What does it mean to treat every person as made in the image of God? In his sermon at St. Peter's by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Narragansett, Rhode Island, Bishop Nicholas Knisely unpacks Matthew 10:40-42 — Jesus' promise that even the smallest act of kindness, a cup of cold water offered in his name, carries an extraordinary reward.

Bishop Knisely makes the case that true kindness flows not from what someone has done to deserve it, but from who they are in relationship with God. Every human being carries the image of God, and if we could see each other the way angels do, we would treat every person with the dignity that is already theirs.

His challenge: start with your neighborhood. Treat people as worthy of respect not because of how they vote, what they believe, or how they behave — but simply because they are human and they are a child of God.

Deacon: The holy gospel of our Lord

Deacon: Jesus Christ, according to

Deacon: Matthew.

Bishop Knisely: Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Deacon: Jesus said, whoever welcomes you

Deacon: welcomes me, and whoever

Deacon: welcomes me welcomes the one who

Deacon: sent me.

Deacon: Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will

Deacon: receive a prophet's reward.

Deacon: And whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a

Deacon: righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous.

Deacon: And whoever gives even a cup of

Deacon: cold water to one of these

Deacon: little ones in the name of a

Deacon: disciple.

Deacon: Truly, I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.

Deacon: The gospel of the Lord.

Bishop Knisely: Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Bishop Knisely: May I speak to you in the name

Bishop Knisely: of God, who is father, son, and

Bishop Knisely: Holy Spirit.

Bishop Knisely: Amen.

Bishop Knisely: Amen.

Bishop Knisely: Go ahead and now be seated.

Bishop Knisely: One of the things you learn

Bishop Knisely: really early on when you're

Bishop Knisely: ordained is that people sort of

Bishop Knisely: look at what you're wearing and

Bishop Knisely: behave differently.

Bishop Knisely: I notice that if I have to fly and I'm wearing clericals, if

Bishop Knisely: I'm in my black suit or a purple shirt and I go to get on the

Bishop Knisely: airplane, people are either going to be really happy I'm

Bishop Knisely: sitting beside them or they're going to be very uncomfortable.

Bishop Knisely: People will sort of scooch away from you in line at Dunkin

Bishop Knisely: Donuts and at McDonald's.

Bishop Knisely: It's a whole thing, trying to

Bishop Knisely: order your Big Mac and your

Bishop Knisely: French fries.

Bishop Knisely: People project on you because of what you're wearing.

Bishop Knisely: And you learned that early on.

Bishop Knisely: As clergy, and sometimes that's helpful.

Bishop Knisely: And sometimes that can be a challenge.

Bishop Knisely: One of the things you notice when you walk around inner city

Bishop Knisely: inner cities, and I, as a priest, always served in inner

Bishop Knisely: city parishes, is that people will see you walking by and

Bishop Knisely: depending on their circumstances, will come up and

Bishop Knisely: want something from you.

Bishop Knisely: And sometimes that's wonderful.

Bishop Knisely: And sometimes it's like, oh, how

Bishop Knisely: am I going to disappoint you

Bishop Knisely: today?

Bishop Knisely: So when I was living in Phoenix,

Bishop Knisely: my wife and I are not very good

Bishop Knisely: cooks.

Bishop Knisely: And so we're really good at getting prepared foods from

Bishop Knisely: little grocery stores.

Bishop Knisely: We love Dave's.

Bishop Knisely: I just got to tell you, we would

Bishop Knisely: starve to death if it wasn't for

Bishop Knisely: Dave's.

Bishop Knisely: But there was a version of Dave's much smaller called Fresh

Bishop Knisely: and Easy in Phoenix, and I was on my way home from the office

Bishop Knisely: and Karen was still at work and she said, would you swing by

Bishop Knisely: fresh and easy and get some dinner for us?

Bishop Knisely: And I said, sure, sure, sure.

Bishop Knisely: I'm trying to get in and out the fresh and easy.

Bishop Knisely: That was close to where we were living.

Bishop Knisely: It wasn't the best part of

Bishop Knisely: Phoenix and it was kind of

Bishop Knisely: sketchy.

Bishop Knisely: And I'm like, okay, I'll get in.

Bishop Knisely: I'll get into the place.

