Rev. John Simmons
The Community Church of Sebastopol
June 26, 2005
Matthew 10:40-42
Over the last several weeks we have been in the 10th chapter of Matthew, which is a series of instructions purportedly given to Jesus to his disciples. I say purportedly to remind us that this was not a printed list, not even a list copied down, but a list of things remembered and especially important to the author of Matthew and also important to the life of the early church.
That is good and the question we must ask ourselves is, “Why are they important to us?”
This is a very old method of scriptural studies called Lectio Divina. It simply means ‘what does this mean to us’. It does not require that we agree. It asks that we ask ourselves the question and then both meditate on the scripture and the meaning it has for us.
In the many groups I have attended over the years where they use this practice, I have found it helpful to enrich my own understanding of the scriptures. It also helps me to build community with those sharing in the experience.
Now sanctuaries are rarely set up for people to face each other. The design is more frequently like ours, we face forward, supposedly focused on those leading the worship including the pastor, lay readers, the musicians, the children, the floral arrangements etc.
Now the intent of the designers is not always followed by the actions of the congregations. At times I do focus as I am supposed to, but then there are the other times…. I can remember my childhood church that had interesting geometric designs on some of the front panels that I used to count most every Sunday. Sometimes I would gaze at the ceiling, which actually was painted with interesting artwork. And in addition to the various places my gaze would wonder, my mind would follow suit.
When I started preaching I assumed that people were paying attention to what I was saying. Then I began paying attention to the comments some would make about my sermon. Then I began to understand that people were paying attention to a number of things during the sermon including some things that were very much on their minds.
I did not take offense at this because I have always like the idea of corporate worship which by it’s very definition means that we come together from many different places to join together in the experience of worship. In our individuality it is reasonable that our minds would focus on many different things.
Now for a moment, if you please, I’d like you to focus on the image of today’s sermon title “Giving a Cup of Cold Water”.
Now stay with that image. Whether you stay with my words is obviously your choice.
As I focus on that image I think of some kind of ancient ladle with a cup like end that can hold water drawn from a vessel.
I wonder if you saw a glass full of ice? Or did you see a mug from your own kitchen?
Humor me for a moment longer. Where is that cup, however you imagined it, going?
Now if you were paying attention to the scripture you would have remembered that it is going to little ones in the name of a disciple.
That only became clear to me as I went through this same exercise as I was preparing this sermon.
Frankly I found this disturbing because when I chose this scripture I had a very different idea where I was going to go with this image. That phrase, “little ones” I passed over as if it wasn’t even there.
I am certain that I am not the first person that read the words to take me where I wanted to go. We all do it. And each time we do it we may either go in another direction more important to us or we may simply miss where the writer is trying to take us.
So what did this revelation do for me? It reminded me again about the quirkiness of my own mind. It also reminded me how easy it is in our society to over look “the little ones”.
It also reminds me of another time when the disciples tried to over look the little ones and Jesus rebuke them saying “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” (Matthew 19:14)
Now two things come to me, one: “How often we tend to over look children” and two: “How often do we read and hear in the context of our own priorities”.
I don’t want to spend the rest of the day in church, nor do I imagine do you, so I will drop the second issue for another time and focus on “How often we tend to over look children”.
Maybe its been a couple of years since there were several articles in our local paper about older people feeling hassled and disturbed by our young people hanging out on Main Street.
The thought of our youth being a nuisance disturbed me. So I walked down that same part of Main Street that was concerning some of our citizens. Sure they were a number of youths hanging out in front of Copperfield’s and the East West Café. They weren’t dressed in any way I’d ever dressed and they had a collection of piercings and hairdos that I had never fancied. They also had that typical teenage habit; they were focused on each other and not on the passing pedestrians. There was a sense of intimidation. So when I came to the first group I looked one of the kids in the eye and smiled saying hi. I got a mumble in response but also a small grin. I no longer felt intimidated. He was a kid. He was somebody’s child and more importantly, he was somebody’s grandchild.
At the next group I took more of them into my gaze and spoke a little louder and smiled a little broader and again there was a response that made me feel much more at home on the main street of my town.
Do you suppose a smile is like a cup of water?
I use to go to a lot of meetings, and I still attend quite a few. Last week I went to a benefit at CHOPS. Now what is CHOPS? It is the new youth center built at the site of the old Lena’s, made possible by the generosity of a deceased lawyer who left the city a wad of money. Here was a man who knew how to give a cup of water to the little ones. But I digress. I knew my friend who had invited me to the benefit, but very few others, and we were seated at a table with two very young gay men. I felt a great chasm divided us. I knew my world was very different than theirs. But I took a risk and introduced my friend and myself. Suddenly the chasm vanished. With a few more question on my part, I even felt comfortable. There were smiles and a feeling that we were a small community for the short time we would share this table together.
Do you suppose this was another example of “Giving a cup of cold water”?
Now that I have moved from downtown Sebastopol to downtown Santa Rosa, I’m willing to move even a bit farther a field. This week there have been a number of attacks by pit bulls on young children with in one case caused the death of a child, definitely not a “cup of cold water”. There was a story of a drive by shooting at a graduation party in Roseland, no, certainly not a “cup of cold water”.
Almost every day there is a list of American soldiers killed in Iraq, along with stories about suicide bombings in Iraq and other places. In some of these bombing some of the victims are children, surely no “cups of cold water” there. And in many case the suicide bombers are little more than children themselves. It makes you wonder how many “cups of cold water” they had received over the years.
