The Rev. Frank Logue
King of Peace Episcopal Church
Kingsland, Georgia
June 30, 2002

Small Things Done with Great Love
Matthew 10:34-42 

Jesus has some harsh words in our Gospel reading for today. Our reading began with the verse we should have printed on the sign out by the road, “Do not think I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”  

Then Jesus goes on to enumerate the many relationships that must not to take priority over our relationship with God. Jesus makes it clear that those who want to follow him may have to pay a high price.  

This is all fair warning. Our reading for today comes at the end of a larger section we have been reading for the past two Sundays and finish up with today’s reading. When Jesus began this short discourse, it was to send out his disciples as an advanced team. The twelve who had been followers were now being sent out on their own for a time. Jesus is offering a disclaimer, a warning to the twelve that discipleship will not always be easy.  

Over the past two Sundays, Jesus warned them that they will not always be greeted warmly. In fact, he promised that in time they will be flogged in the synagogues and handed over to the authorities for further punishment. The disciples are given a chance to count the cost of discipleship before they hit the road. 

This section of Matthew’s Gospel is one that it is easy to read right over. After all, we are not being sent out on the road. We are not going on ahead of Jesus to prepare the way. At first glance, this portion of scripture comes across as more old news than good news. 

Then we get to the reward. The last three verses of our reading for today promise a reward. Welcome the one’s Jesus sends and his father will welcome you. Welcome a prophet or a righteous person and you will receive the reward of the prophet or righteous person. Offer even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones, Jesus says, and you will not lose your reward. 

First, we have to ask, “Who are the little ones.” It always sounds like children. But, Jesus, in this case, means humble rather than small. The little ones are actually Jesus’ disciples. After all Jesus’ has said if you welcome a prophet in the name of a prophet, you get a prophet’s reward. Now he says, offer a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple and you will not lose their reward. So, if we offer even a cup of cold water to a disciple, because they are a disciple, we will get a disciple’s reward. The one who offers the hospitality gets the same reward as the one to whom they reach out. 

This story always links in my mind to a trip I took to Brazil in 1994. If you will trust me for a minute, you can follow me on a bit of a journey, I promise we’ll get back to the cup of cold water and Matthew’s Gospel. 

I went to Brazil with our friend Jean-Paul who was making a documentary film on the martial art dance called Capoeira. Capoeira is a uniquely Brazilian blend of gymnastics, dance, music, and fighting, which also places a strong emphasis on community. One cannot do Capoeira alone. You play Capoeira in a group. Everyone stands in a circle and two go in and perform a stylized fighting dance and then others tag in and the fighters change as the music goes on. It will be easier to show you than to describe it with words. 

[show short clip from the documentary with the group playing Capoeira in the schoolyard in Poca Olho.] 

Capoeira developed as slaves working in the Brazilian sugar cane fields found they could practicing their fighting techniques if they masked it in dance. The stylized fighting dance carried the hopes of revolt against slaveowners.  

We were specifically documenting the work of a group of Capoeira teachers who gave free lessons in a deadly slum. You see in Brazil, you take Capoeira lessons the way one might learn Tae Kwon Do here. It cost a fair bit of money and is therefore out of reach of the poor.  

The group we were filming worked in the most dangerous slum of the big and growing metropolis of Belo Horizonte. The slum was so known for its violence that everyone called it Poca Olho, which means “the place where they gouge your eyes.” It was there that a group of upper middle class men in their late 20s and early 30s came each week to offer free lessons.  

To take part, you had to stay away from drugs (running drugs for dealers as well as taking them) and you also had to go to school. The teachers emphasized the communal aspect of Capoeira to build up a community of hope in a place with no hope to spare. They brought in homeless kids who lived under tin and cardboard shacks they put together on the edge of a garbage dump and they hooked the kids up with sources for food, clothes, jobs, and a place to stay. Most of all they gave self respect in a place that taught the kids they were worthless.  

