June 28, 2026 · Rev. Anne · Psalm 23; Matthew 10:40-42
Rev. Anne remembers a first visit to Rockport for the church's ham and bean dinner, and calls the Old Sloop a fountain at the center of town whose radical hospitality flows from the communion table. With the congregation between pastors, the sermon leaves a question to carry: what do you thirst for?
Transcript
We were actually thrilled to find that this passage from Matthew was the gospel this morning in the lectionary. As we prepared for today, because in my experience, in any case of the old sloop is you are really practiced at welcoming that it's a heart of the ministry that you've had over the years in countless ways in opening the building. And I remember in particular family promise because all the churches were involved at that time, which was a huge, opening of the building and ourselves. The grace center just, it goes on and on. Even the old sloop coffee house, the musicians that you've welcomed here, the meetings, the kind of sense of this place as being a community.
And I thought this morning, I have always wondered, of course, where you got the name Old Sloop and did a little research, and I find, too, that it was the steeple. And. I thought about how even seeing the steeple from a distance was a kind of welcome. And we so we've been thinking all as we've prepared for this about your ministry over the years and how now in this time of transition between Pastor Derek's retirement and whoever will come next, now is the time to be thinking all of us together about how you want to be in your welcoming and in your practice as you go forward as a church.
Well, let's add I was here in two thousand and seven as a guest of your hospitality, and it was my first time to Rockport, and I have never forgotten it, and it has never come to a place of equivalence. I was here As an invitation of a classmate of mine, Judith Olson, who lived in this community up until recently when she died. And she invited me to the ham and bean dinner. And I never experienced anything like it in all my life. It stayed with me every Christmas and has grounded me in a spirit of hospitality. And the fact that it was associated with this church is just amazing, literally. I want you to know that that hospitality has never left me. And it's just a sign of who you are, not just your fellowship of your own community, but the entire community out here. And I'm sure everyone else who came to the variety of ham and bean dinners over the years and grounded in them a sense of deep, radical hospitality of a church.
And we chose all our readings today, really around this, this living water, this living Eucharistic spirituality of table that grounds all of your radical hospitality. It was just beautiful, what you started us off with, with the announcements. And I was like this. This is a prophetic church, a church that is centered in your hospitality. And we were thinking to, as we talked ahead of time that your social justice ministry, which j lifted up this morning is so much a part of that water that goes out that, comes from you as people who gather around the table and around the font and are baptized and sent into the world carrying the gifts of Eucharistic hospitality. I have to say, I never thought of ham and beans in terms of the Eucharist before, but it is, it is. It comes from that table. It comes from the bread and the wine. It comes out into the world and all the acts of service and care that you take here in the building, how you care for it, even having a wonderful sound system, these are acts of hospitality that often go unnoticed, unnoticed. And to make the connection to that deep, deep, deep love of God that is generative for us.
One of the things I wanted to say about the gospel passage is it comes at the end of verse ten and in verse, excuse me at the end of chapter ten in Matthew and the previous chapter, Matthew has actually called. And then in chapter ten, it's a list of instructions for all of the disciples going out, what it is to live an apostolic life. So Jesus sends them out, gives them instructions, gives them authority to be in the world as healers and bringers of grace. He talks about how the disciples are welcomed when they go in different places, whether people are happy to hear that word or not. And that line about a prophet's reward might be a little ironic, because in Scripture, if you remember, and what happens to Jesus, often a prophet's reward is not a reward at all. That is measured by anything that looks like success in this world. So there's kind of a in that whole chapter, there's kind of a wrestling with, what does it mean to follow this person and to live as as Christ lived?
So by the time we get to the bottom of that chapter two to the two verses we heard this morning, Jesus makes an equivalence that's really important. And he talks about how when we accept others in in the name of Christ, or when we're accepted in the name of Christ, or when a stranger comes in the name of Christ, However, we're receiving them as it's receiving him as well. And not only that, Jesus says, you're receiving the one who sent Jesus. It's very powerful to imagine this, this kind of chord of love that goes through hospitality straight from the heart of God to our hearts. And, we, we found ourselves.
Can I talk about the living water? It's okay. We found ourselves focused on that cup of water. And what is the cup of water? When someone in a dry country wants a glass of water, of course, it's a very literal, a literal kind of image. Just as Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. It's very literal act of hospitality for someone who is thirsty and tired. But living water to this. The cup is also an image of living water coming straight from scripture. It's beyond something that we can actually measure or see. It comes from the heart of faith. It comes from that which flows out of us in relationship to God. So living the cup of water and living water. We just thought was a really wonderful kind of equivalence there.
In that, in that scripture passage, I was thinking right now we're in a drought here in Massachusetts, but there's so many other places in the world that also don't have enough water and our planet's water suffers. So water in this, in this particular image can take us out to the widest parts of the earth. Thinking about what it means to give a cup of living water.
I wanted to say a few words about the the liturgical infrastructure, the hymns, and the Psalm that we've chosen to hold on to the centrality of the gospel. And. And the image that came to me this week was of fountains. The fountains at the center of cities. And just here in this moment, I had this awareness of where the tree is, where the Christmas tree is. Before you come into the ham and bean dinner in many cities. That's where the fountain is. And, and, and people approach those fountains, whether you're in Belgium, in Brussels, in New York, at the Bethesda Fountain, whether you're in Rome, at Trevi. People go to the fountain with great sense of joy and hope and a sense that their, their playfulness and, and their their art and their wonder will be raised. And. And that's what's happening in the centrality of the Eucharistic Table. And in this church.
This church is a fountain. The whole church is a fountain. It raises people up. It speaks for them. It supports them. It hope. Hope is at the center of your sanctuary. Hope and peace and. And so we chose these readings, the and the and the hymns and and the psalm of water. Living water, this living fountain that that you are, that we are that this whole community is. Sorry. Oh that's okay.
Wells. As you know, fountains and wells are all through Scripture. Wells are sometimes contested over. But lots of revelation happens at wells and fountains in the center of the city.
And our prayer, as we have been thinking about you in this time of transition is that you can tap into your sense of living water in yourselves and in this community that you can tap into kind of like, you know, a taproot literally of a tree that goes way down to the water to feel that source of life coming up through you and to know, just how precious it is for the community here and for, for this place, whether you thirst for what do you thirst for? That's what the question we want to, to leave you with here today at this time of transition. What is it that you individually thirst for, whether it's old sloop in this moment in your history? What does it thirst for at the center of who you are to really go deeply and to ask that question of yourselves, individually and collectively in the town of Rockport, on Cape Ann in the world, what what ought we thirst for? Not just the desire and the need, but what ought we thirst for in our grounding of our faith and all the scriptures? What is the center of our hospitality that allows us to answer that question deeply, personally, individually and collectively? That is the work, is it not? Over the next few months for you as a community.
So we'll leave you with the first line of the song or the invocation. Let all who thirst, let them come to the water. Amen. Amen. Amen.