"Whoever Welcomes this Child of God" (reflection)

Anglican Parish of Kingston
Sunday September 22, 2024
Scripture:  Mark 9:30-37

This Sunday I did a pulpit exchange with an Anglican colleague, and so this sermon was preached in his church, while he preached and led worship at Two Rivers Pastoral Charge.

Jesus welcoming the little children is possibly the most common image for Christian art, appearing in stained glass windows, in paintings, in illustrated bibles, in sculptures.

 

Stained glass: Alfred Handel, d. 1946[1], photo: Toby Hudson, CC BY-SA 3.0

Used with Permission.

 

When you think about the image of Jesus welcoming the little children, what sort of feelings does it evoke in you?  Feelings of nostalgia?  Feelings of comfort?  Feelings of coziness?  Feelings of peace?  I suspect that the image of Jesus welcoming little children is a popular one because it is one that makes us feel good.

 

But I also think that we might be doing this story a disservice if this is the only layer of meaning that we give to it.  It’s challenging, because we are living 2000 years after Jesus and we are living on the opposite side of the world from Jesus. We have lost some of the nuances that this lesson would have held for Jesus’s original listeners – nuances that were so linked to their culture that they wouldn’t have had to think twice about it.

 

In the time and place where Jesus lived, children were understood very differently than in our time and place.  In our culture, children are precious, they are valued members of their family as well as wider society, they are respected, they are protected, they are loved.  In our culture, childhood is a phenomenon that is studied, that is cherished.  We have professionals from all different fields dedicated to serving children – from doctors to authors to musicians to counsellors to ministers.

 

In Jesus’s world, children were also valued, but not necessarily for their own sake.  In Jesus’s world, children were valued because of their potential.  It was only when they reached the age of 11 or 12 that children became fully functional adults – until they reached that age, children were considered to be potential humans rather than fully humans.  In a very hierarchical society, children were on the very lowest rung, having a status even lower than slaves; though with the potential to have a higher status once they reached adulthood.  It was a very different understanding of children than we have today.

 

And with this understanding of children, the story of Jesus welcoming a little child takes on a much different meaning.  Jesus reaches out and takes this not-quite-human-yet, and places them in the centre of a crowd of adults.  Jesus says to his listeners, “Whoever welcomes this not-quite-human-yet in my name, welcomes me.”  Jesus is identifying himself with a person who is on the very furthest margins of society.

 

There are some pretty serious implications of this.  In effect, Jesus is saying to his listeners, “Unless you are able to welcome this person on the lowest rung of society, you aren’t able to welcome me.”

 

Something that I like to do, when I encounter a story in the bible where the culture of Jesus’s time and place is so very different than our time and place is to wonder how Jesus might teach the same lesson were he here today.  We live in a time and place where children are still vulnerable – they have less power than grownups, but there are laws in place to protect them, and there is even a United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child.  Children are still vulnerable, but they don’t occupy that very bottom rung on the social ladder; they aren’t on the very fringes of society.

 

So how might Jesus teach this same lesson, were he to be sitting here in front of us today?

 

Would Jesus take a homeless drug addict, embrace them, and say: “Whoever welcomes one such child of God in my name welcomes me.”

 

Would Jesus take a transgender teenager who is unsafe at home and unsafe in school, embrace them, and say:  “Whoever welcomes one such child of God in my name welcomes me.”

 

Would Jesus take a recently released prisoner – someone who had committed horrific crimes, but who had served their time – embrace them, and say:  “Whoever welcomes one such child of God in my name welcomes me.”

 

Would Jesus walk down Water Street in the Pride Parade, embrace the marchers, and say, “Whoever welcomes one such child of God in my name welcomes me.”

 

Would Jesus take a person with a disability, struggling to pay their rent out of their too-low disability payments, embrace them, and say, “Whoever welcomes one such child of God in my name welcomes me.”

