James 3:13-4:3, 7-8
13 Who is wise and knowledgeable among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be arrogant and lie about the truth. 15 This is not wisdom that comes down from above but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. 16 For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. 18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? 2 You want something and do not have it, so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it, so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
Mark 9:30-37
30 They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it, 31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” 32 But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
33 Then they came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” 34 But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35 He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” 36 Then he took a little child and put it among them, and taking it in his arms he said to them, 37 “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
Here we go, round two this week. Jesus is on the move again, making his way to Jerusalem, and for a second time he is trying to teach the disciples about what it means to be the Messiah, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed he will rise again.” They still don’t understand what he means by this, and clearly it scares them to hear Jesus say it, but instead of trying to correct and rebuke him like Peter did last week, they remain silent. And we would be forgiven for thinking that their silence is somewhat of an improvement, for thinking that it somehow meant they were listening and trying to understand Jesus’ words instead of trying to control the messianic narrative, but sadly this was not the case. After hearing this messianic teaching from Jesus, they decided to, while traveling toward the next town, argue with one another about who is the greatest amongst them. In the face of their fear about Jesus’s teaching they didn't choose to delve deeper into its meaning, work through it, ask questions, no, they chose instead to put aside his words aside entirely and continue forward with their understanding of messianic power. As I mentioned last week, the Messiah was understood to be someone who would be powerful and strong, able to overturn the oppressive rulers and usher in a new reign that would govern the people with God’s justice and mercy. And clearly this Messiah would need officials and people of the court to help rule this new Kingdom, so the disciples argued about who was great enough to take these new roles of leadership that would be coming their way. I can understand why they were so confused and so afraid of the words that came out of Jesus’ mouth about messiahship if that is what they believed a Messiah is and would do, because what Jesus is telling them about greatness is the complete opposite to not only their understanding but the cultural practices and beliefs of their time.
The ancient world, whether you were Jew or Gentile, you would have been aware of the honor-shame culture that you lived in. This culture meant that one’s status in society was determined in relationship to one's wealth, education, family pedigree, and political connections. Your worth as a human was determined by these things, and in order to be seen as someone with honor, you would not only have to have all these things, but society would have to acknowledge them about you. There was no such idea that I may be poor and not have many opportunities in life, but I still act with values of honor and am therefore an honorable person. This concept did not exist during the time of Jesus’s society, you could not determine whether you were honorable or shameful yourself. Your worth was determined by others, and this was just the accepted reality of this time period. So if Jesus is the Messiah then you think that would put him in the honor category in an honor-shame culture, but when he talks about experiencing the most shameful type of death, that of a cross, and when he talks about his following being made-up of people who are almost exclusively from the shame category, you can easily see why the disciples were having a hard time understanding Jesus. For them, if Jesus was truly the Messiah then he was going to bring a whole group of people out of the shame category and into the honor one, bring a whole group of people who are seen as the lowest category in society, slaves and servants, and bring them into the honor category, putting them on top of the social pyramid, making them free rulers. (Christos, Messiah)
So when Jesus tells them that if they want to be great, honorable, that they have to be the last and servant of all, not only is it confusing, it is disheartening. And then, when he goes on to say that not only must they be a servant of all, but that they must welcome little children in the messiah’s name, children who have no social status, who are considered to be non-people, who have their place only beside women, who aren't even worthy to be written in any text for any reason until preadolescence, little children who are socially invisible, who are at the very bottom of that shame category and therefore the very bottom of society, that they must welcome children in order to welcome God, to welcome children in order to usher in this new Kingdom, to welcome children in order to be part of the messianic experience, it is not only inconceivable, it is kind of insulting to them. How is this a good new world order, when the last are made first, when the greatest are servants, when you have to act with compassionate humility to the most vulnerable, to those who are considered to have the most shame, how is that what makes you honorable? How does this transform lives for the better? If we are still poor? If others still govern us? What worth does it have?
With the historical context in place we see how greatly these words would have affected the disciples and the people of that time and place. But now I want to take a moment, fast forward a couple thousand years, and come to our time and place, where we still work with categories of honor and shame but in very different ways, where we have perhaps experienced some enlightenment when it comes to the understanding of children, where here today I want to ask you sincerely, when you hear Jesus say that in order to welcome him and God into your life you must be able to welcome little children, does it shock you? Are you surprised by it? Does it insult you or does it make sense to you?
It doesn't surprise me that it bothers us less to think we have to help and welcome the vulnerable, like children, into our community if we are to be true followers of Christ and people of God. But I would argue that any ease we have with this command needs to be re-examined, because little children are still little children today just like they were back then. What do I mean by this? Well, what does it mean to welcome a little child, what are little children like?
It’s not all joy: curious, needy, not always thankful, require attention, make many mistakes, speak out of turn, no social filter, take things they want without asking and sometimes when ask it can still be with a selfish intent
What do they require of us: (that wisdom from above) responsibility, humility, service, patience, peaceful environment, honest, flexible, forgiving, fair, unbiased, willing to put aside some of your own desires and wants, willingness to protect them, to die for the them
I don't think it really matters the culture or the time, children are always vulnerable which makes welcoming them always a difficult thing to do. Yes, we may desire to welcome them more and understand the importance of including them more than the disciples did, but it doesn't make the work of doing it any less easy. It involves a giving of our whole selves each time we interact with them, it involves putting ourselves second so that other life can grow and flourish, it involves a deep all-encompassing love. Whether individually or communally, welcoming children can be challenging and stressful and can require great sacrifices from us. Yet it also can lead to the most rewarding experiences of our lives, because they are reflections of the created world in the most honest of ways.
This is why Jesus uses the example of little children to teach us about the real practices behind welcoming, because it is not just little children that Jesus is commanding us to welcome, but rather it is all people and all creation that he teaches us to serve and invite into our lives. And he wants us to remember that this type of welcoming will be at times hard, and he want us to know that it will not lead to paths of great success and power, yet he promises us that even though it will be hard and not advance our status, it is still worth doing because it is the only path that leads to transformation and resurrection. If we can submit ourselves to these teachings on welcoming, if we can take the air away from the cravings that are at war within us, cravings that push us towards wealth, positions of status, and praise from others, if we can turn stop nurturing these selfish cravings and let them wither, then we will draw near to God and God will draw near to us. When we are close to God we experience love in whole new ways, and there is nothing greater or more honorable in this world than the experience of love. When we welcome others we experience love, and that is a good world to be a part of. And here’s the good news, that is a world where the only requirements to be a member involves nothing but your willingness to be welcoming in return for the welcome you have received from both your Creator and your neighbours.
I could go on and on about welcoming. I think there are so many examples in our world where we need to welcome people who are feeling very vulnerable, who are feeling abandoned, who are looked upon with disgust by those who holds certain positions of power in this world. And I think we could all go on about the different ways in which thinking about each other as children of God can help us develop that welcoming muscle. For now, on this particular Sunday, we remind ourselves that we are part of a creation that’s calling: nurture me! Not just people, but the whole physical planet. And perhaps we can learn to be great nurturers of this planet through our practices of welcoming that we learn from Jesus. May God bless us with a holy spirit who reminds us how all life is vulnerable and precious, and may it spark our hearts to nurture created life by making place for it among us and holding it in our arms with love. Amen.
-Rev. Cynthia C. Reynolds
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