(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Rewards Program”, originally shared on June 28, 2023. It was the 270th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Many retail businesses have rewards
programs. They keep track of your purchases on their apps, and you get points toward
getting rewards. Does God have a rewards app? And does the answer hold the key
to overcoming the divisions we face within the Church? Today, we’re going to
find out.
Lots of
businesses have rewards programs. Sometimes they’re called loyalty programs. Sally
and I get points from Target and from our credit cards, for example. At some
point we redeem them. When I was a kid, the public library had a summer reading
program where we got a stamp on a card for reading a book. At the end of the summer,
we could redeem those stamps for a reward.
And then there is God’s rewards program.
You don’t need to be a prophet to receive a
prophet’s reward. You don’t need to be a righteous person to receive a
righteous person’s reward. And you don’t have to be a disciple to receive a
disciple’s reward.
How can that be? Is there a reward hack that
we need to know about?
No.
Here’s what Jesus says, in Matthew
10:40-42,
40‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me
welcomes the one who sent me. 41Whoever welcomes a prophet in
the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward; and whoever welcomes a
righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of
the righteous; 42and 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.’
Rewards are not certain in this life.
When I was a younger man, I wondered why the
Bible’s book Ecclesiastes was even in the Bible. It just seemed like the rantings
of a bitter old man. But the older I get, the more it makes sense to me. 😊
Like this text from Ecclesiastes 9:11
11 Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the
swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the
intelligent, nor favor to the skillful; but time and chance happen to them
all.
What can we depend upon if there seems to be
no reliability in this life?
How can we get the rewards that Jesus speaks
of?
We can count on God, in God’s time.
One
of my favorite sports quotes comes from the comedian Gary Shandling, who once
reflected on Leo Durocher, the ruthless coach of the Dodgers when they were the
Brooklyn Dodgers, and who said, “Nice guys finish last.”
Gary
Shandling said, “Nice guys finish first, and anyone who doesn’t know that
doesn’t know where the finish line is.”
We were created for a living relationship
with the one true living God, but we rejected it. Sin is that separation from
God.
We are sinners reconciled to God by God’s
unearned love, through faith in Jesus Christ who earned it for us on the cross.
The key to God’s reward program is in the
first verse of our main text, Matthew 10:40-42, in verse 40,
40‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes
the one who sent me.
So, if we all were created for a living
relationship with the living God and we rejected it, but that relationship was
restored by Jesus Christ on the cross, why isn’t there more unity in our
churches?
We are divided, we are fractured, we are
digitized. We can’t talk about politics or social values, or sometimes even the
Bible without conflict, so we have devolved into homogeneous groups of age and
social values and race and tribe.
This has become the New Normal we so looked
forward to during the pandemic.
I once heard a story about the congregation
of a Jewish synagogue that holds true for many, many Christian church
congregations, but I first heard it about a synagogue, so that’s how I’m going
to tell it.
A new rabbi was called to serve and during
his first worship service he noticed that half the congregation stood during
the Shema (“Hear O Israel…”) and half were seated.
Those who stood hissed at those who were
seated, “Stand up! Stand up! It’s the tradition!”
And those who were seated hissed back, “Sit
down! Sit down! It’s the tradition!”
After the service, the rabbi turned to the
cantor and said, “What was that all about?!”
“What?” the cantor answered.
“All that hissing about standing and
sitting!”
“Oh, that. I don’t even hear that anymore.”
“But how did it get started? And who’s
right?”
“That was happening when I got here, and I
think it’s been going on for a long time,” the cantor answered.
The new rabbi found some contact information
for his predecessor and called him up.
“Rabbi ___. People are arguing during the
Shema about whether to stand or to sit. Both sides say that theirs is the
tradition. Who’s right?”
“I don’t know. They were doing that when I
got here and I could never get them to settle it.”
“Well, who would know?” the new rabbi asked.
“You could try my predecessor, Rabbi___.”
So, the new rabbi called through a
succession of rabbis who didn’t know who was right until one said, “Well, you
could call Rabbi ___. He’s the founding rabbi. He’s in a retirement home now
but he’s still pretty sharp. He could probably tell you.”
The new rabbi was relieved that finally he
could settle the issue once and for all.
He took a member of the “sit down” faction
and a member of the “stand up” faction and drove to meet the founding rabbi.
After some pleasantries about the
congregation, the new rabbi got down to business.
“Rabbi___, the congregation is divided. Half
the congregation stands during the Shema, and half the congregation sits. Both
say that theirs is the tradition. We are here today to ask who is right.”
The founding rabbi nodded, and the new rabbi
said, “Is it the tradition to stand during the Shema?”
“No, that is not the tradition,” the
founding rabbi said.
The leader of the “sit down faction” leaned
forward, excitedly, and said, “So, it is the tradition to be seated during the
Shema!”
“No, that is not the tradition,” the
founding rabbi said.
“Well,” the new rabbi said, “If it is not
the tradition to stand and it is not the tradition to sit during the Shema, why
do we fight over it?
“That is the tradition,” the founding
rabbi said.
Change the titles and I think you could tell
that story in many, many Christian congregations.
And I think that it has gotten worse through
the pandemic and in our age of tribal social media.
But it is not so in the Reign of God.
Whatever rewards are dispensed, they are not
earned. They are given.
And they aren’t given on the basis of doing
the right thing. The are given on the basis of being the persons God made us
all to be. We don’t earn God’s favor. It was bought for us on the cross. We
live our lives entirely in response to that reward.
What is required to receive a reward in
today’s text in Matthew 10:40-42? It’s what is done “in the name of” a prophet,
or of a righteous person, or of a disciple.
To do something “in the name of” means to do
it in the fundamental living reality of that person, their truest real self.
To do something in the name of God means to
do it in the living reality of God at work within us. We are made for a living
relationship with the one true living God. The God of Abraham, and Moses and Jacob
and Isaiah and Elijah, and Job and the disciples and Paul. It is the transformative
relationship with God that defines us, and it is us, and it cannot be
taken away from us because it is given by God.
How can we overcome the corrosive division
that can seep into our churches?
I think that we find everything that we need
in today’s reading from Matthew 10.
I think that the way forward for us as a
Church is to define our ministry and our life together in the name of Jesus
Christ, to focus on what draws us together not what pulls us apart, and to keep
it there. To be drawn together by Jesus at the center of all that we do. It’s
hard, but I know it can be done. I’ve seen it.
Our model is fully divine, it is the
relationship within the Trinity, a unity of relationship in the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit.
God’s rewards program is the cross. It is reconciliation
to God and to one another, it is forgiveness, peace, and eternal life and the
restoration of our true selves.
Today’s reading from Matthew 10 is the key
to living the outcome of that welcoming relationship that overcomes our
divisions. It is finding our connection and our unity in the common
relationship with Jesus that we have been given, the answer to Jesus’ prayer
offered for the church in John 17:23,
23 I in them and you in me, that they may become
completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved
them even as you have loved me.