 

Like I said, there are some pretty serious implications to what Jesus is telling his listeners, if we can go beyond our nostalgic association with the image of Jesus welcoming the little children, and dig into how his original audience would hear what he is saying.

 

Because it is a very radical message that he has for them.  God’s love isn’t just for the people who are in positions of power in this world.  God’s love is for all people, and maybe especially for people who have been pushed to the margins of the power structures of society.

 

In the gospels, we see Jesus hanging out with people that his society wouldn’t expect him to be hanging out with – women (who shouldn’t be found in the presence of a man they aren’t related to), people with illnesses that made them ritually unclean, the dreaded tax collector who earned his livelihood by extorting as much money as possible out of the taxpayers.  And now we see Jesus embracing a not-quite-yet-human in the form of a child.

 

And so I’d like to encourage you to consider, not only who Jesus might be embracing were he teaching us the same message today, but also how we, as the church, are called to this radical welcome that Jesus calls us to.  As the church, not only are we called to welcome those on the margins of society as a way of welcoming Jesus, but we are also the Body of Christ.  We are the literal hands and feet of Christ in our world, called to welcome and embrace anyone who might be marginalized by the world, just as Jesus welcomed and embraced a child.

 

And may the Holy Spirit give us the courage so to do.  Amen.

"Who is Jesus to You?" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday September 15, 2024
Scripture:  Mark 8:27-38


The bible story that ______ just read for us comes at a big pivot point in the story of Jesus’s life.  Up until this point, he has been travelling and teaching and healing in the north country, around the Sea of Galilee.  Right after this conversation with his disciples, Jesus is going to climb up a mountain with the three disciples that seem to make up his inner circle and we’ll get the story of the Transfiguration when those disciples see a bit of the awe-inspiring glory of God in Jesus.  And when they come down from the mountain, their path will turn south and they will begin their journey to Jerusalem where the events of the last week of Jesus’s life will unfold.

 

So we’re at a pivot point here, and it’s almost like Jesus is giving his disciples a mid-term exam.  OK – we’re finished the Galilee portion of our ministry – let’s see how much you’ve learned.  First of all, what’s the word on the street – what are people saying about me – who do people say that I am?

 

His disciples, who surely have been keeping their ears open as they’ve been travelling around, let Jesus know what they’ve heard.  Some people are saying that he is John the Baptist. That is a logical answer, even though it’s not quite logical since John the Baptist was executed by King Herod not too long ago.  But if we were to flip back a couple of chapters we would see this rumour reported elsewhere – when Jesus first caught the attention of King Herod, it was because some people were saying that he was John, raised from the dead.  And after all, both John and Jesus tended to stir up controversy and provoked people in power with their ministry.

 

Other people are saying that Jesus is Elijah, one of the ancient prophets. After all, Elijah never died, but was carried away to be with God, so maybe now is the time that he has returned.  Elijah had similar powers to Jesus, the ability to multiply food and cooking oil, and to control the natural elements.

 

And still others say that Jesus is one of the prophets in his own right.  He must be part of the lineage of prophets who point people back to God and to God’s vision for the world.

 

OK, so that’s what people are saying about Jesus.  But then he asks them the second question on their midterm exam – “Who do you say that I am?”

 

A couple of times this week, I’ve invited you to consider this question – in my Mid-Week Message, and again on Facebook in my Theology Thursday post.  If Jesus was standing right in front of you asking you this question, how would you answer it?  Who do you say that Jesus is?

 

And at this point, I’m going to step away from my prepared sermon and throw the question out there.  Who do you say that Jesus is?  As we talked about in the Story for All Ages, there are lots of different names and titles that we can give to Jesus, and the more that we can come up with, the more complete picture we can paint of who Jesus is to us.  So I invite you to answer Jesus’s question – who do you say that he is?  (And if you need some ideas to get you started, you can turn to the poem on the back of the bulletin.)

 

(Congregation Participation Time! Invite people to share, and explore the answers that they give.)

