Welcomed as a Child (Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost)
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One of the foremost characteristics of Jesus’ disciples in Mark’s Gospel is that they’re terminally clueless! They just don’t get it. Even when Jesus tells them things openly and very plainly, they misunderstand.
Actually, there are times in all four of our Gospels where the disciples are confused or just plain dumb. But in Mark’s Gospel it’s particularly pronounced.
So in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus is privately teaching his disciples that they’re headed to Jerusalem where Jesus will be betrayed, be killed and rise again 3 days later. They don’t understand. But this time, they’re not just confused. Now they’re scared. In fact, they’re so scared, that they’re afraid to ask Jesus what this is all about.
And so they reacted in ways that are often typical when people are confronted with confusing, difficult or even scary information. The respond with:
- denial – you may remember Peter actually rebuked Jesus in last week’s Gospel reading! Oh, no, this is NOT how it’s going to play out … (or else, sometimes we tell ourselves that there’s really nothing to worry about…)
- changing the subject – let’s talk about something else … (rearranging the org chart is a corporate way of doing this; and that’s exactly what the disciples do in today’s Gospel reading – it’s really “who’s at the top of the org chart”…)
- inaction – let’s sit tight and wait till something miraculously changes, or at least until the threat passes … (the disciples would have sat in the house for the rest of their lives if Jesus didn’t call them to get up and continue to follow, and lots of people wouldn’t have blamed them …)
And so in the midst of this mess, Jesus takes a little child. The Greek word implies a small child who’s probably about the age of a toddler. And Jesus starts talking to them about being “welcomed” like a child.
Sometimes, we get caught up in the image of the child. What a cute little kid! Who wouldn’t welcome cuteness and innocence in their lives? (Note, however, that Mark doesn’t tell us if the child wanted to cooperate in this illustration – for all we know, the kid could have been screaming and wailing that this guy suddenly picked him or her up out of the crowd!)
But what does it mean to “welcome a child”? I don’t think it has anything to do with cuteness, innocence or whether the kid is well behaved. Instead, I think Jesus is pointing out that welcoming a child means welcoming a person without:
- That person “earning” their welcome – so often, people are welcomed because they’ve been good friends to us; or because they’ve been loyal colleagues to us; but children haven’t, and can’t, earn their welcome. They can only be welcomed because we really want them to be there with us…
- Necessarily accepting that person’s worldview – kids are sometimes fun to listen to because they have interesting views and ideas about how the world around them works. Sometimes, they’re kind of insightful. But kids sometimes think there are monsters under the bed. And that it would be fun to play in the street. Or that it’s safe to walk near the edge of a cliff. Welcoming children doesn’t mean we have to agree with these ideas…
- Any expectation that there’s something in it for me – When I walk in a store and somebody says, “welcome”, I get the sense that they’re welcoming me because there’s a potential sale in their future. But when I welcome a child, it’s not because the child can do anything to make me richer or more popular…
Now according to Mark, the reason Jesus talks about welcome is because his disciples have been arguing about who is the greatest among them – or, in other words, who’s worthy of being welcomed into their community.
So through the example of a child, Jesus makes it clear that in his community of disciples, both then and now, people should be welcomed:
- Regardless of whether they seem “worthy”, or to have earned the right to be there… (In Mark’s Gospel, especially, Jesus’ disciples are all clueless from start to finish, but Jesus wants them with him anyway…!)
- Regardless of whether their ideas and attitudes are the same as the rest of the group … (the community of Jesus’ first disciples included at least one “tax collector” and one “zealot”…)
- Regardless of whether welcoming them brings the rest of the group any profit or popularity… (last week, the letter of James called out an early Christian community for fawning over new people whom they thought would be big givers…)
Welcoming someone without merit on their part. Welcoming someone even if their ideas or politics are different from yours. Welcoming someone even if there’s nothing in it for you. These are the ways you welcome a child. But when the person you’re called to welcome isn’t actually a child, that welcome can be harder to give than it may seem.
And yet, being able to do this at all begins with remembering that being welcomed like a child is how God receives us. For as much as we may like to think that we’ve been good people and helped others and done all kinds of things that we feel God wants us to do, God’s love and acceptance of each one of us aren’t the result of any of that.
Therefore, being ready to actually do what Jesus calls us to do begins with remembering each day that God welcomes us even when:
- We feel unworthy – no matter how great a job you or I do at something, it’s easy to find somebody who we think did a better job, or someone who taught us that we just don’t feel we’ve ever managed to sufficiently imitate; but Jesus makes it clear that God’s love is not a contest, and when we live into that acceptance, it’s much easier to share that kind of love and welcome with others…
- We’re wrong (and think we’re right!) – God doesn’t “cancel” us for having said or done the wrong thing sometime in the past; and God doesn’t reject us for not making sufficient progress in “holiness”; after all, Jesus keeps loving and teaching his disciples even when they’re wrong and behaving badly (and, spoiler alert – they keep this up for the rest of the Gospel!); but because Jesus did that, the whole Gospel of Mark is a reminder that God continues to welcome us – even when we get it wrong – so that we can be empowered to love and welcome others even when we’re convinced that they’re wrong…
- There doesn’t seem to be anything in it for God – sometimes, even in Scripture, people try to bargain with God. There are psalms where the psalmist points out that God should save him because the dust won’t praise God’s faithfulness, and somehow it should be in God’s best interest to help him! But Jesus makes it clear that God’s love – because it’s love – comes without anything being in it for God. And when we really experience that kind of welcome, we become more capable of sharing that welcome with others…
And so being welcomed like a child means that each day, Jesus invites you to be part of his community because of what Jesus has done, not because of what you’ve done. It means Jesus includes you by forgiving you, not because you got the answers right. And it means Jesus accepts you because of his sacrifice for you, not because of your sacrifice for God.
And Jesus calls us to live each day in that welcome, and to try, as best we can, to reflect that welcome in our welcome of others.
Amen.