What is our responsibility in delivering cups of cold water throughout the world? If I launch into that issue, we’ll still be here on the 3rd of July. So I don’t want to go into it as much as to simple raise it up to enter into our thoughts.
I have a grandson. He is three. He is not my responsibility. Really, I am more his playmate, although be it sometimes the more responsible playmate. I am glad when I visit his house that there are always cups of water or juice for him to drink.
Recently his parents decided to take a course on at the California Parenting Institute. As I was preparing this sermon I thought, that’s certainly a cup of cold water, not only for my grandson but for his parents also. I was also pleased to learn that they were still teaching some of the same methods that I had been taught when I was raising my children.
Then I was reminded that what Jesus is quoted as saying in the Gospels almost always has a metaphorical value. The saying can be an image that can expand to be used in a variety of ways.
I have already used a “cup of cold water” to be a smile, a greeting, an introduction, a class. I have taken it from a setting in Palestine and moved it around the world before coming back home.
And we’re only about halfway through this sermon.
But wait, I haven’t asked you to pay attention of every word I say, I have simply asked you to keep an image in your mind briefly. So I don’t have to supply a thousand more words, you’re going to fill in with your thoughts and where they take you.
Using “giving a cup of water” metaphorically for giving something of blessing to a child or younger person, how often have you followed Jesus’ teaching this week? If you can’t think of anything, it maybe your memory or you may be trying to make to too complex. The purpose behind the question is not judgment, it is to remind us that we are the daily “cup givers” and we do it in many ways. It may also help us think of ways in which we can expand out lives in this direction.
Let’s think of differences. Last week we heard Erin Butterfield and Kristen Andersen tell us about the ways they took “cups of cold water” to the Mission district and down Market Street.
It’s going to be a while before I get to the Mission District or take a walk down Market Street but today I’ll probably be in Fiesta and walking into a restaurant. I bet there will be people I could find in those locations to “give a cup of cold water to”. Maybe the Hispanic produce man, or the weary looking checker, or the day-dreaming bagger? Maybe even as I’m leaving church I might look for someone I don’t know and offer them a “cup of cold water”. Just imagine all of the places you can be where this option is available to you.
Or how about if you haven’t finished with the Sunday paper, go back to the first section and look for stories of violence in other parts of the world and think about sending them in your minds eye “a cup of cold water” and imagine their surprise when they see it coming instead of a piece of shrapnel, a bullet, a slap or an angry curse.
Oh this doesn’t sound like much to you? Well think again for Jesus knew that as we think, so we are. He also knew that we needed to be reminded of the value of children and of the less fortunate in his world and our world too.
Instead of writing your congressional representatives, governor or the president about your stand on an issue, how about asking him or her how many “cold cups of water” they’ve offered to the little ones of our world today.
I don’t think any of their prepared responses would know how to deal with that question. The answer is not any more important than your awareness than it is the issue of “giving cups of cold water to the little ones” that keeps us closest to our own beliefs and our own obligations and opportunities.
Some number of you, maybe most of us, will turn on the TV before the day is over. All the time I hear what a bad influence TV can be in our society. Rarely do I hear commentators say how often we let our own discriminating minds fall quiet once the program begins. Whenever you find yourself in front of the tube, how about looking for places in which “the offering of a cold cup of water” might be a better option than the one you see. “Oh”, you say, “TV is my escape from the tensions of the day”.
Take that statement and make it one you present to Jesus just as he’s finished this long chapter of the duties of discipleship. Stand back, you might not like the response.
I think that one of my failings as a Christian is that I escape too often into the secular world in which the sacred has far too small a place. After all it is the world in which I feel most at home and in which most of my values have been learned.
Now some of us are at an age in which we enjoy thinking back even more than thinking ahead, there is so much more to think back upon than that which is available to us in the years ahead. But whether young or old, is it always good to reflect back on where we’ve been and how we’ve done.
The other day a client reminded me of a time when she was going through a negative experience with a sibling. I asked her to sit down and write out all of the pleasant memories she had with that sibling. “Oh,” she said, “That won’t take long” but it did take her a lot longer than she had thought it would. When she finally finished I said, “Now mail it to your sibling”. With much resistance she did.
When the answer came she was amazed. The cup of cold water was received with much joy.
Many of you are familiar with 12 step programs. Two of the steps involved remembering all of your transgressions with others and then seeking to make amends. It is one of the hardest actions to take and it produces the greatest healing.
We are not bound by time or space in the giving and receiving cold cups of water. Once we realize this we open many doors through which we may travel if we only make the choice. In yesterday’s Press Democrat there was a story about the sentencing of one of the young men involved in the death of our young church member, Jennie Boland. Her mother, Shawn Brown, also a member of our church, spoke of her pain at the loss of her daughter.
She spoke not of revenge or retribution, but of forgiveness. “I gave my life over to God”, she said, “And I learned forgiveness”. And then she spoke the to man responsible for her daughter’s death “I forgive you, Dennis Rivera.” Truly she gave him a cup of cold water.
The Gospel of Matthews ends with these words that have been treasured by the church down through the years: “Teaching them everything I have commanded you. And remember I am with you always, to the end of the age”. Matthew 28:20
It is never too late to offer the cup of cold water. It is never too late to receive the cup of cold water. We are not bound by time, geography, space or anything else. We can reach back into the grave, we can reach across the waters we may never travel, and we can project into a world that will never be ours to know.
As we give the cup of the cold water in the present, past or future, Jesus is with us and wherever the moment, his blessings ripple forth in to the hearts of those open to receive.