AND A LITTLE CHILD…
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Text: Mark 9:30-37; James 3:13-18
One of the exciting and challenging realities of life within the Alliance of Baptists is the emergence of young and creative leadership. Because the Alliance is more of a movement than a denomination, there has been an exciting willingness to let younger folk shape the present and the future of the organization. It is strange for me to be one of the older folk at Board meetings now, but it is also very satisfying to work closely with gifted people in their 20s, 30s and 40s.
One very practical consequence of this shift in culture is that we have a number of people on our Board who are new parents. Two of the young mothers came to last week’s meetings with their babies in tow. Contrary to what you might think about babies at board meetings, it brought a lightness and loving spirit to long, sometimes stressful meetings to have little Mara and Carter among us during breaks and meals. Serious old men and women, often too focused on their work and overly invested in its importance, were heard “coochie-cooing” and seen making funny faces at the children. More than one person commented that this was the most pleasant and productive meeting we have had in a long time. It is remarkable and true that when you place a little child in the center of the circle a softening of attitude and an openness to new possibilities is the inevitable result. At some level, Jesus must have understood this when he drew that little child into the center of the circle of his disciples, placed her on his lap and tried to show them in real life what he had been trying to tell them about the realm of God.
He was trying hard to get them to understand the kind of Messiah he was and the inevitable consequences of that role. He was not going to reveal suddenly an army of angels, streaming down from heaven to drive out the Romans and overturn the rule of the religious authorities. He was not going to make them rich and powerful. He was not even going to turn the world right side up through some mighty magic act. In fact, if the world was to be turned right side up at all for them and for all their sisters and brothers, the work was theirs to do. If the reign of God was to be fulfilled it would be on their fragile shoulders – and ours.
In fact, as they walked the dusty road from Caesarea Philippi back into Galilee, he avoided the crowds, eschewed miracles and focused all his attention on trying to bring them into this understanding. The time was not yet right for the whole world to know what the Messiah of God was really like, but it was time for them to know. “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. You see? I am going to be executed, but I will come back again.” Either they couldn’t wrap their minds around it or they didn’t want to hear it. This message did not fit their picture of the Messiah or fulfill their hope of the messianic age. In Mark’s gospel, this is the second time Jesus tries to teach them this truth, but they don’t understand; they remain unseeing and/or resistant to his teaching. They had high hopes, born of what they had seen and heard – healings, exorcisms, feeding large crowds from small bag lunches, the Transfiguration, but they had also failed in their attempts to heal and they had felt the sting of his criticism. They were afraid to speak up, to confront him. They didn’t want to look foolish before him or each other. They didn’t want to face their feelings of failure and their sense of inadequacy.
So, as they traveled along, they engaged themselves in private conversation about who was the greatest among them. Now maybe Peter, James and John were still feeling special for having been with him on the Mount of Transfiguration. Maybe they were all worried about who would take his place or at least lead their band if he was killed. It wasn’t like the threats to his safety – and theirs – were not real. And after all, isn’t it human nature to jockey for position, to want to sit on the right and left hand of glory, to rise to the top of the heap? Aren’t we trained from birth to compete for everything we can get out of life, often at our brother’s expense or our sister’s well-being? In our own cultural setting, don’t we know something of competition, hoarding, privilege, getting ahead, getting what we want, scratching our way to the top? Those early disciples were not so different in their desires, even if they were considerably poorer than we.
But Jesus knew something was up. When they got back to their home base in Capernaum, he challenged them to know what it was they were discussing so intently on the road. Can you hear the silence? Can you remember or imagine what it’s like to be asked about some conversation you had concerning another that you really did not ever intend for him to hear, that you never wanted her to know about? Caught in the trap of their own fears and petty gossip, they were silent. “Uh…well…er…you know…ummm…” Pulling up a stool, Jesus gathered them around. In those days, a rabbi sat when he was getting down to business, when he had something important to say, and the disciples knew they were in for it. “Here’s the way it is,” he said. “I’m going to tell you one more time, whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Can’t you imagine the silence just growing thicker? That’s not what they - or I imagine you or I – want to hear.