Mind you, this was not a Christian ministry. It was not connected to any faith at all. It was just some martial arts instructors reaching out in love to needy kids. From my way of looking at things though, any time you reach out in love to some one in need, God is part of it. 

During my three weeks in Brazil, I learned a bit of Capoeira. Not much, and I did not do it well. But I did learn just enough to really make a fool out of myself in front of the kids on a regular basis. 

The day before I flew back home, I went to Poca Olho one last time with Raimundo, the instructor who started this outreach program. We were going back to the roots of the story. He had told me how the whole project began eight years earlier. Raimundo’s uncle had fallen on hard times and ended up in Poca Olho. Raimundo’s Mom asked him to go down to see his uncle.  

As Raimundo found the street, he saw two boys playing Capoeira near his uncle’s house. They were not good at all. They did not know the moves, but they were trying. Raimundo had no sympathy for his uncle, whose drinking problem was to blame for his descent into the slum. But, he could not help but feel for the boys he saw playing in the street.  

Raimundo showed the boys some basic Capoeira moves. He began their training right there in the street. Then he told them that if they would be there the next Saturday, he would come back and keep up the lessons. The next Saturday, the boys were there with a few friends. Raimundo taught them and then kept coming back and got his Capoeira school in on the project. They got permission to use the public school grounds for their lessons and dozens of kids came and took part. 

Raimundo and I rode into Poca Olho on his motorcycle. Rather than going to the school, we cut over to the street where his uncle had lived. There in the same street where it all began, we found boys from the program playing in the street. Once more Raimundo worked with them on their moves. Then it was my turn. The kids laughed at my awkward attempts at Capoeira. Soon we were playing Capoeira with abandon in the sweltering heat.  

After a while, the mid-day heat got to us. We stopped to catch our breath. A boy who I had just been fighting ran off and came back quickly with a tin cup of cold water. The sun was beating down. I was covered in sweat. Yet, my first thought was of the signs posted all over the neighborhood warning of the danger in drinking the water without treating it first. The water was known to contain a cocktail of bacteria and viruses.  

There stood the boy beaming as he offered me a cold drink of untreated water. I knew that he would be devastated if I turned down his offer. How could I get him to understand? Instead, I did not pause to think. I drank down the whole cup in one long satisfying drink. The boy was elated. “By the time the sickness kicks in I’ll be back home anyway,” I thought. 

I never did get sick. God looks out for fools and I was no exception. So I look back in my mind and see that boy grinning from ear to ear as he offered my a tin cup of cool water. The roles were all reversed. The scene was taking the world and turning it on its head.  

I was the American who had flown down to Brazil with all my expensive photography equipment. He was the kid in the slum with nothing to offer anyone. And yet, it was he who was reaching out to me. He was the host and I was the guest right there in the street.  

It is this scene in my mind that shows me clearly the world as God sees it. To God, the person who others look over is the one with the gift, if we can stop and pay attention long enough to receive it. The person who seems to have it all together may be the one with the greatest need.  

Whatever reward I may have had coming to me for being foolish enough to play Capoeira in that slum street is not mine now. The reward is the boy’s. He is the hero of the story.  

I think that’s the principle to take away from my little story and from these last three verses of our Gospel reading for today, even a small thing done out of love is a big thing in God’s eyes.  

None of us can change the world. However, each of us can reach out to others with small acts of love. If you don’t feel you have anything to offer, that’s fine. It is often when you feel powerless that you can do some real good.  

For example, when someone you love is sick or dying, you may be powerless to stop the disease, but you can pray, turn it over to God and then still be there with the person. Sometimes just presence is a great gift.  

Other times, when someone is hurting and you don’t know what to say, so much the better. Not knowing what to say makes it all the easier to listen. Don’t worry that you have nothing big to offer, just offer what little you can with love. Turn any results over to God. 

Mother Teresa, who worked in the slums of Calcutta and came closer than many people to making a real difference in the world, put it this way, “We can do no great things; only small things with great love.”

Amen.