A Cup of Cold Water
Sermon by the Rev. Hannah Wilder preached at St. Paul’s on June 28, 2026, Year A, Proper 8
Jesus often starts with enormous ideas… and then ends with something wonderfully ordinary. This chapter has been quite a journey. For weeks Jesus has been preparing the disciples. He’s warned them they’ll be rejected. He’s told them they’ll be misunderstood. He’s said difficult things about division and truth and the cost of discipleship. And then, after all of that, he ends with this: a cup of cold water. Really? After all this talk about prophets and persecution and the Kingdom of God… a glass of water? It almost feels anticlimactic. But maybe that’s exactly the point.
Jesus has this remarkable way of adjusting our focus. We tend to think in grand categories. How do we save the Church? How do we reach the next generation? How do we change the world? Those aren’t bad questions. But Jesus almost always redirects us away from the abstract and toward the particular. Not everybody. This person. Not someday. Today. Not humanity. The person standing in front of you who is thirsty.
It reminds me of something I experienced years ago. I was an associate rector at a large, thriving parish in San Diego. I was put in charge of writing a grant to help fund a neighborhood center they were building. We got a significant grant, did the construction, and opened up the center. And do you know what? Not many people came! Nobody had bothered to ask the community if what they needed was a beautiful new neighborhood center.
Meanwhile, that church sat in the middle of a retirement community. I’ve often wondered: what if instead of trying to imagine what people’s needs were, they had instead asked the people in the retirement community what they needed? What they longed for? What would have been salvation to them? What if they had gone all in on helping the people already sitting in front of them discover belonging, purpose, friendship, and Christ?
Sometimes we’re so busy imagining who might come—all those young families and young people that we crave so much in our pews—that we forget to love the people God has already entrusted to us. Jesus keeps pointing us back. Who is in front of you? Who is thirsty? Who needs a cup of cold water?
That’s actually what this whole chapter has been about. Jesus sends the disciples into towns and villages. But notice what he tells them to do. He doesn’t say, “Go convince everyone that I’m the Messiah.” He doesn’t even tell them to explain complicated theology. He says: heal people. Cast out demons. Bring peace. Tell people the Kingdom of God has come near. In other words… help people experience what God is like.
And when people receive you… receive them. There is this beautiful rhythm throughout the chapter: giving, receiving, hospitality, mutual blessing. The Kingdom isn’t built through winning arguments. It’s built through relationships.
The Greek word translated “welcome” here actually means much more than greeting someone. It means receiving them. Taking them in. Making room for them. You don’t receive someone into your home by opening the door, pointing toward the couch, disappearing for ninety minutes, and then saying, “Hope you come back sometime.”
Yet churches do that all the time. We’re friendly. We smile. We hand someone a bulletin. We tell them where the coffee is. Those things matter. But they aren’t belonging.
Belonging happens when someone learns your name. When someone is curious about your story. When someone asks, “What brings you here?” “What are your gifts?” “What do you love?” “Where have you seen God?” That’s when people stop feeling like visitors and start becoming family.
I hear this all the time from younger adults. They say, “I’ve visited churches. People smiled. They were nice. But nobody really wanted to know me.” What people are longing for isn’t just friendliness. They’re longing for belonging. Identity. Purpose. Community. They’re asking, “Is there a place where I can bring my whole self? Will anyone notice if I’m here? Would anyone miss me if I never came back?” Those are deeply spiritual questions. And Jesus says the Kingdom begins with receiving one another.
A few years ago, the school connected with St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Pacific Palisades lost its campus during the devastating wildfires. For weeks they searched for somewhere to relocate. Eventually they ended up in an office building. Hardly anyone would design an office complex thinking, “This would make a wonderful middle school.” The teachers worried. How would noisy middle-schoolers fit into this quiet professional space?
On the very first morning they met the security guard. His name was Tony. He smiled. He said, “I am so glad you’re here. You’ve brought life back into this building.” Every morning after that, kids walked in shouting, “Morning, Tony!” He became part of the school.
Months later, when it was finally time to move back, one of the staff members went to say goodbye. Tony said, “I was worried you weren’t going to come say goodbye.” Then he said something remarkable. “You’ve been such a blessing to me.” He probably never realized it. But he offered something they desperately needed. Not just directions. Not security. Welcome. When everything familiar had been lost, he made them feel like they belonged. Sometimes a cup of cold water looks like someone saying, “I’m really glad you’re here.”
I think that’s exactly where we find ourselves at St. Paul’s. Yesterday, we gathered for our Day of Discernment. It was not a day of trying to figure out just how to grow or what our strategic direction should be. We are now in a season of listening for where the Holy Spirit is already moving.
We’re asking: Who has God already placed in front of us? Who are our neighbors? Who is thirsty? Who is already here waiting to be loved?
Sometimes churches spend enormous amounts of energy imagining future people when Jesus keeps inviting us to notice the people already sitting beside us. The person who quietly slips into worship. The longtime member who feels invisible. The child. The teenager. The lonely widower. The newcomer. The person living in the apartments behind our church. The volunteer who needs encouragement. The exhausted parent. The person wondering if they belong.
Perhaps discernment begins there. With seeing.
At the very end of today’s Gospel Jesus says something astonishing: “Whoever gives even a cup of cold water…” Just that. Nothing spectacular. No miracles. No sermons. No committees. No impressive programs. Just water.
Because sometimes salvation doesn’t arrive with fireworks. Sometimes salvation arrives as exactly what we need in the moment. A glass of water. A listening ear. A handwritten note. A meal. A hug. A phone call. A conversation after church. Someone remembering your name.
I’ve started thinking differently about salvation. I used to think salvation was only something that happened after we died. Now I think salvation is also all the ways God keeps saving us here and now.
When you’ve spent hours working outside in the Nevada heat and someone hands you cold water… that is salvation. When grief is crushing you and a friend sits beside you in silence… that is salvation. When you’ve begun to wonder whether you matter and someone looks you in the eyes and says, “I’m so glad you’re here.” That is salvation too.
Because in that moment, someone has reminded you what Jesus spent all of chapter 10 trying to teach: you are beloved. You matter. You belong.
And sometimes… the Kingdom of God comes as simply… and as profoundly… as a cup of cold water.