 

When it comes to talking about God, we are limited by human language.  We have these different names or titles or descriptions of Jesus, and each one can capture part of who he is, but none of them captures the fullness or completeness of who he is.  It is only by holding them up together that we can start to paint a picture of who Jesus truly is.

 

I mentioned to our Bible Study group on Wednesday that today and the last Sunday in November almost act like bookends to the fall season in the lectionary cycle of readings that we follow.  The last Sunday in November will be the last Sunday before the season of Advent begins, and on that week we celebrate Reign of Christ Sunday, sometimes known as Christ the King Sunday.  On that Sunday, we’re going to be reading part of the Good Friday story, when Jesus is standing before Pilate who represents the power of the Roman Empire. When we read that story on Christ the King Sunday, we are being asked which of these kings we are going to put our ultimate trust in.  Are we going to follow the king of Empire, who holds all worldly powers, or are we going to follow the servant king who embraces the power of silence and humility?

 

And today, at the start of our journey to Jerusalem and to the court of Pilate, we are asked to begin to consider who it is that we are following to Jerusalem.  Who do we say that Jesus is?  My inner bible geek is intrigued to notice the location of this conversation – Jesus and his disciples are talking at Caesarea Philippi, to the north of Galilee – a place named after two kings, the Caesar or Emperor in Rome, and Phillip, the father of King Herod.  It’s almost as if he is saying to us, “Pay attention – not too long from now you’re going to be looking at two kings, and you’re going to have to choose between us.  Who do you say that I am?”

 

Is Jesus enough, that when you reach the end of the line in Pilate’s castle, you’re going to cast your lot with him?

 

Like I said at the beginning, this was the disciples’ mid-term exam. As they leave one chapter of their ministry to begin another, Jesus tests them on what they have learned about Jesus.  Peter replies, “You are the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One.”  He passes this part of the exam, but he still has more to learn.  When Jesus presses him about what all this implies, Peter objects.  He still has much to learn from the events of Holy Week that are going to unfold for them next.  He’s not quite ready for the final exam.

 

But all of that is yet to come for them.

 

At this point in your journey of discipleship, who do you say that Jesus is?

 

 

(The back of this week’s bulletin)

"Turning Towards Love" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday September 8, 2024
Scripture Reading:  Mark 7:24-37

This week was our annual church picnic (even though the weather pushed our worship and potluck lunch inside). The service also included a baptism and communion.


Our scripture reading this week was actually two stories back-to-back.  The second story is the story of Jesus giving hearing and speech to a man who was deaf. We have lots of healing stories if you read through the gospels, so I’m going to save this story for a different day.  Instead, today I want to dig into the first story from the passage because, at least to me, it is a much more challenging story.

 

To me, the most challenging part of this story is how Jesus responds to his visitor.  She is a Syrophoenician woman – a foreign woman – a woman from outside of the faith that Jesus lived in.  She came to Jesus looking for healing for her daughter, and Jesus’s response was to say:  “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

 

On the surface, this should probably be the expected response.  Men from the time and place where Jesus lived weren’t expected to have anything to do with women.  And then add the complication of the fact that she was a foreigner – she wasn’t Jewish – and Jesus, as a Jewish man of his time and place definitely shouldn’t have had anything to do with her.

 

But I expect more from Jesus.  Because I believe that Jesus is the embodiment of God – literally God in the form of flesh and blood – I expect more from Jesus.

 

He could have just said no, but instead he insults his visitor by implying that she is a dog, and this wasn’t meant as a compliment – in contemporary English, he would be calling her by a fairly rude name that begins with B.

 

I’m also troubled by the fact that his initial response implies that there is some sort of scarcity around love and grace and healing – that if her were to heal the foreign woman’s daughter, that there would be less healing available for his own people.

 

Like I said, I find this to be one of the most challenging stories in the gospels.