What is he saying? What does that mean for them, or for you or me? What sort of leadership model is that? How will the organization ever thrive let alone survive, if that’s the mission statement? What sort of by-laws can we make of that? How will we ever win friends and influence people? How will we ever wield power? How will we ever get ahead, if that’s our motto? “…whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all…” Just more silence in the face of such a message. What can we say to such a paradox from the mouth of the Messiah of God? What sort of Messiah or leader puts himself last and acts as a servant to all?
“Alright,” he says, drawing a dirty little serving girl into the middle of the circle, “let me show you what I mean. This is how it is.” Wrapping his strong arms around her, he looks deep into her sad, dark eyes, telling them all, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” “What?” they think, “a child, a serving girl, a foundling, abandoned by her own parents and taken into the household to help with chores? Children count for no more than their potentiality. They are of little value, except perhaps as the hope of a family’s future, if they happen to survive. How can welcoming such a one having anything to do with our relationship to Jesus and to God?”
Perhaps they were more confused than ever; perhaps at some deep level a dim light of understanding appeared. Perhaps there was a faint memory of Isaiah’s prophecy of the kingdom to come in which “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them”; where “They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:6-9.)
This knowledge leads to wisdom and understanding. It yields a “good life” in which “works are done with gentleness born of wisdom” with childlike grace. It is a life free of “bitter envy and selfish ambition in [our] hearts”. It is “…pure…peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy” and in it “a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.”
Now we all know children aren’t perfect little angels. Even infants in arms cry at inappropriate times, like the middle of the night, when you have a big day at work tomorrow. My flight back from Boston was a pretty uncomfortable one and not because of weather. Sitting behind me was a family that I can only describe as dysfunctional. There was a 6 year old boy just starting the first grade, full of life and energy. He was a little whiny and somewhat demanding. Maybe he was just the sort of very bright but emotionally challenged child that is served by the Synapse Institute here in our building. I’m not certain.
He was traveling with his mother and grandparents. The grandfather was by the window on the opposite side of the plane, reading a book and drinking gin and tonic. The little boy sat between his mother and grandmother. For over 5 hours our whole end of the cabin listened as the mother and little boy battled over one thing or another with the grandmother chiming in. Though I am in no position to make a sophisticated analysis of the situation, I have to say I was appalled by the nasty, angry exchanges that were shouted back and forth. More than anyone, it was the mother who acted out her own negativity on her small son from coast to coast. Occasionally, there was pleasant, animated conversation with the little boy, who obviously was bright and had the capacity to be quite engaging. I worried and prayed for the child who seemed to have so much life but who was at risk to be permanently scarred by adults who did not seem to have a clue about how to handle this child or even be with him.
When Jesus placed that little child in the center of the circle – whether the child was abandoned because her parents couldn’t care for her, whether she was from the bottom of the socio-economic scale and little more than property, whether he was neglected and abused or loved and cherished in his vulnerability, Jesus was saying to his disciples, and to us, that unless we greet such a little one as we would greet him, Jesus, our Messiah, our Savior, the very Son of God, we would never really meet God or know God’s realm.
That is a hard lesson. It challenges all our social expectations of power and privilege. It is that old, old message that how we treat the least of these will determine how we in turn will be treated. When Jesus drew that child into the center of the circle and wrapped his arms around her, it was not a sentimental gesture. Surely he could see in her the same possibility of enlivening wonder that we experienced with Mara and Carter last week. Sure he knew the power of children to call us out of our workday bondage to play and wonder and wander. He could see the capacity of that child to imagine a better life and a better world, to pick wild flowers and run through open fields, to build castles and explore new space, to let go ponderous expectations and living lies about how God’s world is organized, how creation is put together. He knew the child’s ability to bring hope and joy, liberation and love, even as he faced his own impending death. Unless we find the way to embrace the loveliest child of the greatest need, we will never know God or God’s reign.
God’s realm is just over there beyond the principalities and powers, beyond the daily grind and the social climb, beyond accumulated wealth and conventional security. Can’t you see? It’s just over there - and a little child shall lead us.