Let the Children Come

September 23, 2018 Mark 9:30-37 Let the Children Come 18th Sunday after Pentecost Year B Children’s Time And he sat down and called the twelve, and he said to them, "If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all." (v. 35) Object: A human pyramid. Good morning, boys and girls. How many of you like to be first? (Let them answer.) Almost all of us like to be first. I remember when Jesus was walking down the road and listening to his disciples talking about which one was first with him. They all wanted to be the most important person that Jesus had among his followers. Jesus didn't say anything while they were talking, but he listened to them as they each told why they thought that they were the most important person to Jesus. Each one thought that he was first with Jesus. I need someone to be first. Do I have a volunteer who would like to be first for a little experiment that I am going to do this morning? (Take the largest child who volunteers to be the first one and then each child after that so that you can build a human pyramid. Hold their hands so that they do not fall or hurt one another.) Isn't this fun? I wonder how the person who wanted to be first feels now. The first one is on the bottom and is helping to hold every one else up. He is not only the first, but also the hardest worker in the group. He is helping to serve everyone else by being first. That is the thing that Jesus told his disciples when they finished their walk. He asked all of them who wanted to be first to remember that being first with him meant that they had to be willing to serve everyone else. The person on the bottom of our pile wanted to be first, so he got the chance to hold up the whole group. Being a leader is fun, but it also has tremendous responsibility. You have to help others to be a leader. Jesus needs leaders, but he needs leaders who want to work and do things for others. That is the way it is to be with Jesus. The disciples thought about that for a long time. Most people want to be first because they like the other people who are already leaders. Most people forget that it took a lot of work to become a leader. If you want to be first, or be a leader, then you must also be ready to serve or help others. How many of you want to be first now? How many of you would rather be a follower than a leader? That is your decision, but whatever way you want to be with Jesus, he wants you to know that he loves you just as much as he loves the other. Amen. Mark 7:30-37 Jesus predicts his death 30 From there Jesus and his followers went through Galilee, but he didn’t want anyone to know it. 31 This was because he was teaching his disciples, “The Human One[a] will be delivered into human hands. They will kill him. Three days after he is killed he will rise up.” 32 But they didn’t understand this kind of talk, and they were afraid to ask him. 33 They entered Capernaum. When they had come into a house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about during the journey?” 34 They didn’t respond, since on the way they had been debating with each other about who was the greatest. 35 He sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be least of all and the servant of all.” 36 Jesus reached for a little child, placed him among the Twelve, and embraced him. Then he said, 37 “Whoever welcomes one of these children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me isn’t actually welcoming me but rather the one who sent me.” Footnotes: a. Mark 9:31 Or Son of Man Common English Bible (CEB) Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible I can’t remember if I told this story before in this congregation, but there is a village in Africa, when they greet one another instead of saying hello, how are you- they say so how are the children. Children are dependent on their parents in order to be taken care of. So if the children are okay, then the rest of the society is okay. If the children are happy, then the rest of the community is happy. Children are an important part of our world, our community, our church. Once again, the way that we treat our children, determines the wellbeing of our church. The wellbeing of our souls. Jesus loves the little children. And our scripture for today is just one scripture where Jesus uses children to prove a point to the disciples. The most popular picture of Jesus is Always Jesus with a bunch of children on his lap. A member gave me this figurine. I treasure it because it had been a part of her family. In this scripture, in teaching a lesson. Jesus grabs the children and says that if we want to be great in the kingdom of heaven, then we must welcome the children. Actually Jesus grabs the children again in chapter 10. Jesus says let the children come, and whomever welcomes a child in their midst welcomes me. Children have not always been a treasured part of our society. As a matter of fact, thinking of children is a relatively recent development. In Jesus’ time children were considered lower than slaves. They were nonpersons that were tolerated. Even in the early church priest taught that if your house was burning, you would save your dad first, then your mother, then your wife, and if you had time then you saved the children. But if they were lost, you didn’t worry about it. So it was pretty controversial for jesus to tell us to welcome the children. When