 

But to me, what redeems this story is the ending.  The unnamed Syrophoenician woman doesn’t accept Jesus’s first answer.  She doesn’t just go away, go back to her sick daughter.  Instead, she argues back.

 

If Jesus’s initial response was the expected response for his time and place, her reaction is completely unexpected.  For a foreign woman to argue back with a man in that time and place is completely counter-cultural.

 

But she does.  She tells Jesus:  “Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”  She gives Jesus a message of abundance – even when it seems like everything is gone, there is still more than enough to go around.

 

And with her response, Jesus changes his answer to her.  He doesn’t stubbornly insist on his first answer.  He doesn’t insist that only he can be right.  Instead, he hears her voice, he acknowledges that he was wrong, and he heals the woman’s daughter.

 

It’s still not a perfect story to me.  I would still have preferred it if Jesus had healed her daughter on the first request.  But maybe Jesus can teach us something new with this story.  Maybe Jesus is modeling for us what repentance can look like.

 

Repentance is more than just saying that we are sorry, and it’s more than just feeling sorry for what we have done.  Repentance is changing our path, changing our ways, turning away from the wrongs that we have done.  Jesus didn’t just say to the women, “I’m sorry for calling you a dog, and I’m sorry for not healing your daughter.”  Instead, Jesus turned away from the path that he had been on, and healed the woman’s daughter.

 

And the changed path seems to have stuck for him; and this is where I think that the second story in the reading comes in.  In the second story, Jesus is travelling in the Decapolis, which is on the far side of the Sea of Galilee.  Jesus is in foreign territory here.  And even though he isn’t named as a foreigner, when they bring him a man in need of healing in this foreign land, we can assume that there is a pretty good chance that Jesus is dealing with another foreigner here.  And instead of calling him a dog and telling him that he doesn’t have healing to go around, instead, Jesus heals the man brought to him.  Jesus has not only learned with his head from the Syrophoenician woman, but he has changed his ways because of her.

 

I still believe that Jesus is the flesh-and-blood version of God, but Jesus was also fully human at the same time.  In that first story, he reacted exactly the way that you would expect a human to react, even if his reaction was less than loving, less than compassionate, less than grace-filled.  But then his response, when he realized that he had messed up was to do exactly what all of us should do when we realize that we’ve messed up.  He changed his ways towards goodness and love.

 

And so not only does Jesus, God’s Word-Made-Flesh, teach us about who God is; but Jesus, fully human, can also teach us about how to be human, how to turn towards God, and how to live love more fully in the world that we inhabit.

 

And when we mess up or miss the mark, may the Holy Spirit always be turning us towards love.  Amen.

 

 

Image:  “Baptismal Font” by Bill Herndon on flickr

Used with Permission

"God Speaks" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday September 1, 2024
Scripture Reading:  Genesis 32:22-32

Note:  Every summer, we gather weekly for Church Family Movie Nights; and this year we are linking our Sunday morning worship to the movie we watched the previous Tuesday. This week’s reflection is tied to the movie Field of Dreams. You can read a summary of this movie by clicking here, or watch the trailer by clicking here.


An Iowa farmer walks into a corn field and hears a voice saying, “If you build it, he will come.”  If you have seen the movie, Field of Dreams, you know that this is how the story begins.  I don’t think that I could do justice to the story by trying to outline the plot of it here, but as the story unfolds, the voice continues to speak to Ray, the main character, eventually switching from “If you build it, he will come,” to “Ease his pain,” and later, “Go the distance.”

Ray and his wife Annie both know that it seems ridiculous; but they listen to the voice; and as the movie goes on, they continue to receive guidance from a mysterious source.  Ray has a vision of a baseball field in his corn field.  Ray and Annie have a shared dream one night.  Ray has sudden moments of inspiration where he knows something, even though he doesn’t know why he knows something.  A stadium sign board flashes a message that only he can see.

The movie never tells us where these messages are coming from, or how.  The movie ends with so many unanswered questions.