Bishop Knisely: It was a guy standing around

Bishop Knisely: outside looking at people and,

Bishop Knisely: uh oh.

Bishop Knisely: So I get out of the car, I go

Bishop Knisely: into fresh and easy, I get out,

Bishop Knisely: I don't know what it was

Bishop Knisely: probably something wonderfully

Bishop Knisely: healthy and fulfilling, like

Bishop Knisely: clergy eat.

Bishop Knisely: And and I came out of the store and the guy looks at me and

Bishop Knisely: says, you're a priest, right?

Bishop Knisely: Like, oh, yes, yes.

Bishop Knisely: He said, I bought two of these.

Bishop Knisely: Take this one.

Bishop Knisely: And he gave me a bag of oranges.

Bishop Knisely: And I thought, well, that's not what I expected.

Bishop Knisely: And I said, well, thank you.

Bishop Knisely: He said, no, no, no, no worries.

Bishop Knisely: And he walked off and I realized he had done something for me,

Bishop Knisely: not because of any relationship I had with him or anything I'd

Bishop Knisely: done to deserve it, or the kindness I had shown him.

Bishop Knisely: He just did it for me because of

Bishop Knisely: a relationship I had with other

Bishop Knisely: people.

Bishop Knisely: I don't know, maybe it was something in the air in Phoenix,

Bishop Knisely: but something similar happened not too long after I came out.

Bishop Knisely: And one of the things you learn

Bishop Knisely: in Phoenix is because of the

Bishop Knisely: heat and everything and the

Bishop Knisely: thorns, you get a lot of flat

Bishop Knisely: tires.

Bishop Knisely: And so I came out to my car and I had a flat tire.

Bishop Knisely: Oh. All right, well, I'm sitting there.

Bishop Knisely: I'll just pop the trunk, get the spare out, change the tire, and

Bishop Knisely: I'm getting ready to do that.

Bishop Knisely: And, and I, I guess a guy was a delivery driver saw me and said,

Bishop Knisely: father, father, let me change your car tire.

Bishop Knisely: I said, no, no, I can do it.

Bishop Knisely: I'm fine.

Bishop Knisely: God bless you.

Bishop Knisely: Thank you.

Bishop Knisely: But I got this.

Bishop Knisely: No no no no no no. Your hands

Bishop Knisely: are the hands that serve at the

Bishop Knisely: altar.

Bishop Knisely: Don't get them dirty or hurt them.

Bishop Knisely: Changing a tire.

Bishop Knisely: Really?

Bishop Knisely: I was not expecting that.

Bishop Knisely: And I tried to talk him out.

Bishop Knisely: He wouldn't hear it.

Bishop Knisely: He said, no, I want to change your tire.

Bishop Knisely: So he changed my tire.

Bishop Knisely: He did a very good job of it, and I'm trying to take out money

Bishop Knisely: and give him a tip or something.

Bishop Knisely: I said, please let me say thank you.

Bishop Knisely: And he wouldn't hear a word of it.

Bishop Knisely: He did that not because he knew me, but because of who I knew.

Bishop Knisely: In the gospel reading today,

Bishop Knisely: Jesus is saying something very

Bishop Knisely: similar.

Bishop Knisely: He's saying that if you do

Bishop Knisely: something kind for someone

Bishop Knisely: because of the relationship they

Bishop Knisely: have with me, Jesus is saying,

Bishop Knisely: you shall get an extraordinary

Bishop Knisely: reward.

Bishop Knisely: He's talking in a crowd of people and he's talking about

Bishop Knisely: the little ones.

Bishop Knisely: You think he's talking about children?

Bishop Knisely: The best we can tell from the text, he's not.

Bishop Knisely: He's talking about the disciples

Bishop Knisely: and the apostles who were with

Bishop Knisely: him as he's going about

Bishop Knisely: teaching.

Bishop Knisely: And he says to the larger crowd,

Bishop Knisely: look, if you give even a cup of

Bishop Knisely: cold water, That's not very much

Bishop Knisely: right?

Bishop Knisely: That's a pretty easy lift for most of us.

Bishop Knisely: If you give even a cup of cold water to one of these people

Bishop Knisely: because of their relationship with me, then you will receive a

Bishop Knisely: reward that is great in heaven.