we welcome children, we welcome God. Author and business consultant Ken Blanchard tells the wonderful story of a little girl named Schia. Maybe you remember that beautiful story. When Schia was 4 years old, her baby brother was born. Says Blanchard, “Little Schia began to ask her parents to leave her alone with the new baby. They worried that, like most 4-year-olds, she might want to hit or shake him, so they said no. “Over time, though, since Schia wasn’t showing signs of jealousy, they changed their minds and decided to let Schia have her private conference with the baby. “Elated, Schia went into the baby’s room and shut the door, but it opened a crack--enough for her curious parents to peek in and listen. They saw little Schia walk quietly up to her baby brother, put her face close to his, and say, ‘Baby, tell me what God feels like. I’m starting to forget.’” (8) This lesson about the children is actually the end of a very important lesson in Mark 9. Jesus explains to the disciples that he is going to die and be resurrected. They have no idea of what he is saying to them. They never get what is going on. As a matter of fact, instead of listening to Jesus, like children they start to argue amongst themselves. Jesus asks them why they were arguing. And like children that know when they are wrong – instead of answering, they get quiet and say nothing. If Jesus were amongst us today – and asks our church what we were arguing about – he would get a mouthful – we argue about the same things, who belongs, who is right who is wrong, who needs to be corrected, who is most like us, which one of us is greatest and deserve to it next to Jesus. We are still fighting to see who is going to be first in line. Sometime back, there was a story that came out of the Special Olympics. It seems that a contestant tripped and fell while running a race. Instead of just charging down the track oblivious to another competitor's distress, the other contestants stopped, went back, picked up their fallen comrade, then all ran together to the finish. First. Last. Who cared? Everyone made it across. That was all that mattered. We can learn a lot from our children about our faith and how we should treat others. Jesus uses the children to teach a valuable lesson to all Christians about greatness, leadership about being a good Christian. He turns the tables on what it means to be #1. I think that many of us can relate to this last story. The Way Up Is Down! - Mark 9:30-37 There once was a palace servant who longed for more than anything else in life to be a knight. He yearned to represent his king and vowed within himself that if he ever had a chance to be a knight he would serve his king as the noblest knight who ever lived. His dream came true. His great day came. At his knighthood ceremony, the former servant, now a knight, made a special oath within himself. He vowed that from that day forward he would bow his knees and lift his arms in homage to no one but his king. As a knight, he was assigned to guard a remote city on the edge of the kingdom. On the day he took up his duties standing at attention in full armor at the city gate, an elderly peasant woman passed by on her way to the market. In a rickety cart, she carried some vegetables she had grown and hoped to sell. As she passed the knight, her rickety old vegetable cart hit a bump on the road and turned over. Potatoes, onions, carrots, and peas spilled everywhere. The peasant woman scurried to get them all back in her cart to no avail. She looked toward the knight in hopes he would help her but already he had forgotten what it was to be a servant. The knight stood there, unmoved, holding his pose. He would not bend to help her. He just stood at attention keeping his vow to never again bow his knees or lift his arms in homage to anyone but his king. Years passed, and one day an elderly one-legged man hobbled by on his old crutch. Directly in front of the knight, the old man's crutch finally gave out and broke in two. "Sir knight," the old one-legged man begged, "please reach down and help me to get up again." The knight, unmoved by the old man's predicament, made no response. He held his pose proudly and remembered he had vowed that he would neither stoop nor lift a hand to help anyone but his king. Decades passed, and the knight grew older. One day his granddaughter came by and said, "Papa, pick me up and take me to the fair." But, even for his own granddaughter the knight would not stoop, for within himself he had made a vow to bow only to his king. Finally, the day came for the king to come. This was the day for which the knight had longed since the day of his knighthood. As the king approached to inspect him, the knight stood proudly and stiffly at attention. As he did, the king noticed a tear rolling down the proud knight's cheek. "You are one of my noblest knights," said the king, "why are you crying?" "Your majesty," the knight replied, "I took a vow that I would bow and lift my arms in homage to you alone, but now that you are here I am an old man unable to keep my vow any more. The years of standing here stiffly at attention, waiting for you to come, have taken their toll. The joints of my armor are rusted and I can no longer lift my arms or bend my knees." The wise king replied, "Perhaps if you had knelt to help all those people who passed by you, and lifted your