A Cup of Cold Water

“A Cup of Cold Water”

Hospitality as the Witness of the Good News

Matthew 10:42  ·  with John 4:13–14; 7:37–38; Matthew 25:35

Proper 8  ·  June 28, 2026  ·  Teaching Sermon (8–10 minutes)

Series 1: The Kingdom Announced  ·  Week 5 of 5

PREACHER’S NOTES

A teaching sermon focused on a single verse — Matthew 10:42 — built in three movements: (1) the preciousness of cold water in the Gospel world; (2) who the “little ones” (Greek mikroi) were, and how they become a metaphor for the lonely and excluded around us; (3) the two-way hospitality of Howard Park — the cup we give to our neighbors, and the cup we receive back from them — with the central conviction that the hospitality of Jesus, carried by his body the church, is the proclamation and witness of the Good News. References to “Howard Park” name our congregation and faith family; adapt the specific neighborhood details to your setting.

INTRODUCTION

I want you to remember, for just a moment, the single best drink of water you have ever had in your life.

[Pause. Let them actually think about it.]

I’m willing to bet it wasn’t poured from a crystal pitcher at a fancy restaurant. No — it was probably after you’d been out in the yard in the July heat, or you’d hiked a good bit farther than you meant to, or you came in from mowing the lawn absolutely dripping — and somebody handed you a tall glass of cold water. And you drank the whole thing in about four seconds flat, and in that moment it was, without question, the single greatest beverage in the history of the human race.

[Wait for the knowing laughter.]

Every one of us knows that feeling. And here is the thing: Jesus knew that feeling too. Everyone in his world knew it — more deeply, more daily, than we ever will. And this morning I want us to take a single verse, just one sentence from the lips of Jesus, and let it teach us something beautiful about water, about who matters in the Kingdom of God, and about who we are called to be as Howard Park.

Here is the verse:

Matthew 10:42  —  “And whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple — truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

Let us pray.

PART ONE: The Preciousness of Cold Water

To feel the weight of what Jesus says, you have to understand what a cup of cold water actually meant in his world.

The land of the Bible is hot and dry. For much of the year, the sun is relentless and rain simply does not come. Water was not something that arrived by turning a handle on the wall. It was drawn, by hand, from deep wells and stone cisterns and the occasional precious spring — hauled up bucket by bucket and carried home on the shoulder, usually by the women, in the cool of the morning or the evening. Water was labor. Water was life. Water was never, ever taken for granted.1

And notice the one word Jesus chooses: not just water, but cold water. The Greek is psychros — cool, cold, fresh. In that climate, cold water meant the good water — water fresh from a deep well or a running spring, not the warm, flat, stagnant water that had been sitting in a jar in the heat all day. Cold water was the most refreshing thing a human being could put to their lips. To hand a hot, exhausted traveler a cup of genuinely cold water was to hand them a small, pure gift of life.

This is why water runs all through the Gospel like a deep underground stream. When Rebekah drew water for a stranger and his camels, it became the model of generous hospitality. When Jesus sat at a well in the noonday heat and spoke with a lonely woman, he offered her living water that would become in her a spring welling up to eternal life. “Let anyone who is thirsty,” he cried out, “come to me and drink.” And one day he will say to the righteous: “I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink.”2

So when Jesus speaks of a cup of cold water, he is not describing something trivial. He is describing the smallest, humblest, most accessible act of hospitality there is — something any person can give, costing almost nothing — and at the very same time something genuinely precious, genuinely refreshing, genuinely life-giving. That is the beauty of it. The cup of cold water is small enough for anyone to offer, and large enough to save a life.

PART TWO: Who Are the “Little Ones”?

Now, to whom is this cup of cold water given? Jesus says: to “one of these little ones.”

The Greek word is mikron— “little one.” And in Matthew’s Gospel it is a tender, deliberate term. It does not mean children specifically, and it does not mean the important or the impressive. It means the lowly. The overlooked. The vulnerable ones whom the world is always tempted to step past. Jesus uses the same word later, in Matthew 18, when he warns — sternly — against ever despising or causing harm to “one of these little ones,” because, he says, their angels always behold the face of his Father in heaven.3

In other words, the “little ones” are the people heaven watches closely and the world barely notices. The ones without status, without a platform, without anyone obvious to speak up for them. And Jesus draws a line in the sand: how you treat the little one is how you treat me.

Now let me bring that word home, off the page and onto our streets.

[Slow down.]

Who are the little ones in our neighborhood? They are the lonely. The widow who hasn’t had a real conversation in nine days. The man eating dinner by himself again tonight with the television on for company. The teenager who feels invisible in his own home. The family that just moved in and doesn’t know a single soul. The person living with a disability whom everyone is polite to and no one truly includes. The newcomer who looks or sounds different and isn’t sure they’d be welcome here. The excluded. The forgotten. The overlooked.