Bishop Knisely: How do you feel about that?

Bishop Knisely: Because you're one of the little ones.

Bishop Knisely: Think about that, right?

Bishop Knisely: What if someone came up and said, hey, you're a member of

Bishop Knisely: Saint Peter's, right?

Bishop Knisely: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bishop Knisely: Have a cup of water on me.

Bishop Knisely: What would you think?

Bishop Knisely: Right?

Bishop Knisely: You belong to Jesus.

Bishop Knisely: If we could see you as the angels see you.

Bishop Knisely: We'd see the shining cross that's there on your forehead.

Bishop Knisely: That was put there when you were baptized.

Bishop Knisely: And the priest drew the sign of

Bishop Knisely: the cross in holy oil on your

Bishop Knisely: forehead.

Bishop Knisely: If we could see with the eyes of angels.

Bishop Knisely: We'd see the cloud of white

Bishop Knisely: light that surrounds you simply

Bishop Knisely: because you are one of the

Bishop Knisely: baptized.

Bishop Knisely: I mean, wow.

Bishop Knisely: What if you could see each other that way?

Bishop Knisely: Or what if you could see the people that you meet every day

Bishop Knisely: and see in them the image of God that they carry simply because

Bishop Knisely: they are human?

Bishop Knisely: The Pope talks about in his latest encyclical, The

Bishop Knisely: Magnificence of Our Humanity.

Bishop Knisely: And he's referring to artificial intelligence.

Bishop Knisely: But but I think he's also just

Bishop Knisely: making the point that one of the

Bishop Knisely: things that's extraordinary

Bishop Knisely: about our incarnate selves, our

Bishop Knisely: fleshy human nature, is that we

Bishop Knisely: carry the image of God within

Bishop Knisely: us.

Bishop Knisely: And because we carry the image

Bishop Knisely: of God, We look like Jesus to

Bishop Knisely: the universe.

Bishop Knisely: We all do.

Bishop Knisely: Simply by being human.

Bishop Knisely: It's extraordinary when you think about what it means to be

Bishop Knisely: made in the image of God, and the recognition that the rest of

Bishop Knisely: the universe gets a blessing simply by our presence in it.

Bishop Knisely: Now, you'd think we'd live up to that, right?

Bishop Knisely: And we'd live our lives in such a way that the relationships we

Bishop Knisely: have would typify the blessing that we are to other people.

Bishop Knisely: But we don't always do that.

Bishop Knisely: I was looking at the comment section of the New York Times

Bishop Knisely: articles this morning.

Bishop Knisely: I should not do that before I go to church.

Bishop Knisely: There was not a whole lot of recognition of the image of God

Bishop Knisely: in those comments.

Bishop Knisely: I got to tell you.

Bishop Knisely: People were arguing and they

Bishop Knisely: were biting, and they were

Bishop Knisely: pulling at each other just as we

Bishop Knisely: humans do.

Bishop Knisely: And in spite of all that, we are still made in the image of God.

Bishop Knisely: But what would it be like if we

Bishop Knisely: could actually live our lives

Bishop Knisely: that way?

Bishop Knisely: What would it be like if we

Bishop Knisely: actually saw each other as being

Bishop Knisely: created in the image of God, and

Bishop Knisely: treated each other with that

Bishop Knisely: kind of respect and dignity that

Bishop Knisely: is ours, not because we deserve

Bishop Knisely: it, but because of who we are in

Bishop Knisely: relationship with.

Bishop Knisely: I mean, that's kind of the point of the ecclesia.

Bishop Knisely: The word ecclesia is the word Paul uses for church.

Bishop Knisely: He uses it in Romans a number of times.

Bishop Knisely: It's not a new word.

Bishop Knisely: He's not making it up.

Bishop Knisely: Ecclesia is a Greek idea, and it means a crowd of people.

Bishop Knisely: And it's usually described by

Bishop Knisely: the teachers and the

Bishop Knisely: philosophers as being a

Bishop Knisely: fractious bunch.

Bishop Knisely: When an ecclesia is gathered, you know, there's going to be

Bishop Knisely: arguments and there's going to be pushing and shoving.

Bishop Knisely: And Paul uses that word for church.

