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Century Christian
Church 1301 Tamarack Road, Owensboro, KY 42301, (270) 684-0286, Pastor: Rev. Jim Westmoreland |
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How Do We Welcome The Children? A man taught a children's S.S. class. He asked, "If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into Heaven?" "NO!" the children all answered. He continued, "If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the yard, and kept everything neat and tidy, would that get me into Heaven?" Again, the answer was, "NO!" "Well, then, if I was kind to animals and gave candy to all the children and loved my wife, would that get me into Heaven?" he asked them again. Again, they all answered, "NO!" "Well," he continued, "then how can I get into Heaven?" …You've got to be dead! Children sometimes surprise us with their honesty and bluntness. Without children in our midst and among our priorities we can become busy doing the wrong things, having the wrong attitudes, becoming too concerned with words like "proper," "comfortable" or "respectable." Children don't intend to be disrespectful or to show an improper amount of deference to us. They just have a refreshing honesty that is based on how they perceive our sincerity, our interest in them and in our willingness to be with them. How do we welcome the children? Jesus lets us know that it matters. There is a kingdom principle involved. Today, Jesus tries to help us understand this kingdom principle. In Mark 9:30-37, Jesus and his disciples are on the road again. In Mark 8-10 Mark presents Jesus as traveling quite a bit, leading up to Jesus setting his eyes on going to Jerusalem (11:1). In the first part of Mark 9, Jesus healed the boy with the mute spirit that his disciples were unable to heal (9:14-29), and Jesus and the disciples continue traveling through Galilee. Mark 8-10 seems to focus many of its texts on appropriate models of discipleship. In our reading today, we see Jesus predicting the events of his passion (9:31) to disciples who do not understand (9:32), and then Jesus teaches about the paradox of true discipleship and service (9:33-37). These common themes of Mark's gospel reiterate that knowing who Jesus is and how to follow him comes only from God. Mark presents the disciples as being confused about who Jesus was and what His purpose was. They would remain confused until after His death and resurrection. They want the kingdom of God to be blessings, power and prestige. That is what the Messiah would bring. That is what they had been taught. That is what the popular expectation was. Jesus is aware that his disciples have adult-sized egos, exceeded only by their total misunderstanding of who He was, His style of leadership and their blindness to Jesus' own example and basis for leadership. After so much time being with Jesus, He hears them arguing on the way to Capernaum about who will be the greatest in the kingdom. He had just been opening His heart to them, explaining that He would be betrayed and killed and, after three days, He would rise again. Don't you think you would want to know more about what He had just shared? Don't you think that you would be upset about Jesus being betrayed and killed. And Jesus asked them, "What were you arguing about while we were coming to Capernaum?" Mark tells us that they were silent because they had been arguing about who was the greatest. Isn't that how we often think? We were told to set goals. Aim high, work hard, reach for the stars. Sounds like a high school commencement address doesn't it. But, when it comes to Kingdom values, Jesus has some different things to teach us. He asks us to sit with Him and the disciples, and He says to us, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." I do not hear Jesus being anti-achievement in His teaching. I don't hear Him telling us not to do our best. In other parables He praised the resourceful servants to doubled what they had been entrusted with by the master. No, there is no excuse for not using our talents and abilities. He expects us to grow as persons. Wise stewardship of talents and financial resources means we give to God, and it means that we use and grow what we have received. What does it mean to be last, to be a servant of all? Jesus answers our questions as He took a little child in His arms and said, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me." In whatever time period we live there are those who are perceived as weak, unimportant, a drain on society, a nuisance or not worth listening to or giving my time. In Jesus' day women and children were in that category. Children were essentially non-persons. They were left with the women, who themselves were considered subservient to the men, but children were even further down the social ladder. Only slaves were lower in social standing than children. And as if to reinforce the insignificance of children, Mark doesn't even identify the gender of the child. The Greek word he uses is paidion, which like the English word "child" into which it is translated, is neuter. Thus in the NRSV, the account says that Jesus "took a little child and put it among them". You can't get much more impersonal than "it." (1) And, we have to decide, How Do We Welcome The Children? To say that the followers of Jesus could welcome him by welcoming a child was a mind-blowing suggestion. But Jesus wanted them to understand how God viewed greatness. It came not from being high on society's status ladder, but by welcoming those on the bottom rungs or those who don't have a place on the ladder at all. Children are to be welcomed by us who follow Christ, but "children" are also a symbol for all who are beneath our social standing, status, etc. To be a Christian and not to welcome the children and whoever society says is beneath us is not Christian. It is a contradiction. Following Jesus means experiencing the tension between kingdom values and the world's values. "Greatness" is a word based on measurement. The Greek word translated "greatest" in the text means "more." In our usual way of thinking, a person can be designated great only if he or she excels in some way beyond others, is more than others. For us to be called great would mean that there are others who do not measure up to our status or achievement, and who are therefore less than we are. Jesus was not taking issue with the idea of measurement to determine greatness; he was simply saying that the disciples were measuring in the wrong direction. True greatness is not about how far we rise above others in status or fame or achievement, but in how far we are willing to go in including and caring for the least and the lowly in his name. Far from calling for a leveling of all persons, Jesus was urging his followers to stand tall in their recognition of every person -- even the most decrepit among us -- as someone for whom he came. Thus, in welcoming such a one, they and we welcome Jesus. And in welcoming Jesus, we welcome God. Jesus ties the word "greatness" to the word "welcome." Welcoming is an aspect of hospitality, the cordial and generous reception of others as guests. It's one thing to try to help others from a distance, to throw them our leftovers or hand-me-downs. But it is quite another to give them the kinds of things we enjoy.(2) A 10-year-old boy had an opportunity to learn this recently. He came home one day from school saying that his class was collecting canned goods to give to the needy, and he wanted to know if he could take some cans from the family's pantry. His mother told him to help himself, so he started setting out cans of beets, succotash and spinach, and even a can of hominy someone had given the family -- all things that he didn't like. When his mother went over and added SpaghettiOs to the pile, however, he objected. He liked SpaghettiOs and didn't want to part with those. His mother patiently explained to him something about what it means to be hospitable -- accepting that the needs of others are as important as our own needs and offering others what we ourselves value. A group of European theologians once visited Mother Teresa in Calcutta. She said to them, "You try to do what I am doing, then you will be able to enjoy what I am doing." She took them to one of her childcare centers and picked up a child who was playing in the mud and gave the child a kiss. She waited for her guests to do the same. None of them did.(3) What if our church needed a willing and caring adult to help out in a children's Sunday School class, or to give one's time to help in the church nursery for one Sunday or to help in Children's Worship by being an assistant one Sunday, How would we welcome the children? It is not enough to know about mission needs in our community or around the world. When we look at our time, how much is spent as "servant" time? If we believe that God cares and has time for children and others who are politically and economically weak in our community, we hear Jesus also say, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me . . . and the One who sent me." Amen. Century Christian Church, September 24, 2006 - Sermon by Jim Westmoreland 1. Homiletics, Vol 18, No. 5, Sep-Oct, 2006, p. 32. 2. Ibid. 3. King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com |
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