Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

Matthew 10:40-42 + Pentecost 5

A cup of water is never just a cup of water.

The church I served in Atlanta shared a Good Friday walk through the neighborhood with Mercy Church, a congregation primarily made up of people who lived on the streets.  We walked through the neighborhood, reading parts of the passion story at places where the unhoused gather.  It always ended in the basement of a Presbyterian Church to read the crucifixion story.

One year, it was hot, a possibility on an Atlanta Good Friday seldom possible on a Minnesota Good Friday.  Before we read the last section of the passion, Pastor Chad passed out cups of water.  We sipped our water, read about Jesus’ death, and then were asked if we had reflections.

Immediately, one of the group members, a white woman, asked for forgiveness from another group member because of an argument the day before.   She said something racist that created a huge argument in the community.  The African American man, to whom she had addressed the request for forgiveness, responded by saying that he understands what it’s like to say something that you wish you could take back.  He said he really understood how easy it is for the bad parts of ourselves to take over the good parts.  She responded by talking about her problem with anger management, how it had made life really hard for her, how it kept her from finding stability, and how she wished she could stop once it started.

And the man responded, “But Jesus died on the cross for all of us.”

It was an exchange that rewrote how those two would spend the rest of the day.  It was an exchange that did something to the rest of us, too.  They welcomed one another.  Not some easy, casual welcome, but one that was genuinely honest, vulnerable, recognizing that something essential has been broken that requires a risk to repair. They were able to receive each other.  It didn’t happen miraculously or mysteriously, either.  It came from practicing community with one another for a long time, with their all their vulnerabilities and brokenness, learning day by day, how to reset and restart.  That church community worked every day to overcome barriers, the ones thrown down in front of them and the ones they erected themselves. At the church I served, we had just enough to pretend that we weren’t as broken or didn’t have as many barriers.

In the shadow of the cross that day, a cup of water was not just a cup of water. Their reflection on the crucifixion wasn’t just a reflection about something that happened long ago.  It was an invitation that it was their turn to be real and have the welcome offered on that cross become real.

Welcome in the name of Christ carries the risk that we will be changed by our practices of hospitality into something different ourselves.  Parts of ourselves that need to die will die so that a new self can be raised up in the love of Christ. It’s an intentional strategy of witnessing to the world that God yearns to be true.

Welcome isn’t just welcoming people into “our place” to become like “us.”  Or just offering a nice hello to people we don’t recognize.  It is developing practices of deep kindness that extend beyond the polite.  It is learning how to admit that we don’t have it all together and be willing to let people see the bad parts. It’s taking initiative to heal wounds or bind up broken relationships.  Repairing past wounds. Housing, feeding, clothing, making a place for the ones yet to come.  It’s going not just one extra mile, but as far as it takes for our neighbor to be safe and have what they need to thrive and experience joy.

In the hands of Jesus, a cup of cool water is never just a cup of water.  It’s an invitation to build a world.

I think we’re going to need some water on the Fourth of July this year.  The nation is hot.  Of course, it’s literally burning up.  There’s smoke in the air. It’s also smoldering with fear and division. Temperatures rose with each Supreme Court decision this week. We need some cool, dare I say “baptismal,” water.

Maybe it’s a bit of divine playfulness that the gospel is calling us to put out the welcome mat at the same time we’re putting up our flags, daring us to take a sip of that juxtaposition. Luther put them together. “A Christian person is the most free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian person is most dutiful servant of all, and subject to everyone.”^[3] Of course, there’s also Emma Lazarus, considered to be America’s first important Jewish poet, her poem, “The New Colossus,” engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.

A cup of water is never just a cup of water.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Mother of us All.

Amen.