A CUP OF COLD WATER
Matthew 10:40-42
Rev. Gary Paterson
June 29, 2008
Y’all know Stuart Chase… the tallest guy in the congregation … he was serving coffee in the Narthex after worship last Sunday. By himself, though, since his wife Kate, well she had to be at home last Sunday, finishing up a bit of work before starting maternity leave, everything well-planned and ready for the baby, who was scheduled to arrive mid-July. Only, of course, it didn’t happen that way – it never does! Late last Sunday evening, three long weeks before expected, well, things began to happen -- the waters broke – all over the bathroom floor; then labour, swift and effective; some hurried phone calls; and in a couple of hours … 6 pounds and 12 ounces of eager, energetic and excited Sasha James Stuart arrived in the world, in his own home, caught by the strong, capable hands of the midwife. Welcoming hands… who held Sasha, making sure that all was well, before passing him to his mother and father. Who also welcomed him. With huge hearts and probably some tears.
Every human being needs to be welcomed into the world… no welcome, no survival. That’s simply the truth about each and every one of us human beings. We arrive totally vulnerable and dependent, relying on the nurture and love of our parents. And it’s not only a simple question of physical survival, but at a deep level, we depend upon our parents’ welcome to develop an essential trust in life, its goodness, so that we know at a visceral level that we belong; that we are loved, and will be cared for.
Let me expand on this understanding. This weekend my family is gathered in celebration… a 60th anniversary. I promised not to embarrass anyone, but I do want to say welcome to my Mum and Dad, who will soon be heading into their sixty-first year of marriage; and welcome to my daughters Emily from Calgary, and Zoe from Bangkok and to my grandchildren, Abby and Zach. It’s at times like this that you realize that the “welcome thing” lasts a life-time – take note Stuart and Kate… you’ve just begun. And it’s not just parents that offer care and love. It goes up, down and across the generations -- brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins – first, second, once-removed. Hey, it’s families that we humans need, with all the inevitable dysfunctions that come with the package … biological, adopted, fostered, “stepped”, blended, extended or chosen; families, where we learn what it means to love; you know the saying, “It takes a whole village to raise a child.” We humans need a community to welcome us into the world… over and over; as infants, children and, yes, as adults. We need each other.
Another image -- sometime last week, after a hot, hot day and a restless evening sleep; then suddenly waking to the banging of Venetian blinds and curtains. The wind had sprung up some time in the night, the temperature had dropped… and at 4:30 in the morning I finally slipped out of bed to shut the window. When I looked out, through the half-light of early dawn I saw someone walking down the street. Hard to distinguish features, but a man in a tan jacket, baggy pants, head bowed, looking at the sidewalk. Walking slowly… not with that purposeful intentness that signifies exercise, or a task to be done, a meeting to get to. No, a human being who looked like he needed a hug; needed someone to say, “It’s going to be okay.” Or, “Hey, can I buy you a cup of coffee?” Someone who was willing to reach out and say, “Welcome.” Maybe I was just projecting… but I felt like I could touch his loneliness. Probably all of us, some or time or other, have walked down such a street; sleepless; alone; not sure about life’s welcome.
We humans beings are a relational species. We need each other – for survival, certainly; but for so much more. Despite all our western stress on individualism, and our myths of the self-made person, we are interdependent, from our first breath, to our last. From language to sexuality, we need each other. We grow together -- only in relationship is our deepest self called forth.
Today’s Gospel Reading is short… only three verses, that come at the end of a long teaching section, where Jesus is trying to explain what it means to be a disciple. And what he is saying at this point is all about “welcome”. The word crops up six times in these three verses ---- welcome, welcome, welcome… over and over, just to make sure you don’t miss the point. Indeed, it almost becomes confusing, trying to sort out who is welcoming whom. Which may be part of the message.
This sense of welcome is rooted in Middle Eastern understandings hospitality. It is an essential virtue in a nomadic, desert-surrounded culture… strangers must be welcomed by generous hosts who invite their unknown guests to wash their tired feet, drink a cup of cold water, share a meal where bread is broken together, and enjoy a safe, good night’s sleep. For who knows when it might be your turn to be the wanderer, depending for your survival on the kindness of strangers.
