A cup of cold water
A sermon by Jamie Howison on Matthew 10:24-39
In this gospel reading, we’re again dealing with the teachings Jesus offers to his disciples, as he sends them out, two by two, to offer healing and good news to those he has called “the lost sheep of Israel.” Where last Sunday’s reading had an urgent and pressing tone, as he concludes his teaching Jesus shifts into a space of offering deep reassurance to the disciples as they prepare to hit the road. “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me,” he begins, which must have felt so very comforting to the disciples; disciples probably feeling some real nervousness about what lay ahead.
The line, though, that has long caught my attention is this: “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.” Another way of translating this is, “Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is a disciple,” which is the way it is handled in the Revised Standard Version, or “If anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple,” which is how it is rendered in the New International Version. The point seems to be that those disciples will be deeply reliant on the gifts of those to whom they minister, right down to something so basic as just a cup of cold water. And that cup will bring its own blessing, right back on those who offer it.
As N.T. Wright puts it, “Give a cup of cold water to one of Jesus’ least significant followers, and you’re giving it to Jesus himself; whatever you do for Jesus, you do, not just for Jesus, but for God.” And then Bishop Wright adds, “If Jesus’ people today could relearn this simple but profound lesson, the church might once again be able to go out with a message to challenge and change people’s hearts.” Such simple gifts can change people and bless people in sometimes surprising ways.
I wonder if some of you might have read Victor Hugo’s great novel, Notre-Dame De Paris, often published in English as The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Oh, I know that Disney did produce a cartoon version in 1996 which you might have watched along the line, but that version evaded many of the most challenging parts of the original novel. The book was published in 1831 in France, and because it was highly critical of the character Archdeacon Claude Frollo—who in a sense represented the worst of the Roman Catholic Church—it was often taken to be an anti-Christian book. And to be fair, Victor Hugo was a critic of a church he believed to have deviated from truth, yet he was anything but an unbeliever.
Let me give you a brief recap, and then read to you a section which turns on the giving of a cup of cold water.
The story is set in Paris in 1482 and focusses on a hunchbacked deaf man with only one good eye named Quasimodo, who is under the guardianship of Archdeacon Claude Frollo. The archdeacon is a rather dispassionate guardian, who cares little for the hard life which Quasimodo lives, but at least has given the poor man the task of being the cathedral’s bellringer. A beautiful young gypsy woman named Esmeralda enters the story, and she so captivates the Archdeacon that he sends Quasimodo to fetch her. This is all thwarted, and Quasimodo ends up being arrested and then sentenced to be flogged and left on the pillory for hours, simply for doing what his guardian had instructed him to do. The poor man is vilified as little more than a beast by the crowds, who mock and jeer him, spit on him and throw rotten food at him as he was chained into the pillory. Here is where I will pick up from the novel.
All at once he moved again in his chains with redoubled despair, which made the whole framework that bore him tremble, and, breaking the silence which he had obstinately preserved hitherto, he cried in a hoarse and furious voice, which resembled a bark rather than a human cry, and which was drowned in the noise of the hoots—“Drink!”
This exclamation of distress, far from exciting compassion, only added amusement to the good Parisian populace who surrounded the pillory… Not a voice was raised around the unhappy victim, except to jeer at his thirst. It is certain that at that moment he was more grotesque and repulsive than pitiable, with his face purple and dripping, his eye wild, his mouth foaming with rage and pain, and his tongue lolling half out. It must also be stated that if a charitable soul of a bourgeois or bourgeoise, in the rabble, had attempted to carry a glass of water to that wretched creature in torment, there reigned around the infamous steps of the pillory such a prejudice of shame and ignominy, that it would have sufficed to repulse the good Samaritan.
At the expiration of a few moments, Quasimodo cast a desperate glance upon the crowd, and repeated in a voice still more heartrending: “Drink!” And all began to laugh.
“Drink this!” cried Robin Poussepain, throwing in his face a sponge which had been soaked in the gutter. “There, you deaf villain, I’m your debtor.” A woman hurled a stone at his head,—“That will teach you to wake us up at night with your peal of a dammed soul.”
And on that mocking went until the poor man called out for a third time, “Drink!”
At that moment he beheld the crowd give way. A young girl, fantastically dressed, emerged from the throng. She was accompanied by a little white goat with gilded horns, and carried a tambourine in her hand. Quasimodo’s eyes sparkled. It was the gypsy whom he had attempted to carry off on the preceding night, a misdeed for which he was dimly conscious that he was being punished at that very moment; which was not in the least the case, since he was being chastised only for the misfortune of being deaf, and of having been judged by a deaf man. He doubted not that she had come to wreak her vengeance also, and to deal her blow like the rest.
He beheld her, in fact, mount the ladder rapidly. Wrath and spite suffocate him. He would have liked to make the pillory crumble into ruins, and if the lightning of his eye could have dealt death, the gypsy would have been reduced to powder before she reached the platform.
She approached, without uttering a syllable, the victim who writhed in a vain effort to escape her, and detaching a gourd from her girdle, she raised it gently to the parched lips of the miserable man.
Then, from that eye which had been, up to that moment, so dry and burning, a big tear was seen to fall, and roll slowly down that deformed visage so long contracted with despair. It was the first tear, in all probability, that the unfortunate man had ever shed.
Meanwhile, he had forgotten to drink. The gypsy made her little pout, from impatience, and pressed the spout to the tusked month of Quasimodo, with a smile. He drank with deep draughts. His thirst was burning. When he had finished, the poor man protruded his black lips, no doubt, with the object of kissing the beautiful hand which had just succoured him. But the young girl, who was, perhaps, somewhat distrustful, and who remembered the violent attempt of the night before, withdrew her hand with the frightened gesture of a child who is afraid of being bitten by a beast.
Then the poor deaf man fixed on her a look full of reproach and inexpressible sadness. It would have been a touching spectacle anywhere—this beautiful, fresh, pure, and charming girl, who was at the same time so weak, thus hastening to the relief of so much misery, deformity, and malevolence. On the pillory, the spectacle was sublime.
A cup of cold water, given to the least of these, by a young woman who was herself one who lived at the edges of respectability. Yet in Hugo’s novel, this moment crystallizes what it might mean to be a follower of Jesus. It is not found in the grand cathedral or with its splendidly dressed yet corrupt archdeacon, nor amongst those who might attend church on a Sunday but then torment a poor man in the pillory on Monday, vilifying him simply because he was different from them. No, the figure of Jesus is seen in young Esmeralda, and in poor, broken Quasimodo.
To repeat those words from Bishop Wright, “If Jesus’ people today could relearn this simple but profound lesson, the church might once again be able to go out with a message to challenge and change people’s hearts.”
Just a cup of cold water is all it can take.
