Rewards

Rewards

To recap the last two Sundays of Jesus talking to his disciples then and now about mission: He calls us to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and exorcise the demons. We too can cure the sick, or even dead in spirit, because they lack direction, meaning, purpose, maybe by just listening to them. In Jesus’s time, “lepers” included those with skin diseases of any kind, and thus were cut off from the community. So, “cleansing” lepers also meant ending their ostracism, perhaps more important than being cured of the disease itself. Certainly, we can seek out the ostracized today and “cleanse” them from their isolation. And given that “Satan” means accuser, whenever we can defuse the demons of bitterness, suspicion and accusation, we are doing as Jesus and the Twelve did.

And when we are opposed, Jesus doesn’t promise that we will always win or succeed by the standards of this world. It is enough for us to acknowledge Jesus as our Lord even in the face of loss or defeat, and to trust that he measures success by a spiritual standard that no enemy in this world can match. And at the end of his teaching on Christian mission today, Jesus hammers home that promise of success by other-worldly standards:

“Anyone who welcomes a prophet as a prophet will have a prophet’s reward; and anyone who welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will have the reward of a righteous person. Anyone who gives so much as a cup of cold water to one of these little ones as a disciple, Amen I say to you, will most certainly not go without the reward.”

Prophets like Jeremiah speak the truth, even when the truth is hard to hear. So, when we can hear each other’s hard truth, spoken in Christian love, we have the reward of knowing what is true, and will still be true long after the lies of this world have been exposed or extinguished.

“Righteousness” in the Bible can also mean “justice,” personal righteousness of collective justice. When we stand with others for a justice that is truly impartial, not just a cover for self-interest, then we have the reward of knowing that we truly have friends on whom we can count on to stand with us through thick and thin.

In a time when houses did not have faucets which with a turn produced cold water; to give a cup of cold water was a gift of care. So, when we share in the vulnerability of those whom Jesus saw as “harassed and helpless,” and we accept from them a “cup of cold water” as helpless little ones ourselves, then we will have the reward of relationships not based on mutual back scratching, or the obligations of lessers to superiors. We will have the eternal reward of relationships based on that love that is freely chosen. That is the love which Jesus the Christ, God’s Chosen King, revealed by his life and death.

The rewards that Jesus promises are not guaranteed to be financial or political. They are guaranteed to be relational. Jesus promises that we will never be alone. And that is the only reward which lasts forever.

June 28th, 2026

The 5th Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 8, Year A

The Rev. David Kendrick