Hospitality – the art of welcoming – is a dance between guest and host, a mutual experience of grace. Interesting to discover how our language reflects this interplay – the words “guest” and “host” both come from the same linguistic roots – “hostis”, meaning, “stranger” and sometimes, “enemy”. To welcome someone and to be welcomed are not power plays, but an expression of our deepest humanity, living as God would have us live, carrying the possibility of transforming strangers into fellow human beings, and, perhaps, into friends. The act of welcome becomes a gift to both guest and host.
If you take a closer look at the three verses at the end of chapter ten in Matthew, you see the progression of thought. The first verse… “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” … points to what happens whenever the disciples are welcomed by those they meet – to welcome a disciple is to welcome Jesus Christ. Now just sit with that a moment and ponder… and take it personally. When you are in the world, embodying gospel… reflecting in your life a deep trust in God’s love and acting out that faith in compassion, justice-seeking and joy… you are in fact the presence of Christ in that moment. Which is both a phenomenal compliment, and a big challenge. Remember what St. Teresa of Avila once said:
Imagine living as if those you meet will in fact be meeting Christ; well no, go further – because Jesus actually says that they will be encountering God.Christ has no body but yours,No hands, no feet on earth but yours,Yours are the eyes with which he looksCompassion on this world,Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
The next verse shifts the direction to our welcome of others… who ever welcomes a prophet or a righteous person will discover their reward. The prophet… the prickly conscience, that criticizes and challenges… never an easy person to welcome; prophets make us uncomfortable as they puncture our defensive rationalizations, as they call us to higher standards of love and justice. But, says Jesus, when you do welcome them, then something quite exciting begins to happen. And then there’s the righteous person… well, sometimes they are easy to welcome… those good people, around whom we start to feel good ourselves. But sometimes, they too can be a challenge, as we indirectly end up thinking about our own lives, wondering about our own goodness, perhaps uncomfortable with the compromises and barriers … perhaps, just perhaps, we might learn to be more righteous ourselves.
Then the final verse brings it home: “…whoever gives even a cup of cold water one of these little ones…” -- that’s what we are all commanded to do, to offer a cup of cold water to the least powerful or important or lovable persons we encounter… to offer a cup of life’s necessities to someone who can’t demand or command these resources, but who is dependent on the generosity of others, on the welcome of other human beings. Water… God’s gift… not something we created ourselves; not something that we “possess” simply because we have camped out by the oasis, the river, the lake. Water is to be shared, not bottled and sold.
What Jesus is outlining here is not just a new ethics, but rather suggesting a way of encountering Holiness. Yes, we can meet God within ourselves, that inner Spirit that is a reflection of divine image. Yes we can meet God in and through the created world; the universe shimmers with Holy Energy. And, says Jesus, we can meet God in the encounter between two human beings; there is a luminosity of being in what happens in that space and time when people meet, greet and reach out to one another. It’s as if an arc of energy leaps between two poles, and lights up that holy space, in-between. When welcome is offered and received, then the gates of heaven open and a so-called ordinary moment shines as brightly as any burning bush.
Now, there is one more word we need to take a look at in this passage – one that can sound a little uncomfortable. “Reward” – it turns up three times in these verses. If you offer a welcome, you’ll get your reward. Which sounds a lot like a fear-based ethic – do the right thing in order to earn brownie points, or to avoid punishment; in some ways, this kind of thinking can take you fairly quickly to a heaven/hell end point, as a divine book-keeper and judge decides who gets the final rewards for good deeds. Well, perhaps. But maybe this is really a way of trying to state that our actions have consequences. Our choices… to welcome or not welcome… they have significance beyond the ephemeral moment; like ripples in the pond, like a tiny gust of wind and heat sparking a tornado. Like the decision made by two people to get married … and sixty years later there’s a granddaughter working in Thailand to stop international trafficking of women; or a great-granddaughter who has the assertiveness to become a future prime minister of Canada. Who knows what our actions will result in – but be certain that there are consequences – good ones and hurtful, damaging ones.
But let me push this reward thing a bit further. Because I am beginning to wonder if Jesus wasn’t suggesting that the so-called reward often occurs in the present moment. That is to say, the very act of welcoming carries its own deep blessing, as we discover a sense of the rightness of being, of living out what we believe humans are capable of; being in harmony with creation; of finding ourselves in alignment with the Spirit that moves throughout the universe; of recognizing that we are indeed contributing our small bit of life-energy to the Holy Dream of God. Not that’s some feeling; that’s some reward. Sometimes, of course, it calls for sacrifice –it isn’t always easy, or a lot of fun. In fact, it can sometimes be very risky – take note of the cross. But I suspect that Jesus would say that we should always err on the side of welcome. Often we will be wonderfully surprised at what unfolds, and even when our welcome is personally costly, God will keep working with us and our actions, and what we have done will not be lost – “Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones… truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”
Let me put some flesh on these fine gospel words. Last Wednesday a few of us St. Andrew’s-Wesley folk found ourselves down at First United Church, to join in the weekly celebration that combines a shared meal and moments of worship and reflection offered by Rev. Ric Matthews. What is happening there, is an intentional effort to offer welcome to all people, to deliberately seat at one table people who come from all over the city… downtown eastside and Kitsilano; prosperous and unshowered; First Nation and new Canadian; mentally ill and relatively healthy. Let me tell you, it isn’t easy. I sat at table with Owen… underemployed, looking for more work, no place to sleep that night, and hungry; and Cathy, silent, shy… none of us quite knowing what to say to each other. Perhaps our saints, the likes of Dorothy Day, Jean Vanier, Mother Theresa… maybe they can easily see the Christ in each and every neighbour, but we were not having an easy time of it. Lots of awkward and strained silences. And yet… and yet… glimmers, a couple of moments. Cathy and I talked about our kids… and Owen smiled. And we thought the meal wasn’t that bad; and it was nice to be served. And by the end of that hour, well, not total strangers – if we were to bump into each other in the street, we’d probably say hello… perhaps even pause, with a quick, “Oh hi, how’s it going?” I think this welcome stuff, it takes practice. And some determination; a willingness to feel awkward; to not see big rewards. A trust that even a cup of cold water is enough to start with; and has consequences.
Another example… last Thursday afternoon, I bumped into Lyle Jones decorating the Salons, getting ready for a party for Foster Parents and their kids. He was telling me about a special project that was being celebrated that evening. There had been a contest … all the foster kids had been invited to go out and start taking pictures of the world as they saw it, and that evening they were giving out awards for best pictures. There were forty-eight pictures submitted… take a moment after the service, during coffee and wander around the church lobby and take a look at them; see the world through the eyes of a foster child. I asked Lyle if he would be willing to share those pictures with us, because I had a flash that Foster Parents were an instance of a lived-out welcome; people who were willing to live with and support kids who had been pretty bruised and battered by life, who had not found a warm welcome in the world. There was one woman Lyle mentioned, someone known for her willingness to foster “difficult” kids, with lots of behavioural challenges – kids who had really been stomped on and were, perhaps, striking back. He told me about asking her how she coped – and she replied, “Sometimes I just go into my bedroom, shut the door and cry my heart out and say, ‘Jesus, help me!’” You want to know what it might mean to offer a cup of cold water to one of Jesus’ little ones? – go have a cup of coffee with a Foster Parent.
But it doesn’t have to be so dramatic. Sometimes you learn about welcome best, by deepening what is happening in your own family. I have a poem… you knew you wouldn’t get through this sermon without a poem, right? – it’s about daughters… of course: “For My Daughter” by Grace Pacey –
In my own family, with my three daughters, I have learned how to offer a cup of love, a cup of cool water – and how to receive one too. I find myself wondering if I can take the love and welcome that I have for Kate, Emily and Zoe, and learn how to share it with others. Heart-stretching exercises, that’s what I need. Welcome may start with family, and can give you a taste of what it’s all about -- but it isn’t supposed to end there. Family is where we learn and practice, making mistakes, discovering forgiveness, trying again… and then we start offering that welcome to the world..I wanted to bring her a chaliceor maybe a cup of loveor cool water I wanted to sitbeside her as she restedafter the long day I wanted to adjurecommend admonish saying don'tdo that of course wonderful tryI wanted to help her grow old I wantedto say last words the words famousfor final enlightenment I wantedto say them now in case I am incalm sleep when the last sleep strikesor aged into disorder I wanted tobring her a cup of cool waterI wanted to explain tiredness isexpected it is even appropriateat the end of the day
Sometimes you have the opportunity to discover what welcome means in your own church family; with the people seated next to you in the pew… some of whom might be complete strangers… maybe even the man that I saw walking the four-thirty a.m. streets a few days ago; maybe Owen and Cathy who shared that meal at First United. Or maybe it’s you who needs the welcome, you who are so very thirsty for a cup of cold water.
