|
First
Reading
|
Psalm |
Epistle |
Gospel |
Jeremiah 28:5–9
|
Psalm 89:1–4, 15–18 |
Romans 6:12–23 |
Matthew 10:40–4 |
Today’s Gospel reminded me of the old story about a farmer who had a small pond and when the warm nights of summer had come, thought of an idea of how he could make some extra money. He wired a gourmet food store in Ithaca saying, I can supply dozens of bullfrog legs for your customers. “Great!” said the food store, “send us all you have”. A few days later the farmer wrote back, “I am sending by Fed Ex six frog legs. That’s all I have. The sound of those three bullfrogs at night sure fooled me”. Noise doesn’t always indicate substance.
Discipleship, more often than not, does not announce itself like bullfrogs. It often is a combination of small actions that become unconscious in and of themselves. Individual habits are usually trivial in themselves, but a pattern of good habits does make the difference in certain situations.
Some forty years ago at this time, I would be in the Maine woods, teaching young campers how to safely split logs for firewood. You would have to demonstrate to them how to safely position the log in a cutting notch, how to spread their legs, how to hold the ax and swing it as you slide your hands down the handle and how to bend your legs ever so slightly directly over the log. They were all small things in themselves, but they were all necessary if you were to efficiently split the log. The campers needed to practice and practice the various motions until they did them all without thinking. Scott Russell tells me that swinging a golf club and Nathan Roman tells me that pitching a fast ball are like that, too.
Most people of faith throughout the ages are known, not primary because they have striven for stupendous one time deeds, but because they have practiced consistent habits of hospitality that have become part of their lives. The ancient image of the twenty third psalm, of someone spreading a table and inviting a lone stranger to table fellowship and protecting that stranger from any enemies, carries over to Jesus’ image of providing a cup of water to one who is thirsty. The little ones Jesus is referring to in the Gospel are not simply children. He is using a Semitic expression that means ordinary, everyday people, as opposed to local religious leaders or distinguished visitors from afar. Jesus reminds us that simple everyday hospitality to everyday people yields a bountiful harvest. It is no accident that the word hospital, hospice, and hospitality are all closely related and that it is people of faith who have always been connected with the origin of these words.
It’s been reported that an American who visited Mother Teresa in Calcutta and observed her work among the destitute, once asked her, “How can I ever have such an effective ministry back in my town in Illinois?” Supposedly Mother Teresa replied gently, “Just smile a lot. Let the love of God flow through you, reflecting the thankfulness in your life to the benefit of those with whom you come into contact.” I suspect we can all recall people whose presence reflected calm, compassion and goodwill. We always enjoyed running into such people on the street. Somehow they radiated a karma that was like a breath of refreshing air on a humid day We likely also know individuals who seem surrounded by an atmospheric cloud of unhappiness and negativity that seems to go with them all the time.
So that is why the Gospel passage this morning, albeit a short and simple one, made me think of bullfrogs on a summer evening and teaching campers to split firewood. A very few bullfrogs can make a lot of noise, but nothing much comes of it when morning comes. Like the accurate swing of an ax squarely splitting a billet of wood, the work of discipleship is often more quiet, moving in the background, in habits and a succession of little motions that together make significant a difference in our pond that we call the earth. Good Karma is contagious. That is why a smile and a kind word to a stranger passing us on the sidewalk or crossing the street may yield a harvest of grace, more than we would imagine.
And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
