Beyond the Rewards Card

There is a well-known saying that goes: “If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.” For centuries, some of the greatest thinkers, philosophers, and spiritual teachers have all suggested the exact same thing: true, lasting happiness is found in helping others. It is found in relationship, in community, and in radical generosity.

Today, we are looking at a short, beautiful passage from the Gospel of Matthew that speaks directly to this kind of life. Translators and biblical scholars often refer to this specific part of Matthew’s gospel as the “rewards section” of following the ministry of Jesus. I have to admit, calling it the “rewards section” is a bit of a misleading thought, even if it meshes perfectly with our modern consumer mindset.

Let’s be honest, every single one of us has a rewards card in our wallet, our purse, or on our phone. You probably have more than one. I know I have a whole section on my phone dedicated to them. I collect PC points, Aeroplan, Air Miles, Petro points, and the list goes on. I’ll be perfectly honest with you—I don’t even know how to redeem most of them, but I still collect them anyway! We live in a culture that is deeply conditioned to expect a reward for our behavior. It is a transactional way of moving through the world: I do this for you, so I get this in return.

But I want to be clear right from the start: even though Jesus uses the word “reward” in our reading today, a transactional exchange is not what the life of discipleship is about. When we look closely at what Jesus is teaching, we find something far more subversive, deeply relational, and beautifully liberating.

To truly understand this passage, we need to zoom out and remember where it sits in Matthew’s gospel. This section on discipleship actually begins back in chapter 9, where Jesus looks out at the crowds with deep compassion and says to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

It isn’t a mistake or a coincidence that Jesus refers to the harvest. For the original Jewish listeners, the harvest wasn’t just about gathering food for your own family; it was a deeply communal and ethical event. Consider what we read in Deuteronomy 24: “When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.”

The harvest was a time of baked-in generosity. It was an economic system designed to ensure that the most vulnerable people in society were cared for. So, when Jesus calls his disciples into the “harvest,” he is calling us to be the workers who go out and create places of radical welcome and provision for all people. He is calling us to ensure that everyone has enough, that everyone is cared for, and that everyone belongs.

This beautiful passage about welcoming people comes on the heels of last week’s challenging passage about the sword and the divisions that can happen within families when we choose the way of Jesus. Today’s words contrast sharply with that difficult imagery and help place it all within its proper context. Yes, following Jesus might cause friction with the powers of the world, but the ultimate goal of following Jesus is radical, inclusive hospitality. There are no exclusions here. Jesus isn’t saying “welcome these people, but not those people.” It is an open invitation to welcome all people with God’s grace and love.

But there is a twist in Jesus’ instructions to his disciples that we often miss. Jesus doesn’t just tell them to offer hospitality; he tells them to go out into the world in a way that requires them to receive it. He sends them out vulnerable, without extra money or clothes, forcing a dependence on what others will offer.

You might recall that just a few weeks back in our lectionary, Jesus was offered hospitality by tax collectors and sinners. Jesus didn’t invite them to lunch; they invited him, and he accepted. Now, Jesus is reminding his disciples that they, too, must be willing to be received.

Dean of Yale Divinity School, Andrew McGowan, points out something profound about this. He writes, “The potential hosts of this teaching have just the same role as did the tax-collectors and others with whom Jesus had been eating: they offer food and drink. In both cases, hospitality to the agents of God’s reign is sufficient to begin a relationship.”

By breaking bread with tax collectors, Jesus scandalized the religious elite who were obsessed with ritual purity. The Pharisees criticized him, but Jesus responded that he had come for those who knew they needed healing. When those tax collectors offered hospitality to Jesus and he accepted it, the very act of extending and receiving welcome transformed the relationship. Jesus is telling his disciples that the exact same thing will happen when they go out. When we welcome others, and when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable enough to be welcomed by others, we are participating in the very reign of God.

Jesus goes on to speak about welcoming a prophet, welcoming a righteous person, and giving a cup of cold water to “one of these little ones.”

We often assume that the “little ones” in this passage refers to children. It’s an easy and completely understandable leap of logic to make. However, looking at the context, it is much more likely that Jesus is referring to the disciples themselves, and by extension, to all of us who follow after them. Returning to Andrew McGowan, he notes: “The disciples are little ones because they are of no account in the world’s eyes, have no power or money to offer, and there is no advantage to receiving them—unless the regime of God turns out to be the real truth about power and all else.”

This is progressive, kingdom theology at its finest. In the Roman Empire—just like in our modern empires—value was determined by wealth, status, and power. But Jesus flips the script entirely. The disciples are the “little ones” because they lack worldly power. Yet, Jesus says that welcoming one of these vulnerable, powerless people is the exact same thing as welcoming him, and by extension, welcoming the Creator of the universe.

