ALL THE LITTLE CHILDREN
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Text: Mark 10:13-16
When I was a child in Chula Vista, the most popular songs in Sunday School were “Jesus Loves Me” and “Jesus Loves the Little Children”. I can’t imagine that the writers of these two little songs were not familiar with today’s text. In fact, these ancient words of Jesus may have been the very source of inspiration for their hymns of Jesus’ love of children.
“Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” It’s right there in the passage Melanie read this morning from Mark’s gospel. I suppose in our maturity and theological sophistication, those words and their simple tune don’t appeal much to us anymore, except to evoke some fond – or perhaps troubling – memory of childhood and Sunday School long, long ago.
Dan Damon, contemporary hymn writer and graduate of Pacific School of Religion, says he wrote, “Strong, Gentle Children,” today’s song of reflection, because he objected to the way in which “Jesus Loves Me” dwells on the inadequacy of children: “Little ones to him belong. They are weak, but he is strong.” I don’t imagine that the older hymn writer intended to demean children. In fact, she wrote these words for a dying boy. She surely meant to say that there is much of value to be found in loving Jesus and living in his watchful care.
The power and significance of a song is often changed by its context. Yesterday, at Relda Poffenroth’s service, Betsy led us in a stirring rendition of “I’ve Got Peace like a River.” It may not be one of the great hymns of the church, but I was moved by singing it in that context as we remembered Relda and honored her with this song she had chosen as one of her favorites. There was also something very touching when our children sang the same song during our Homecoming worship, adding their voices in meaningful contribution to that service. From an occasion long ago, I will never forget singing “Jesus Loves Me” for the first time with a room full of gay men, lesbians and friends at a service of the Metropolitan Community Church in San Francisco. The question of one’s weakness aside, the blessed assurance that “Jesus loves me” washed over that group as an affirmation of grace and an act of healing. Who would have thought that a simple, old-fashioned children’s song could do a thing like that?
We rarely sing “Jesus Loves Me” anymore, but maybe we should reconsider that in light of today’s text. When Jesus says, “Let the little children come to me… for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs,” his words are spoken in deep love and true affection. When he takes those children in his arms, lays his hands on them and blesses them, he is demonstrating powerfully his love for them.
Now the disciples are having a hard time here; they have been struggling in most of the passages from Mark’s gospel that we have considered recently. Remember a couple of weeks ago they were struggling because of their inability to cast a demon from a boy; and last week they were sitting in judgment of someone casting out demons who was outside their little circle. Now they look at these mothers who have brought their little children to Jesus for a blessing and they try to shoo them away. “Don’t you see that Jesus is about serious business here? He doesn’t have time for such foolishness. Go away! Don’t bother him.” Remember that part of the disciples’ struggle was to figure out how they fit into Jesus’ plan. They wanted to make sure they had a role, and preferably a good one, in this coming kingdom. They wanted the Messiah to recognize them and honor them and assure them a place of privilege. Since they had failed in their own efforts at exorcism, they decided they would become gatekeepers. They would be the ones who decided who could or could not heal in Jesus’ name. They would determine who could or could not come to Jesus for a blessing.
Well, God help us if we ever fall into that trap, if we ever feel like our job as Christians, as church members, is to decide who is in and who is out, who is favored and who is lost, who is blessed and who is cursed. Last week Jesus was frustrated with the disciples’ denseness and inability to discern what he was trying to teach them. Today he is downright indignant. “Who appointed you the guardians of my presence and dispensers of my blessing! Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” That must have been hard for them to hear, especially with his eyes flashing while his arms reached out to draw those little ones in.
What is he saying to them and to us? Unless we can let go of some the accretions of years of trying to live up to unreal expectations and to control circumstances beyond our control, we will never find God’s realm. Unless we can approach life with the wonder and delight, the trust and love of a child, we will never fully know God’s grace. In today’s words of preparation, Maggie Ross writes, “I know the only way to cope with growing up is to become a little child, to choose to evolve with all our complexity toward simplicity; to accept and trust as a little child trusts, only now with the second innocence born of sin and pride transfigured that is more precious than the first, that enables us to walk into dark corridors knowing we will be clobbered, but walking in anyway; to love whole-heartedly with wonder and astonishment and delight; to not be afraid of a child’s self-forgetful absorption in life, approached uncritically and with suspended judgment, so that we may learn true critical discernment” (Maggie Ross, The Fire of Your Life: A Solitude Shared.)
In Jesus’ time, the children in our story would have been young. Adulthood began around 12 and few lived beyond their mid 30s. These people were poor and of little value by the world’s standards. (We know there are people living in this world today with similar prospects!) For a mother to ask a blessing for her child was an act of courage and an act of hope. She wanted something in the lives of her children to be different, better, fulfilling. Here Jesus does not disappoint. His embrace and his blessing provide the very model of radical hospitality to which we are called. Reach out to embrace the least of these, to draw them into your circle, to make room at the table, to offer a blessing in Jesus’ name.
That other song I mentioned in the beginning has also apparently fallen out of favor. It is seen in some circles as politically incorrect. I’m not altogether sure why, though it may sound patronizing to some ears. Still, there is truth in acknowledging that “Jesus loves the little children, all the little children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in his sight.” In this month when our special offering is for the world mission of the American Baptist Churches, on this Sunday when we celebrate worldwide communion with sisters and brothers all around the globe, in a time when one child living in poverty is too many, when any hungry child, any sick child, any abused child, any neglected child, any lost child, any child who is bombed or shot at is a child of God, let us remember that Jesus, our way, our truth, our life, loves these children, in fact, loves all the little children of the world. He says that “to such the realm of God belongs” and unless we figure out how to embrace that realm by embracing all these little children, we’re not going to get there.
Let’s close with a prayer from the pen of Miguel de Unamuno:
Enlarge the door, Father,
Because I cannot pass;
You made it for children,
And I have grown heavy.If you do not enlarge the door for me
Make me smaller for pity’s sake,
Return me to the blessed time
When to live is to dream.
Indeed, may we live to dream and may those dreams come true for you and me and all the little children. Amen.