A reflection on the readings for the Fifth Sunday After Pentecost
Proper 8A2: A Cup of Cold Water – by Rev. Jeffrey Tooke
Over these past few weeks, we have been listening to Jesus’ sending discourse in Matthew’s Gospel. These passages help us to understand who we are as disciples, especially as we learn to follow Jesus without his physical bodily presence right among us.
We have heard of Matthew being called, and of the disciples being called and sent out in Jesus’ name. Last week, we heard that this call can be costly, in both small and large ways, and that we are called to embrace that cost as part of our discipleship.
Today, Jesus helps us see another part of what it means to be sent. We are called both to welcome and to be welcomed.
Jesus tells the disciples, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” There is a kind of chain of welcome here: to welcome one who comes in Jesus’ name is to welcome Jesus himself, and to welcome Jesus is to welcome God.
That means that hospitality is not simply about being polite or friendly. It can become a place where we encounter Christ. It can become a sign of God’s presence among us.
And Jesus makes that very concrete. He does not begin with a grand gesture; he speaks of giving even a cup of cold water to one of the little ones. Sometimes welcome is just that: making room for someone, listening carefully, sharing what we have, offering help, noticing the person who may otherwise be overlooked.
Also, the disciples are not sent out as self-sufficient people who have everything figured out. They are sent out needing the welcome and care of others, and in receiving that welcome, they too learn something about God’s grace.
In Romans, Paul reminds us that baptism gives us a new allegiance. We are no longer to give ourselves over to the powers of sin and death, but to God, whose gift is eternal life in Jesus Christ. Baptism turns us toward a new way of life: a life shaped not by fear, scarcity, or self-protection, but by the grace that we have received from God. And one of the ways that grace becomes visible is in welcome.
But this is not a call that we walk alone. We walk it together, as a community in which we are all called to receive welcome and to offer it. We are called to make room for one another, and for those who may not yet know that there is indeed room for them.
May we receive the welcome that God offers us in Christ, and may that welcome make us people who welcome others: in our church, in our homes, and in the world around us.