Matthew 10:40-42

Pentecost 5 | 02.07.2023 | St. Mt 10:40-42 | Ryan Mills |

 [Jesus said to the twelve:] ⁴⁰“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; ⁴²and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward” (Matthew 10:40-42, NRSV).

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

       Some of you know that my wife Kathleen and I met while we were both students at the Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia. And when you live in Philadelphia and anybody comes to see you, you have to take them to see the most iconic thing in the city—no, not the Cheesesteak places, or the steps from ‘Rocky’—but the Liberty Bell.  The Liberty Bell was commissioned by the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1752, and after it arrived from England and was put up in what today is Independence Hall, on its first test ring it cracked almost in half.  But I guess there are no returns on bells, for over the years it was recast and repaired and forgotten about, and cracked again, but over the centuries has become kind of an icon of freedom. But the thing that most folks don’t know about the Liberty Bell is the inscription upon it, the message that this bell was to tell by its ringing. It’s a quotation from the Old Testament, from Leviticus 25: “Proclaim LIBERTY throughout the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof.”

       “Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof,” a quotation from the Old Testament’s Jubilee festival—a freedom fest when all debts were cancelled, all slaves freed, a year of renewal and mercy and freedom.  And as we celebrate our civil liberties this weekend, the Constitutional freedoms we all have to worship, speak, assemble, and everything else—sometimes it seems that the way freedom works in our own life is a little like the Liberty Bell: one good ring, and it’s cracked in half, unable to work anymore.  And this is Paul’s message today in the book of Romans. Paul talks about how we were slaves to sin, of how sin is an enslaving foreign power that rules over and makes us not free. For sin isn’t just things we do or fail to do, but a force, a false owner that lays claim to us, so that we’re trapped under its dominion and are not free!  Anybody who struggles with anything in life can relate to this—on our own we’re not free, we’re cracked through like the liberty bell, when we do what we want to do, when we just live for ourselves, for the unholy Trinity of me, myself, and I, then we’re not free, we’re actually trapped and helpless and hurting ourselves and others, we’re enslaved but don’t know it.  And when we work for that ancient employer of sin, as Paul says, the wages of sin is death, that’s the final paycheck we can expect.

       But today, the bell of freedom rings across the land with the shocking good news that Paul announces: “But now you have been freed!”  Christ has died our death, Christ has broken the chains that bound us, Christ has been raised never to die again, so that we too can walk in newness of life, you have been freed from sin, and instead “enslaved to God!”  Not a phrase we like, but it fits with Bob Dylan’s line that “you’ve got to serve somebody.”  There are no free-agents in this life, your life is going to be about something, you will serve some end, and if you’ve been freed from the power of sin, now you are free to belong wholly to God and to serve him and his kingdom, to serve him in your neighbors, to live for his glory as it shines in those around us!  Because while the wages of sin is death, the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord! A free gift for those who are his, who have been freed to live in faith towards him and in fervent love towards one another.

       Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel today gives us a little picture of what this glorious freedom of the children of God looks like as we now live to serve him and one another.  Jesus talks in these short verses about how we receive one another in life, about how we welcome one another in life, and about how what we do for one another, especially for those who serve in his name, we actually do directly to Christ himself!  Jesus says that “whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple,” they will not lose their reward.  That is, because we are freed from sin, because we are free to serve God and serve our neighbor, even the littlest thing that we do matters, even the littlest thing we offer is worthy of the greatest reward!  Maybe some of you know the legend of St. Christopher. Christopher who was big and strong dedicated his life to carrying the weak and poor across a river where there was no bridge. And one dark night he was carrying a poor little child across who was unknown to him, when he felt the child’s weight grow heavier and heavier.  He could barely keep walking, and so asked the child, who he was, and why he seemed as heavy as the whole world.  “You have on your shoulders not only the whole world, but Him who made it,” the child replied. “I am Christ your King, whom you are serving by this work.”  And then the child disappeared.  Whoever gives even a little cup of water in the Name of a disciple will not lose their reward, because they give it to Christ himself, whom you are serving by your work.

Last week during our Trinity Talk, Ute shared with us her own desire at some point to become a missionary overseas, to do something big for God, and of her interviewing before all these mission groups who wanted to know if she was a doctor, or an engineer, or a pastor, or was married to one!  “That’s whose work matters, those are the only ones we need,” they said.  But Jesus is saying the exact opposite today, he’s saying that when we offer even a cup of cold water to those in need, when we share hospitality with those who serve, when we do the smallest thing for the sake of the Gospel, for the sake of the Church, for the sake of God’s mission, that little thing, whatever it is, a cup of water or a box of cookies or clean drinking water and good food and the chance for an education—those little things have eternal impact, and are a direct way of serving Christ himself!  As Mother Theresa once said, “Not all of us can do great things, but we can all do small things with great love,” and that’s what moves us forward, that’s what makes an impact, lovingly serving Christ through lovingly serving those around us—truly we will not lose our reward.

So as we enter into our Independence Day celebrations this week, let freedom ring, and “Proclaim LIBERTY throughout the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof.” That true liberty begins here, at the Lord’s altar, where before you offer a cup to anyone, he offers his own cup to you—freeing you by his body and his blood, making you his own forever.  So you have been freed from sin and freed to belong to him forever! And you can serve him freely, by lovingly serving your neighbor. For the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord, and truly, you shall not lose your reward.

And the Peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills

New Haven, Connecticut

Pastor@TrinityLutheranNH.org