arms to reach out to all the people who asked for your help, you would have been able to keep your vow to pay me homage today." Jesus Christ says, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all" (v. 35)… In other words we have to use it or lose it – our faith, not our knees. The more we are able to exercise our faith, the easier it becomes. The children are our future, they are also amongst us as the present. Let the children come. Other illustrations..... I like what Robert Fulgrum, a Minister Emeritus in Edmonds, Washington, said: "Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain but there in the sand box at nursery school. Think of what a better world it would be if the whole world had cookies and milk around three o'clock every afternoon and then laid down with our blankets for a nap or if we had a basic policy for our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and clean up our own messes. It is still true no matter how old you are when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together." (4) That's good! That's really good! I don't want to get too nostalgic with regard to this point. I've always loved the story about the grandmother who got a note from her son and daughter-in-law that her grandchildren would be coming to spend a week with her. She loved her precious little granddaughter and lively little grandson, and when she thought about the pleasures that awaited her with them in her home, she went to church and put five dollars in the offering plate as a token of thanksgiving. She kept her grandaughter and grandson for that week and what a week it was. When they went home, she went back to church and put in a twenty dollar bill in the offering plate in thanksgiving. We're aware of that side of it, but what would we do without children; children to teach in Sunday School, and children to run through the halls on the way to worship. As we seek to minister to them, we grow. They keep us in touch with what really matters in life. When we think that life is a matter of accumulation, domination and accommodation the sound of a baby's cry can bring us back to earth. Jesus is trying to teach the disciples an object lesson about greatness, about servanthood, about leadership. What would we do without children--children to teach in Sunday school, and children to run through the halls on the way to worship? As we minister to them, we grow. They keep us in touch with what really matters. When we think that life is a matter of accumulation, domination and accommodation, the sound of a baby’s cry can bring us back to earth. A child’s laughter can brighten our entire world. A child’s love can give us something to live for, and a child’s faith can help keep a parent on the right track. “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me,” says Christ. “And whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.” Amen. Today’s lesson reminds us that children are great teachers. An anonymous author has made a list of some things you don’t know until you have kids. For example, without kids you wouldn’t know: Who John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt is. You wouldn’t know how to change a diaper in the dark, in a parked car, on a standing child, and all of the above simultaneously . . . You wouldn’t know which lines of “The Cat in the Hat” and “If I Ran the Circus” can be skipped over without a child noticing. Or the locations of public restrooms all across town. Or, how little sleep a human body truly needs to function. You wouldn’t know almost every Disney lyric ever penned. Or why they call them Happy Meals. Or the blessedness of naps. And finally, without children you wouldn’t know how much you can love one human being. (3) Business writer Ann Crittenden tells about a friend who found a three and a half year old boy sitting and staring at a little box containing wooden figures around a table, depict¬ing the Last Supper. She asked him what he was thinking. The three and a half year old looked up and said, “You know, if Jesus could give a friend a party, he’d invite the whole world.” (7) Dick Gregory, a very controversial figure, a black comedian and activist, once told about taking his oldest son to Mexico to a place where there is no electricity. He said they lived in a hut. He was in the hut one night when his son ran in and said, "Dad, Dad come here. I'm scared. I want to show you something." Dick Gregory says he went out and his son showed him the stars. It suddenly dawned on Dick Gregory that having been born and raised in Chicago the boy had never seen a sky full of stars. All of the lights and all of the buildings simply blotted out the wonder of the nighttime sky. Dick Gregory said he laid on his back with a straw in his mouth and together they looked at the Big Dipper and the Milky Way. They saw some shooting stars even. He said, "I cried that night; not for him, he had never seen that many stars, but for me." He said "I grew up looking at the stars and got so hooked into the vicious cycle (of living) I never remembered the day they left. I got so hooked into this chase that I never missed the stars." (3) That is gospel, my friend. What matters is that we all make it across, even the least among us. That was Jesus' message that day in Capernaum. That is Jesus' message today. And remember, "Whoever welcomes one such...in my name welcomes me..."