probably just as
thirsty. Danny simply knows with clear,
child-like logic that it is a good thing to give water to someone who is
thirsty; and possibly he knows somewhere deeply within his gut that his giving
a cup of cold water is an act of compassion and love as well. It’s that knowledge – along with that gut
feeling – that makes Danny dance like crazy every time someone receives a cup
from his outstretched hand.
What
Danny knows inherently to be true – the importance of giving a cup of cold
water to another – the powerful witness of welcoming the stranger – is
something all too many of us in this world struggle to know and to embrace.
For
most of us there is nothing particularly special about a cup of cold water. What’s
the big deal? We just turn on the tap or crack open a bottle of Deer Park, and
voilà, our thirst is quenched. When we
get a “boil-water” advisory – if we ever get one – it’s always temporary, like
after Hurricane Matthew, and perhaps we moan and groan a bit. But most of us have no trouble turning on the
stove and making do.
But
what if we lived with a boil-water advisory day after day after day, like the
people of Flint, Michigan? What if we
lived some place where we had to boil water every day, and on top of that, had
to scrounge for the fuel to even light a fire to be able to boil our water? A cup of cold water takes on new meaning when
clean water and economic resources become scarce.
And
if we’re willing to take a stand on behalf of the people of Flint, Michigan, where
children like Danny go home and turn on the tap every day – or speak out for
clean water regulations anywhere, well then, we may find that even a cup of
cold water can be a sword that divides.
We may even find ourselves receiving a prophet’s welcome – which wasn’t
always a good thing, my friends.
Closer
to home, St. Paul’s Outreach and Social Justice Committee recently sent five
hundred dollars to the Episcopal Farmworkers Ministry to help with their “Water
in the Fields” campaign.The
Farmworker’s ministry designed and produced water carriers for use in the
fields this summer by migrant farmworkers. Every seventy-five dollars the
program receives provides ten water carriers, which help our sisters and
brothers who work in the fields every day making sure food gets from the farm to
the markets and then to our tables.
And
while that first $500 isn’t huge, the sixty-six water carriers the money from
us provides are making a difference in workers’ lives, and it’s good start on
our part. Do date the ministry has put
nearly 500 water carriers into the hands of farmworkers! And we’re thinking about other ways we can
help insure water security for people in our wider community. If you want to help, talk with Diane Every or
Megan Shaner.
But
that cup of water in Matthew’s gospel means so much more than extending a literal
cup if we’re willing to see this as parable or metaphor. When
we climb on the roof of our upcoming Habitat for Humanity Faith Build house, to
nail down shingles, or to frame a window, to paint a room, to bring lunch to
the workers, or just schlep supplies from one place to another, we will be
welcoming folks who may never set foot in our Church – though it would be great
if do. We will be welcoming folks who
may begin as strangers to us at the start of the build, and hopefully will be
neighbors before the end – and we will be welcoming Christ.
There
are so many people thirsty for what that cold cup of water symbolizes, people
who have been told they are not worthy to be seen, let alone receive anything
from anyone. When we reach out to
someone in need – especially someone whom the world deems unworthy of our help
– we indeed welcome Christ into our midst.
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