The Simple Power of a Cup of Tea

Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward.

Mark 9:41

What beautiful words from the Lord Jesus. Do you think flavoured water counts?

We do. There is something beautifully powerful about offering someone a cup of tea. The cup may be accompanied with opening up the Bible together, but it may just be a willingness to love. To ask questions. To be interested in someone’s story enough to sit down with them, and listen.

It may feel weak. It will most definitely feel small and insignificant. But as you stretch out a cup to another, you’re saying welcome. You’re saying, my time is yours. You’re communicating your desire to know this person more deeply. To see the contours of their life more clearly. And as you invite them in, you’re growing in your capacity to see them as God sees them, and to love them as God loves them.

But most of all, as we stretch out our cups of tea to others, and quench a thirst together, we do so as those who are pointing to the One who quenches our deeper thirst. The one who gives Living Water in abundance. As we pass the cup across, we show a glimpse of the overflowing and generous welcome for all who come to Him.

Who would have thought there was so much power in a simple cup of tea?