Dionysus on a Bike

Matthew 10:40-42 – 6/28/2028 – The Fifth Sunday After Pentecost

This is perhaps one of my favorite verses of Scripture. It points toward the centrality of caring for others in a life well lived. When we provide for the needs of those who are unable, for whatever reason, to provide for themselves, even in the smallest of ways, we will not “lose [our] reward.” What kind of reward is Jesus talking about?

Jesus says that those who give “even a cup of cold water to these little ones” cannot fail to secure their reward for such an act. Since this reward is a necessary one, it cannot fail to come about, there are two logical possibilities for what this reward might be. One kind of reward that could be guaranteed to come about is an eternal reward given by God because of one’s actions helping another. This is the usual interpretation of this verse. Whatever happens in this world, whether good or bad, our deeds of service will be rewarded in the eternal life to come. God can bring about such rewards, it is supposed, and God’s sovereignty means that such gifts can be promised with certainty such that they cannot fail to happen.

This usual interpretation is coherent, but we have no way of knowing if it is true or how it is true. It may certainly be the case that there is an afterlife with rewards for past service guaranteed by God, but for all we know, this might not be the case at all. Lest one claim that Scripture straightforwardly points toward this interpretation, there is significant disagreement about what Scripture as a whole teaches about the afterlife because different authors of the canon had different understandings of what happens after death. There is no unanimity, and we are not in a position to know, from our vantage-point, what God has in store beyond the bounds of time and history.

The other possibility where serving guarantees a reward is if helping the other is its own reward. Here God is not the cosmic judge that hands out merit badges for good actions and punishment when we cause harm. Instead God is the man Jesus Christ teaching the truth, written into our nature as created in the image of God, that when we serve and help others, especially those in need, we are thereby blessed. Goodness for giving to the one in need follows directly as a necessary consequence of that act. This is not some extrinsic reward that may or may not come about, like material goods or the goodwill of others. Those extrinsic rewards for service may be there in a given act, but they just as well may be absent. Many times serving another is met with material loss and social rejection. Rather, the “reward” is simply the blessedness of the act itself; the righteous are made happy by the good that they do. Jesus knew this, that to do good was to be good and to live the good life.

Reflections of a Dionysian Lutheran, comments on the daily readings of the Revised Common Lectionary by Justin Marquis