Those are the little ones of our neighborhood. And Jesus says heaven is watching how they are treated — and that he himself receives whatever is done for them.

PART THREE: The Two-Way Cup — Howard Park Gives and Receives

So here is our calling, Howard Park, stated as simply as I know how. We are the people who carry the cup of cold water to the little ones of this neighborhood.

Not a grand program. Not a building project. A cup of cold water — the small, ordinary, refreshing act of welcome. The meal dropped off. The name remembered. The chair pulled out. The lonely person actually invited in. The newcomer greeted like they belong, because they do. When Howard Park hands that cup to a lonely neighbor, we are doing the most Christlike thing a church can do: offering refreshment, in his name, to one of the little ones he loves.

But now hear the part we so easily miss — because the cup of cold water runs in both directions.

When Howard Park goes out to refresh the little ones, Howard Park is refreshed in return. We go thinking we are the ones with something to give, and we come home having received far more than we brought. The lonely neighbor we visited ministers to us. The newcomer we welcomed turns out to carry gifts and stories and a faith that water our dry places. The person we assumed needed our help hands us, without even knowing it, a cup of cold water for our own thirsty souls.

This is the great secret of Christian hospitality. It is never one-directional. Christine Pohl, who has written more wisely on this than almost anyone, observes that in genuine hospitality the line between host and guest keeps blurring — the one who welcomes is, again and again, the one who ends up blessed; and in welcoming the stranger, we very often find we have welcomed Christ himself, unrecognized, at our own table.4

Remember how this whole passage began? “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” Christ hides himself in the little ones. So when Howard Park carries a cup of cold water out to the lonely and the excluded — we discover that Christ was already there, holding out a cup of cold water for us. We give, and we receive, in the very same motion.

CONCLUSION

And this — this exchange of cold water between Howard Park and our neighborhood — is not merely something nice we do in addition to sharing the Gospel.

[Slow and clear.]

It is the Gospel, proclaimed.

The hospitality of Jesus, carried out into the world by his body the church, is itself the witness and the proclamation of the Good News. When a lonely person receives an unexpected cup of cold water from Howard Park — a genuine welcome, in Jesus’ name — they are not just being helped. They are being told, in a language deeper than words, that they matter to God, that they are seen by heaven, that there is a King whose Kingdom has room for exactly them. The cup of cold water preaches. The open door proclaims. The welcome is the witness.

So this week, Howard Park, carry the cup. Find one little one — one lonely, overlooked, excluded neighbor — and hand them a cup of cold water in the name of Jesus. It may cost you almost nothing. It may take ninety seconds.

And do not be surprised if you come home refreshed yourself — if you find that the little one was holding a cup of cold water for you all along, and that Christ was there in the exchange, smiling, proclaiming his own Good News through two thirsty people sharing one cup of cold, living water.

Give the cup. Receive the cup.

And watch the Good News get proclaimed, one cup of cold water at a time.

Amen.

SOURCES CITED

1.  On water, wells, and the labor of water-drawing in the daily life of the ancient Near East, and on hospitality to travelers as a sacred duty, see Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2014), on Matthew 10:42; and Oded Borowski, Daily Life in Biblical Times (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), pp. 65–80. Water scarcity made the gift of cold, fresh water a meaningful and sometimes life-sustaining act of hospitality.

2.  On the rich biblical theology of water and “living water” — Rebekah’s hospitality (Genesis 24:17–20), the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:13–14), Jesus’ invitation to the thirsty (John 7:37–38, where “living water” is identified with the Spirit), and the thirsty who are given drink (Matthew 25:35) — see Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, 2 vols. (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2003), 1:600–615, 722–730.

3.  On the Matthean use of “little ones” (Greek mikroi) for the lowly, vulnerable, and easily-despised members of the community of disciples — those whom Jesus identifies with and whom heaven especially watches over (Matthew 18:6, 10, 14) — see Ulrich Luz, Matthew 8–20: A Commentary, Hermeneia series, trans. James E. Crouch (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), pp. 120–122, 427–436.

4.  Christine D. Pohl, Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), esp. pp. 11–33, 120–130. Pohl’s landmark study recovers hospitality as a central Christian practice and witness, emphasizing its reciprocal character — hosts are blessed by guests, the roles repeatedly blur, and in welcoming the stranger the church frequently welcomes Christ himself (cf. Matthew 25:31–46; Hebrews 13:2). Hospitality, for Pohl, is not a supplement to Christian mission but a primary form of gospel proclamation and witness.

All scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA.