Sermon: Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Mark 9:30-37
September 22, 2024
Pastor Jonathan Linman
I distinctly remember a time when my cousins from Wisconsin spent some summer days with our family in Illinois when we were kids. At the dinner table, my cousins were unusually quiet. We wondered why and so we asked. Their answer took me aback. They said, “children should be seen and not heard.” That sentiment was completely foreign to how our parents raised us.
We in our society generally like to think of ourselves as being welcoming to children and cherishing them. But that’s not consistently true when it comes to the policies and priorities of our nation along with a lot of our practices for raising kids. Children in this country suffer from unconscionable levels of poverty. Children are more likely to die of gunshot wounds than from other causes, like illness or accidents. Parents, myself too often included, outsource our parenting to computer screens. And it’s not just children in our nation but throughout the world who find themselves too often at the bottom of society – think of the death toll of children in the war in Gaza and the suffering of children in any number of other countries.
Rather than caring for vulnerable children who desperately need stable and healthy early years to lay a foundation for success as adults, our leaders are preoccupied with what the author of the letter of James warned against, namely, bitter envy and selfish ambition marked by arrogance and lying about the truth (cf. James 3:14). The author of James writes, “For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.” (James 3:16) And so it is in our nation. And the children are often the ones who suffer most from this disorder and wickedness.
It was no better in ancient times in the days of Jesus. In those days, children were essentially non-persons. And a male teacher like Jesus would have had nothing to do with children. It was the women who cared for kids – and women didn’t rate much higher than kids in ancient society. “Children should be seen and not heard” ruled in Jesus’ day even as it does too often today.
But the good news is that Jesus broke the societal norms. Jesus saw the children and Jesus heard the children. Not only that, Jesus embraced children in his arms and welcomed them. And Jesus even identified with the children. Listen again to that profound moment in today’s gospel reading when Jesus was teaching his disciples that those who want to be first must be last and be servant of all. To exemplify this, Jesus “took a little child and put it among them, and taking the child in his arms he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’” (Mark 9:36-37)
What Jesus said and did was truly radical. He hugged the children, receiving them into his loving arms. Men in ancient times simply didn’t do that. And Jesus basically said: “you see this kid here? When you see this kid, you see me, and not only that, when you look at this child, you’re seeing the very image of God. And when you take this child into your arms, you’re welcoming God, not just this kid.”
It’s not unlike what we hear in the parable of the judgment of the nations in Matthew’s gospel about how we are called to serve the needs of the most vulnerable and marginal in society: “when you [cared for] for the least of these who are members of my family,” Jesus said, “you [cared for] for me” (cf. Matthew 25:31-46).
This whole stance of welcoming children and the least, the last, and the lost has its culminating expression, of course, on the cross, which Jesus pointed to and predicted as we heard again in today’s gospel reading: “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.” (Mark 9:31) On that cross, Jesus stretched out his arms in welcome of all, not just children, but everyone.
And it's Jesus’ death and resurrection that lead straight to the calling to servanthood ministry, to our willingness to be last and to be servant of all, including radically welcoming children and all who are marginalized.
Just in case you’re wondering if there is any greatness in such servanthood (that was, after all, the worry of the disciples in today’s story – who was the greatest), there is greatness in the servant Jesus being raised from the dead. And true greatness is seen in using the power and glory of resurrected life in serving others.
But the powers that be, in Jesus’ day and now, fight against such life-giving servanthood. As we heard in today’s first reading, the prophet Jeremiah suggests that the evil ones of his day “devised schemes, saying, ‘Let us destroy the tree with its fruit; let us cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name will no longer be remembered.’” (Jeremiah 11:19b)
Well, it didn’t work out the way the evil ones intended. The tree of the cross became the tree of life that bore much fruit for the life of the world. While Jesus was cut off from the land of the living for three days, he returned to the living when he was raised from the dead, and his name is remembered by billions of people to this very day.
Where does all of this leave us now? When it’s all said and done, we’re all children, little ones, vulnerable, in need, and Jesus welcomes us, too.
And it’s at the font and in the waters of baptism where Jesus places us amidst the whole congregation and takes us into his loving arms to receive us, to welcome us, to claim us as his and God’s own, children of God who reveal divinity, who reveal Jesus’ face.
And we emerge from those baptismal waters as disciples, with the seed of faith planted in us, a seed which germinates and which grows throughout our lives.
And as disciples, we are called from the waters of baptism and are given the same instructions that Jesus gave the original twelve disciples. We may argue among ourselves about who is the greatest, but Jesus interrupts that nonsense with these clear marching orders: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” (Mark 9:35b)
And thus begins our cruciform life that leads to the kind of servanthood ministry that bears the fruit of our welcoming children and other marginalized ones like them.
Thus, we seek to live and serve as “wise and knowledgeable ones, showing by our good life that our works are done with gentleness born of wisdom” (cf. James 3:13). That’s true greatness.
And our discipleship in being servants of all embodies and gives expression to the truth of what we also heard in the letter of James today: “But the wisdom form above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” (James 3:17-18) Peaceable, gentle, merciful, impartial, willingness to yield – this is the spirit in which we’re called to serve all.
Oh, what an astonishing, contrasting, counter cultural witness to what we otherwise see and endure all around us…. As astonishing as Jesus hugging the kids, receiving them, welcoming them, seeing the face of God in them.
What a better world it will be when children and others among the least, the last, and the lost are seen and heard and embraced and loved and genuinely cared for!
Let us pray. God in Christ, thousand thanks to you for welcoming us into your loving arms in the waters of baptism and in our daily walk with you as servants of all. By your Spirit’s power working in us and in our ministries, may your gracious welcome extend to the world’s children and all who are in want and in need. And all of this for the healing of the nations and for your glory, Oh, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
