Bringing Christ to those whom you meet

One of the things I remember so clearly throughout my years of playing team sports as a kid, was that I was representing not just my own team, but my coaches, my parents, my city, my Province, even my country. One of the things I remember struggling most with though, was the sense that I wasn’t good enough; that I was only as good as my latest performance; that if I didn’t perform, I was letting everyone down and perhaps that meant I had no worth or value.  

So Jesus’s words this morning really tapped into my experiences as a young athlete. At the end of his discussion with the disciples that he’s been having about proclaiming repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation, Jesus says to them: “He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me…." What first struck me is that Jesus gathers this band of rather poor, outwardly unimpressive athletes/disciples together and he doesn’t chastise or condemn them or cut them from the team. Instead, he begins with the skillsets they have and goes so far as to identify himself with them. You are my team. People will see God and know God through you.

Jesus strengthens His disciples before sending them into danger by assuring them that those who welcome them are actually welcoming Christ himself. He doesn’t merely say that hospitality shown to the apostles is pleasing to Him; He says that He Himself is received in them. He aligns himself with those willing to lay down their own lives and take his life up so they can share it with others. Through communion with Christ's disciples, one enters communion with God Himself. It’s not a mission we, his disciples, undertake alone. Rather Christ works through our gifts for his own mission, if, IF, we open ourselves and commit to it. 

Of course one of the things I’ve heard again and again, and I myself said to many folks who were trying to get me to consider how I might be called to serve the church beyond academia, is this: I don’t have many gifts. I can’t preach like apostles or priests, I don’t have money, I don’t have these or those skills, I don’t even know what gifts I have. Here’s a big shocker for those who claim they don’t have gifts: what if just showing up is the most important gift needed? Indeed, this is precisely what Jesus says and it is a story reiterated throughout Scripture: pure hospitality, being open, being aware, showing up, being present, for and with others is something that most of us can do. And so Christ opens the reward to all.

Someone who supports God's servants participates in their ministry and receives a share in their heavenly reward. “Whoever welcomes a prophet [proclaiming God’s power] will receive a prophet's reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person … [proclaiming God’s love and forgiveness] will receive the reward of the righteous, and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name [mercy] -- truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

The helper becomes a partner, a minister, a disciple, an apprentice, in the gathering work of Jesus Christ himself. The great Saint Augustine puts it this way, “Different members have different gifts, but all participate in one body. Those who assist teachers, pastors, missionaries, or the poor share in the fruit of their labor. Thus God rewards not only public ministry but also hidden support.”

I’ll be honest with you, I have never been a great athlete. I’ve been decent, but frankly, pretty average. Like many folks, I carried with me a social pressure to be the best, that only the best will get on the best teams, the good jobs, the notice that earns the promotion, the contract, the big house, the luxury car, or frankly, just to keep my job. And so as I got older and my fishpond got bigger and bigger in sports and at school and in the workplace, I started to feel insignificant and fearful about my future. I remember quite explicitly, the shift from my master’s degree to my PhD. I was a big fish in a small pond in the master’s; but the opposite in the PhD. I remember questioning my vocation, my value and worth and even my faith: what had I based my whole journey to Christ upon?

And then I read this passage: “And whoever gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he shall not lose his reward." A mere cup of cold water. Jesus says that even the smallest act done for Christ’s sake receives divine notice. That God doesn’t measure the size of the gift. God measures only the intention, the love, driven by faith and hope, that lies behind the gift. God doesn’t need our wealth, our possessions, our intellect, our wisdom or our exemplary capacities. He doesn’t need us to win. He doesn’t need us to convert everyone or to get everything right. He doesn’t give us gifts so that we can gain the world’s respect or admiration or all the power and wealth.

He gives us gifts so that we can use these to serve his mission of caring, loving, being present for all whom he is gathering to him. And so rich, poor, struggling, filled with doubt, sick, struggling with physical and/or mental health for which the world might shame us, God’s judgment is not the world’s. What he asks of us is not what the world values or judges us by. What God wants is simply that we offer ourselves to him, opening ourselves to receive grace so that we might learn and grow to share that with others for God’s mission, his game, his sport, of gathering all of us to himself.  AMEN