The Smallest of Gestures

There is a lot of ugliness in the world. And in this century it seems we are overwhelmed with it. There is no escaping the news – which insists on giving us every gory detail of every situation, circumstance, and event. And though it might be interesting to ponder our get away...what it would be like to unplug from the tv, radio, internet, ipads, laptops, and smart phones- move deeper into the woods, and live blissfully unaware of the world’s ugliness – it’s not very practical. It seems that no matter how many advances we make in – medicine, science, space exploration, technology –no matter how far we believe we have come from our early barbarian days…human beings continue to do ugly things to one another. But we don’t have to watch the news about North Korea, or Syria, or Nigeria, or hear about another American high school, or yet another amber alert – to know that there is ugliness in the world. We can see that anywhere. In homes and communities, in politics, governments and classrooms, in churches and in the places where we work. When it comes to ugliest side of evil in this world – I’m not sure we in this country are really able to relate. We don’t live under the thumb of an oppressive or suffocating government, or worry about the SS knocking on our door and hauling us away in the dead of night, we can pretty much live and worship the way we want to, pretty much travel where we want and say what’s on our mind without the fear of being thrown a labor camp or lined up and shot. So when we look at the real ugly evil in this world, it’s hard for us to comprehend how it got this way so fast, and with every news report or police report, or newspaper item - it seems to creep closer and closer. We say something must be done, but we have no idea where to begin or how to fix it. We feel powerless to change things or make much of a difference in this crazy brutal world. But maybe we could start with one line from Matthew’s scripture: And whoever gives even a cup of cold water…It is the simplest of gestures – to give another human being a single cup of cold water. How many fresh water systems are being constructed in how many places in this country and around the world. How many people here and around the world are sick from the lack of clean water? How many people in this state were affected by a chemical spill in the Kanawha River? How many here felt a sense of panic when just 2 years ago the derecho cut off power, fuel, and left us without water. Water is life – we cannot live without it. But there is more to this cup of cold water than just a cup of cold water. Because a cup of cold water can come in many a guise. A smile for someone having a tough day. Listening when you don’t want to. Helping out when you’d rather be taking a nap. Reaching out even when it makes you feel uncomfortable. Trying to understand even though it makes no sense to you at all. A cup of cold water can look like - Going the extra mile, saying yes instead of no, giving someone the benefit of the doubt or a second chance. This passage says much about hospitality. Not the kind of hospitality that welcomes people who are just like us into our newly cleaned house, with pleasant conversation spoken over the meal that took you all day. But the big word hospitality – the kind that we carry with us when we leave home – and take with us into our communities, churches, and classrooms, take with to work, and into our politics and our government. Not because we need to win the most wonderful person in the world award and not because we want to be noticed and acknowledged as the most wonderful Christian in the world, but because as a minister in Texas writes: Hospitality frees us to offer a cup of cold water to someone who might be in a situation completely foreign to our life experience; someone in a world that is outside our limited understanding. And when we are brought into relationship with one another by the bond that hospitality creates, there is no more host and guest, no more insider and outsider; no more us and them; no more I’m doing you a big favor --there is only a holy space in which we listen to and learn from one another, there is only a holy space in which two human beings – two of God’s children - can learn to value and honor one another until all the uneven ground on which we once stood becomes level, and the rough places that once separated us are made a plain. Discipleship does not have to be proven through any radical sacrificial or heroic act like in the Abraham and Isaac story – discipleship is made up of hundreds upon hundreds of the simplest of gestures. Our cups of cold water may seem as not much to us – but will loom large in the life of one in need. Hospitality – according to that Texas minister -- is crucial to the advancement of forgiveness and healing, of justice and mercy, of righteousness and hope. Where there is no hospitality, there is no gospel message; there is not Christ; there is no discipleship.