looking for glory in all the wrong places

Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; 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.

A prophet, a righteous person, and a little one - sounds like the beginning of a joke.  I have sometimes wondered about this passage from Matthew's Gospel.  Is this a descending order?  Do these actions and people start at the top, as it were, and then work their way down?   Or are they on equal footing?   Or is this an inversion; building up to the point where you can see the glory in giving a cup of cold water to one the little ones as actually the highest point?

I think one of the inversions of the Kingdom of God is that the greatest glory is found in unexpected places.  You can perhaps easily recognize a prophet or a righteous person as someone whom God 'favours' (don't take that the wrong way).   But when do we stop to see the eternal value in offering the cup of water to the "little ones"?   We naturally seek the "great and the glorious" - because there is something in us that pulls us toward glory.   Trouble is, our perception has been skewed.

We have become colour blind to true glory - we cannot see where it is.   It is hidden in there, but available for all who wish to pursue it.  We chase after large shadows, and forget the blessedness of the meek.

Comments

[kevin beck]

Great obserevations! Sometimes I wonder if our pursuit of glory--even in the best sense--ought to be inverted. Rather than pursuing glory, maybe we'd be better off by letting God's glory pursue us.

Blessings

[joseph]

Kevin - I think there's probably a whole lot that we do backwards...! It seems that the nature of the Kingdom of God is such that it really is counter-intuitive to much of what comes naturally to us, or at least to me.