I received an email a couple of days ago from a new volunteer in our Open Sanctuary ministry – you know, where we open the doors of our church and welcome visitors to come and visit, to enjoy a quick tour of the sanctuary, with explanations of the stained glass or the hat racks underneath the pews. Sometimes the visitors come simply because they’re hungry for silence, for the feel of sanctuary, with the need for prayer. Well, this email talked about the welcome that two volunteers offered… and the gift they received. A lady came into the church saying, “I don’t know why I’m here.” And J. and O. responded by saying, “This is the place you need to be right now.” And J. escorted her into the sanctuary. When she returned, some time later, it was obvious that she had been able to release some of her hurt, and she was crying – and her host, J, he looked a bit weepy too. She came up and hugged O, saying, “This HAS been the right place for me.”, as she held up the Prayer Card that she had picked up when she lit a votive candle, and pointed out the words that had touched her. And then, a bit later , a young mother came up the stairs, with a little girl in tow, and pulling her baby boy up the stairs in his strollers. This weekend has given me enormous appreciation of any adult who ventures out into the city hand in hand with a little girl, and a stroller filled with little boy. Oh yes! Well, when this trio entered the sanctuary, O took them up to watch Darryl playing the organ, where the little girl stood on a chair so she could watch his hands and feet in action. And all of a sudden the music changed, as Darryl slid from some amazing ancient churchy anthem into a bouncing organ rendition of “Twinkle, twinkle little star.” It was the little girl who led her family and her host out of the church, skipping and singing down the centre aisle. We all know what welcome looks like and feels like; and sometimes we get to experience it.
I believe that we are invited by Jesus Christ to live a life of welcome – to accept the hospitality and the gifts of others; to recognize that we are capable of becoming a Holy presence of grace for others; to discover that in that encounter we too will experience the energy of God. We are invited to live not with fear, but with trust, with love; not with clenched fist, but with open hands. Each time we offer or receive welcome in the name of the Christ, then the circle stretches wider and a stranger becomes a friend. I think that’s an exciting vision for our lives, as we keep reaching out, learning how to include more and more people in our circles of care; discovering that each of us is an important part of that circle, as every action ripples out into eternity. Won’t always be easy… but Jesus never promised that it would be. He did say, however, that we would discover life, real life; he said we would discover ourselves, our real selves; and he promised that God would be present in each and every moment.
Many years ago, when Tim was studying Creation Spirituality with Matthew Fox down in San Francisco, I went down for a two week visit, and to participate in summer workshops. During that time I was introduced to the writings of a 14th century mystic called Mechtild of Magdeburg… you don’t forget a name like that. Her words were simple, but powerful:
God has given me the power to change my ways.
And since this was California, and the late eighties, well we learned how to dance these words. Watch:God has given me the power to change my ways;God has given me the power to change my ways.Heal the broken; loose the bound.Live welcoming to all; live welcoming to all; live welcoming to all.
It’s not hard to learn – the words, the song, the dance. It’s harder to live. But it’s possible – day by day, person by person, cup of cold water by cup of love. Try it… and God will be with you.God has given me the power to change my ways;(twirl clockwise, one rotation)God has given me the power to change my ways.(twirl the other way)Heal the broken;(move hands from above head, down towards the ground, in a swooping motion, as if massaging someone’s entire body)Loose the bound;(clap hands loudly together, and then sweep them up and apart above your head, and down to outstretched arms)Live welcoming to all; live welcoming to all; live welcoming to all.(arms stretched out, and hands joined together with those on either side of you, as the circle goes slowly round and round.)