“Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones…” It’s an image and phrase that resounds, resonates, echoes throughout the Gospels. And here Jesus doesn’t quite finish the sentence, but elsewhere he makes it explicit. “Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to these little ones gives it to me.” This is good—giving a cold cup of water and serving the little ones—because as we do it for the little ones we do it for Christ himself.
This priority placed on kindness and love shown to the weak and marginal is a great theme throughout Christian history. Against the backdrop of all the horrors perpetrated in the name of Christ, the call to lavishly love the poor and oppressed as if they were Christ himself stands as a constant challenge, posed by Christians to the Church and to the world. It’s a challenge to give—to feed, clothe, and embrace the poor—not out of condescension or pity, but out of love. Because the love we show to the ‘little ones’ of the world—to the downtrodden & the lowly, to the utterly ordinary around us—that love is love we show (or don’t show, as the case may be) to Christ himself.
Saint Benedict, the great monastic founder from the 6th century, issues this challenge in stark terms when he instructs his monks on how to receive guests who come to the monastery. He says that all guests to be received as Christ—especially the pilgrims & the poor. But further than that, the monks are supposed to prostrate before the guest—bow down—adoring Christ, because in the guest Christ himself is welcomed by them. This is a startling act of veneration and respect and reverence towards the guest.
This isn’t turning the poor into gods or fetishizing them as props for our piety. Benedict is making a point here: The love that we show to the little ones is love that we show directly to Christ. Because Christ fundamentally transformed the way that we see the world and the people around us. In the Incarnation, the Creator has drawn all of Creation into himself, revealing it all as God’s love letter to us, his beloved children.
And saints like Benedict rightly remind us that seeing Creation in this light should fill us with awe and love and reverence. He tells the monks to treat even their kitchen utensils with the same reverence as they do the sacred vessels of the Altar. Even the littlest most ordinary things demand our love and respect as vessels of Christ. And as Paul reminds us today, in his Resurrection Jesus consecrates all of us—our humanity—as vessels of his new life and instruments of righteousness. So that the love and reverence that we show to the little ones in his name, we show to Christ himself.
So as we approach the Altar to eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ, let us present ourselves as instruments of righteousness and receive one another with love and reverence as vessels of Christ. Because the love we show to even the least of these little ones we show to Christ himself. Amen.