Sharing Fair-ey Tales

Fair week is special. Adults get a break from the routine; kids get a chance at rides and prizes. Families get together and camp out in the RV. Some come to show off their skills in various events, others come to gawk at what’s been entered in the events. Some come to sell their wares, some to raise money for charitable or school groups; others come to buy the best tacos-in-a-bag or freshest lemonade in the area.

I grew up in the Texas Panhandle, and our big fair was the Tri-State Fair. Folks would come from Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico to enter their 4-H projects, domestic and fine arts, baking, canning, etc. Up-and-coming musical acts and a few acts a bit past their prime would make appearances during Fair Week. The Midway would be crowded with games, rides, food booths, and displays. It might have been a little bigger than the Meigs County Fair, but it certainly wasn’t any better.

As a teenager, I worked in a booth sponsored by our local ministerial association. It was pretty simple actually. We didn’t ask for money, and we didn’t throw out lots of literature. We just did one thing: passed out cups of ice-cold water.

Although the fair wasn’t until mid-September, temperatures in the upper 90s were common. And there’s nothing like some refreshing, ice-cold water in the midst of a scorcher!

Why cups of cold water? You’ll find the answer in Matthew 10:42: “If anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciples, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.” (NIV)

A cup of cold water isn’t much; but Jesus used this example to show how even small things matter in the kingdom of heaven. Often we are tempted to think that our actions and attitudes simply do not mean much in the grand scheme of things. After all, compared to the impact of the Exxon-Valdez oil spill, my throwing out an empty soda can from my car on Route 124 is nothing! When North Korea wants to make nuclear weapons to threaten South Korea, my angry words against my wife mean nothing, right?

Wrong! My actions and attitudes do affect others, just as much as those “bigger things.” A kind deed gets bigger as its repeated, spreading goodness far beyond ourselves. And bad things also get multiplied — to the point that they become global threats.

A cup of cold water shared in Jesus’ name doesn’t seem like much – but it is! It’s how God takes something insignificant and inexpensive and makes it intimate and invaluable. The MasterCard marketing folks would tell us it’s “priceless.”

So what about you? What Fair-ey tales can you tell? In what ways have you expressed and received the hospitality that should mark every disciple of Jesus Christ?

An ice-cold cup of water, doesn’t that sound good?