New Testament scholar Stanley Saunders writes, “These three designations—prophets, the righteous, and little ones—do not differentiate members of the community so much as they describe interrelated aspects of Christ-discipleship.” Jesus is actively flattening the hierarchy. The metaphor of giving a simple cup of water to a “little one” elevates the least powerful person in society to the exact same status and importance as the grandest prophet or the most pious righteous person.

Welcoming people in love and in Christ’s name is something that Christians have always sought to do. It is woven into the very DNA of our faith. There is an ancient manuscript known as The Didache, or The Lord’s Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations. It dates all the way back to the second century and was written by some of the earliest adopters of the Jesus Way. Among other things, it serves as a guide for a community figuring out how to practice exactly what Jesus is describing in our passage today: how to welcome people, how to treat the vulnerable properly, and how to share resources.

All of the practical guidance in The Didache flows from its powerful opening line: “There are two ways, one of life and one of death, but a great difference between the two ways.”

Choosing to follow Christ is choosing the way of life. Christ’s death on the cross and his subsequent resurrection vividly illustrate that death itself has been overcome, and that abundant life is what we are called toward. Our calling as followers of the Way is to live and offer life. We don’t put exclusions on it. We don’t withhold that life-giving love from those we don’t understand, those we are culturally conditioned to despise, or those society tells us are unworthy. We offer life to all people, which is simply an extension of the life, the grace, the mercy, and the inclusive love that God first offered to us.

And crucially, we don’t do it because we are waiting to cash in our spiritual rewards points.

As Christians, we have a bad habit of speaking about eternity or heaven as a delayed payout—our eternal reward for putting up with following Jesus down here on earth. As we come to the end of this section of scripture, Jesus does mention a reward. He speaks of a “prophet’s reward” and the “reward of the righteous.” But notice how undefined it is. Jesus doesn’t promise mansions or gold. We are left to do a lot of guessing about what this reward might actually look like.

Or are we? What if the reward isn’t a transaction at all?

It seems that the reward is the calling itself. The act of being a loving person who welcomes others without judgment, who chooses God’s way of peace over the world’s way of empire, violence, and power, is its own reward.

Eugene Peterson captures this beautifully in The Message translation. He translates Jesus’ words like this: “We are intimately linked in this harvest work. Anyone who accepts what you do, accepts me, the One who sent you. Anyone who accepts what I do accepts my Father, who sent me. Accepting a messenger of God is as good as being God’s messenger. Accepting someone’s help is as good as giving someone help. This is a large work I’ve called you into, but don’t be overwhelmed by it. It’s best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won’t lose out on a thing.”

Reflecting on this, Rev. Chelsey Harmon notes, “This structural way of closing out the speech is intentional and helps us to focus on the reciprocal life of giving and receiving God has designed—that it too can see us through any kind of circumstances.”

The giving is the reward. Being a faithful follower of Jesus means living a life of generosity, gratitude, and mutual dependence. When we engage in that work, we create a ripple effect of grace that extends far beyond ourselves.

Of course, this isn’t always easy. There will be difficulties. There will be people opposed to the way we live. There will always be voices in society who don’t understand why we are being generous. They may think we are naïve, or that we are letting ourselves be taken advantage of. People, and even governments, may try to stop us.

A number of years ago the City of Barrie proposed a bylaw to fine citizens who handed out food, water, and basic survival items to homeless individuals on city property. Thankfully, after massive public pushback, that proposal was defeated. But the fact that it was even debated tells us something vital. Someone in power thought it was a good idea to criminalize a cup of cold water. That mindset runs completely contrary to everything we believe as followers of Christ. To follow Jesus is to sometimes stand in direct opposition to the laws of the land when those laws lack mercy.

Our passage today reminds us why we have answered this call to discipleship. This entire chapter of Matthew speaks to the hardship, the vulnerability, and the difficulty of serving Christ by serving people. But in these simple closing verses, we are reminded of why we do it. The prophet’s reward—the act of serving people, of dismantling systems of exclusion, of giving a cold cup of water to a vulnerable soul on a hot day—is the reward itself. It transforms us, it transforms our community, and it brings the kingdom of heaven right here to earth.

Friends, if you are interested in a lifetime of happiness, if you desire to deepen your walk of faith, and if you want to truly serve the risen Lord, then find ways to help people. Welcome the vulnerable, allow yourself to be welcomed, and let the love of God flow through you.

Amen.