There is a secret conspiracy going on, right out there in the open, under our noses. A deep plot infecting and infiltrating our society, our institutions at every level, steering the course of human events with a hidden agenda. A conspiracy of small things done with great love.
Holy visitors. They are everywhere. Where we least expect, unnoticed, hidden in the ordinary and the small. They carry with them a crisis, a crisis of welcome, a chain of welcoming and being welcomed, receiving and giving, a chain of connection that links us to the presence of God.
It is in the ordinary and small things, in the ordinary and small ways, done with great love that God enters the world.
It is a brief and simple Gospel lesson we hear today. It is at the end of a chapter about the life of being a disciple, and it ends with something as simple as the little ones and a cup of cold water.
Small things. A crisis. A deep conspiracy.
Will we risk becoming a holy visitor? Will we introduce the crisis of welcome? Will we welcome the holy other? And in so doing invite God’s presence into the smallest things of an ordinary life? Can God’s holiness reenchant the world?
It is a crisis. A deep conspiracy.
Today we hear the words of welcome and receiving and reward over and over.
Welcoming Jesus, welcoming God, welcoming a prophet, welcoming a disciple, welcoming a righteous person, a cup of cold water for the little ones. Receiving the reward of the prophet, receiving the reward of the righteous, receiving the reward of the disciple, receiving the reward of the little ones.
Receiving God.
To receive God is to receive risk.
The reward of a prophet is persecution.
The reward of a disciple is sacrifice.
The reward of the righteous is exclusion.
The reward of the little ones is being unseen, unheard.
The martyrs of Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, five years ago, took the risk of welcoming a holy visitor, who turned out to be unholy, much like what Matthew’s Gospel later refers to as “the desolating sacrilege standing in the holy place”. The martyrs bore the cross of Jesus, they shared in his suffering to liberate a world enslaved to lies and hate.
To receive God is to receive risk.
The conspiracy of love.
The risk of love.
There is a secret conspiracy going on, right out there in the open, under our noses. A deep plot infecting and infiltrating our society, our institutions at every level, steering the course of human events with a hidden agenda. A conspiracy of small things done with great love.
A conspiracy of love.
Jesus is God’s conspiracy, reenchanting the world with holiness.
Jesus is the cold cup of water for our thirst.
Jesus is the great love in small things.
Jesus is how ordinary people and ordinary things save the world.
Drink from the cup.
Share the cup.
Welcome. Receive. Risk.