Bishop Knisely: We tend to dress it up and we make it into ecclesiastical and

Bishop Knisely: we use fancy language.

Bishop Knisely: But but it really just means a crowd of grumpy people.

Bishop Knisely: And that's what Paul was

Bishop Knisely: describing and is describing all

Bishop Knisely: of us.

Bishop Knisely: And yet, because we're part of

Bishop Knisely: that crowd, if someone gives us

Bishop Knisely: a drink of water because we're

Bishop Knisely: part of that crowd, they get an

Bishop Knisely: extraordinary reward.

Bishop Knisely: You know, it's not like what it was with Abraham, who had to put

Bishop Knisely: everything on the line for his faith with God.

Bishop Knisely: Everything, everything he had been told, everything he

Bishop Knisely: believed, everything he and Sarah had hung their hopes on.

Bishop Knisely: He was asked to put on the line for God.

Bishop Knisely: And that faith is what makes him a hero.

Bishop Knisely: A hero whose memory has been preserved for all this time.

Bishop Knisely: We have it much easier or much harder.

Bishop Knisely: I don't know, because we have to do an easier thing and believe

Bishop Knisely: that the same consequence applies for us.

Bishop Knisely: We're celebrating our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary

Bishop Knisely: as a nation later this week.

Bishop Knisely: Hooray!

Bishop Knisely: We're not all excited about it.

Bishop Knisely: It's not like seventeen or nineteen seventy six.

Bishop Knisely: I remember what the Bicentennial was like.

Bishop Knisely: I'm older than I look, and I remember how we got dressed up

Bishop Knisely: and the way we celebrated it for the whole year.

Bishop Knisely: And here we are in the two fiftieth, and I feel like my

Bishop Knisely: daughter, who probably won't see the three hundredth, is getting

Bishop Knisely: cheated because she's not seeing the same thing.

Bishop Knisely: It's a moment.

Bishop Knisely: We're divided.

Bishop Knisely: We are at each other's throats.

Bishop Knisely: We're biting and sniping and pulling at each other.

Bishop Knisely: Just like in the comment sections of The New York Times.

Bishop Knisely: And yet that Ecclesia is all made in the image of God.

Bishop Knisely: You want to heal that?

Bishop Knisely: Try treating each other as if

Bishop Knisely: their dignity is not dependent

Bishop Knisely: on what they say or do or how

Bishop Knisely: they behave, but simply because

Bishop Knisely: they exist.

Bishop Knisely: And they were created in the image of God from the beginning.

Bishop Knisely: I have noticed it changes you.

Bishop Knisely: That guy who changed my tire changed my whole week because I

Bishop Knisely: saw myself differently.

Bishop Knisely: I don't usually think of myself

Bishop Knisely: as a person who serves at the

Bishop Knisely: altar.

Bishop Knisely: I think of myself as the person who worries about how we're

Bishop Knisely: going to pay the bills.

Bishop Knisely: He didn't see me that way, and

Bishop Knisely: because he didn't see me that

Bishop Knisely: way, I started to see myself, at

Bishop Knisely: least for a little while, in a

Bishop Knisely: different way.

Bishop Knisely: The guy who waited around outside the grocery store.

Bishop Knisely: I've never forgotten it.

Bishop Knisely: Clearly.

Bishop Knisely: What if you people of Saint Peter's could change?

Bishop Knisely: Maybe not the whole nation.

Bishop Knisely: Just change your neighborhood.

Bishop Knisely: Just change your neighborhood by

Bishop Knisely: treating each other as people

Bishop Knisely: who are worthy of dignity and

Bishop Knisely: respect.

Bishop Knisely: Not because of how you vote or

Bishop Knisely: what you believe, or the flags

Bishop Knisely: you fly or anything else like

Bishop Knisely: that.

Bishop Knisely: But simply because you are a human being and you are a child

Bishop Knisely: of God, and you glow with light by virtue of your baptism, and

Bishop Knisely: there is a shining cross on your forehead that the angels can see

Bishop Knisely: and long to witness.

Bishop Knisely: What if just being human is enough?

Bishop Knisely: That would be something.

Bishop Knisely: It might change your day.

Bishop Knisely: Amen.

Bishop Knisely: Amen.