But we know that in real life, outside of the movies, we know that we too can receive communication from someone that we can’t see, someone that we can’t understand, messages that don’t always seem logical.

 

Just as Ray in the movie receives a series of messages in different formats that guide his actions through the movie, God communicates with us in so many different ways, guiding us on our life journey.  Some people do hear a distinct voice, like the one that Ray hears, but I think that that might be one of the less common ways that God communicates with us.  Sometimes God speaks to us through the voices of people in our lives.  Sometimes God speaks to us through nudges that pass through our hearts or our minds.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought to myself, “I should call so-and-so to check in with them and see how they are doing,” only to make the phone call and discover that something significant is happening in their life.  I’ve learned not to ignore those nudges.

 

In our Wednesday morning bible study, one topic that sometimes comes up is wishing that we could have experiences like some of the people did in biblical times – wishing that we could hear God’s voice clearly; wishing that we could walk with God as we would with a friend; wishing that we could see visions.  Usually these conversations leave me with more questions than answers.  I don’t know why some people experience God’s presence more immediately than other people.  I don’t know why, when we are crying out for answers, God sometimes remains silent.  But I also wonder if, when God communicates with us, do we ever brush it off as something that couldn’t really have happened?

 

I think that there might be some wisdom for us in the movie.  As improbable as it might have been, and as unexpected as that first voice was, Ray and Annie don’t discount it.  As the story unfolds, they continue to expect to receive communication from this mysterious source.  If they had written that first voice off as indigestion, would the voice have persisted, or would the voice have gone on to find another farmer passionate about baseball?

 

If we expect God to speak to us, then we are much more likely to hear God’s voice than if we go through life assuming that God will never speak.  For God longs to be in relationship with us, longs for our senses to be open to perceive their divine presence.

 

I also have to ask the flip side of the question – if we do sense something, how do we know it is from God and not from another source?  Here, the tradition of the church is clear – we need to test the message, preferably with other people, against who we know God to be.  We know that God is good, we know that God is love, we know that God is just, we know that God is merciful, we know that God is beauty.  And so any message from God must be in keeping with what we know about God – God isn’t going to give us a message that works against love.

 

Sometimes it is hard to know on our own, which is where other people can help us out.  Ray consulted with Annie about the voice; we can talk to trusted people who share our faith.

 

And just as the results of Ray’s actions led to several points of reconciliation within family, as well as the fulfilment of dreams for a group of baseball players; when we act on what God is telling us to do, the love, the joy, the peace, the hope in the world will all increase.

 

When I was paring our summer movies with scripture readings, I had a lot of options to choose from for this movie.  There are lots of stories in the bible of people communicating with God and acting on what God tells them to do.  But I chose to pair it with my favourite story about Jacob, son of Rebekah and Isaac, grandson of Sarah and Abraham.

 

Jacob was a stiff-necked, stubborn sort of person – you may have gotten a sense of that from this story when he refuses to let the mysterious stranger go until he had received his blessing. They wrestle all night there on the banks of the river, and in the end, Jacob received not only his blessing, but a new name to go along with it – a new name that would bring with it a new calling.

 

And so my wish for all of us is that we might have the tenacity of Jacob – I’m going to call it tenacity now, rather than stubbornness, but choose whatever word suits you better.  I wish for all of us the tenacity of Jacob, that we might move through the world expecting to encounter God in every moment, expecting to receive a blessing from God, expecting to be given a mission to complete.  I wish for all of us the tenacity of Jacob, and also the courage of Ray from the movie – the courage to follow through on the mission we are given.  Because if each one of us was able to do that, can you just imagine what we would be able to do.  Never stop expecting, and never stop following, and we will be the hands and feet of Christ, bringing love and hope to the world.

 

And may it be so.  Amen.

 

 

Field of Dreams – a baseball movie

that is about so much more than baseball.

Photo Credit: Oregon Department of Agriculture on flickr

Used with Permission.