Jeremiah 28.5-9, Matthew 10.40-42
The Third Sunday after Trinity, 28 June 2020 - churches closed
Jesus said, “Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones - will be rewarded.”
On the night of the Grenfell Tower fire, three years ago, the Reverend Alan Everett, vicar of St Clement’s, Notting Dale, was woken up at 3am by a priest who lives in the tower, and immediately went down to the church, opened the doors and turned the lights on. It all began from there. People started coming in out of the dark – often passersby looking to help. And the first thing they did was to get the water on. Water to salve the people’s scorched throats; water to wash away the taste of smoke from their tongues. Kettles on to bring calming cups of tea and coffee to traumatised souls. [1]
“Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones - will be rewarded.”
In the gospel of Matthew Jesus talks a lot about the ‘little ones’.
“Whoever welcomes one such little child in my name welcomes me.” [2]
“Do not put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me.” [3]
“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.” [4]
As the little ones of the world are the focus of Jesus’ attention, so he draws our attention to the little ones of our society. He teaches that the way we act towards them defines our relationship with him. The way we treat these people is the way we treat him.
Jesus describes the ‘little ones’ in Matthew 25. The hungry and the thirsty; the stranger and those in need of clothes; the sick and the imprisoned. The community is called to meet those needs, no matter how small or humble; our central purpose is caring for the “least of these my brothers and sisters”. By meeting needs, bringing healing, showing compassion, to the lowest and the least, Jesus modelled to his followers the way we should behave. [5]
And Jesus’ ‘little ones’ also include those in our society who we might call the ‘belittled ones’ - those we reject, whose concerns are dismissed, whose voice is usually ignored. Think of the women who found in Jesus at last a man who listened and understood and who released them from that which oppressed them; think of the ostracised lepers and blind beggars given a new start by his healing hand; the despised tax collectors and hated Samaritans who Jesus lifted up and shared bread with. By opening his life to such as these Jesus draws us towards the powerless, the weak, the hurting, the abused and the abandoned as those we should give priority to in our place, in our way. Notice how these Gospel values invert the usual human values which marginalise the least.
In a world suffering from a deficit of empathy, a culture where competition is privileged over collaboration, the little ones are always the first to lose out. In his Sunday morning sermon following the Grenfell Towers fire, Fr Robert Thompson, an assistant priest in St Clement’s and a local councillor, channelled his anger, saying:
“The people on the lowest incomes of this parish simply do not feel listened to, either this week or in previous years, by those in power. Worse than that, what the whole issue of the cladding and the lack of sprinklers may well highlight is that some people have simply become excess and debris on our neoliberal, unregulated, individualistic, capitalist and consumerist society.” [6]
The way of Jesus is to act on those feelings we get when we understand the situation of the little ones in our midst, and propel ourselves to do something about it. In time, this might become the story of our church.
The church of St Clement, Notting Dale was built in 1867 by a philanthropist vicar with deep pockets and a compassion for the poor, and now each year the church’s community centre helps thousands of local people into work or university. The parish is trusted locally. The vicar explained, “We are called to share in the brokenness and the forgottenness of the people we serve.” [7]
That is our calling too, although on the surface our circumstances look very different than theirs. It’s always more difficult to identify who are the little ones closer to home. In my experience even in the poorest parishes, people are reluctant to acknowledge the poverty. And in the better-off parishes, many find it hard to admit where a poverty of spirit, a loneliness of heart, financial troubles, abuse, and other forms of social deprivation prevail beneath the respectable surface. Besides the children among us, the other ‘little ones’ in our parishes may only reveal themselves slowly over time and through good listening, genuine care, active empathy by each of us disciples.
Then there are those who are excluded: the dismissed or sidelined, neglected ones, by definition the people we don’t usually notice. One way we might recognise them is to ask - who would we personally invite to our next big social event - who are those people we are drawn to, who we feel comfortable with and who we think of as likely potential supporters of our church or our cause? And then to ask the tougher question: look around our place again, take a close look, road by road, farm by farm, house by house - who are the ones we left out?
This may not seem to be an urgent or even relevant question in a quiet respectable-feeling area such as ours, where the story we tell of ourselves, of our neighbourliness, does have some foundation. But we should attend to our times, for despite the upbeat rhetoric of politicians we are now in plague years, in a "severe recession" on an unprecedented scale. [8] People close to here, and in places close to here within our deanery and diocese, are now, and will be, struggling. You and yours might be struggling. It’s time to start reopening our churches. And it’s time to get the water on.
“Whoever moves out of their comfort zone to give time and attention and care to one of these little ones - will be rewarded.”
“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.”
John Davies
Notes
This sermon is a rewrite of Bringing Water to The Little Ones: Consolatory Empathy under Grenfell Tower, preached in Somerset, 2017.
[1] Giles Fraser, After the Grenfell fire, the church got it right where the council failed, Guardian, 22 June 2017.
[2] Matthew 18.5.
[3] Matthew 18.6.
[4] Matthew 25.40.
[5] Matthew 25.34-36. Michael Hardin and Jeff Krantz, PreachingPeace.com (Proper 8A - page now removed) in Paul Nuechterlein, Girardian Lectionary, Reflections, Proper 8A. Adapted.
[6] Giles Fraser, After the Grenfell fire.
[7] Giles Fraser, After the Grenfell fire.
[8] Anna Mikhailova and Amy Jones, UK facing recession on unprecedented scale as Chancellor warns of 'more hardship to come', Telegraph, 19 May 2020
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