The Rev. Canon Anne E. Kitch
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a Mark 9:30-37
It has been much noisier outside my office window lately in the late afternoon. I hear cacophony, yelling, and shrieks…of laughter! Ever since the new playground equipment was installed this new symphony accompanies my afternoon work. If the noise is any indication, the neighborhood children who belong to the after-school program known as The Welcome Place are thoroughly enjoying themselves. The Welcome Place is not a program that this cathedral runs. It is a program of the South Bethlehem Neighborhood Center. We provide the space--the hospitality if you will. It is a large room on the basement level of our parish hall building which opens out onto the play area. This space is about to get much better, inside and out, thanks to the scout projects of two of our teenagers: Carl Kolepp’s Eagle Scout project and Betsy Yale’s Girl Scout Gold Award. The children of our parish enjoy the area too on Sundays or other times; but it is the Welcome Place kids that use it five afternoons a week and all summer long during the summer camp. To hear how much those children enjoy the space delights me to no end. I can’t wait for the interior work to be completed so that the welcome this parish provides for the children is all that it can be. Serving children draws us closer to God.
Again and again, Jesus tries to teach his disciples about just who he is, what kind of messiah he is. They may have gotten the Son of God part of it, but it was the suffering and death part--the servant part, the vulnerable giving-in part--that the disciples just couldn’t get. So once again, as they are walking along, Jesus tells his disciples about his necessary betrayal and murder and resurrection. They just didn’t understand; “they did not understand what he was saying and they were afraid to ask him.” So they travel on, still unclear about how the reign of God will commence and what it will look like. Their conversation turns to other things--well, they talk about greatness. So when they arrive at Capernum Jesus confronts them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” They were silent. But Jesus knows what they were up to. He knows they are confused. Perhaps he sighs at the knowledge that they just don’t get it. So being the good teacher that he is, he tries again. This time with a visual aid.
Imagine the scene. Jesus sat down. He called the twelve. He said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child. He put the child in the midst of them. Then, he took the child in his arms. He said, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me welcomes not me, but the one who sent me.” Can you see it?
It would be easy for us to dismiss this picture of Jesus with a child in his arms as a sweet gesture. Think about it. Would you ever characterize Jesus or his ministry as sweet? Cute? Isn’t Jesus the one who confronted authorities, hung out with the poor, exorcized demons, and insisted that he was the messiah who would be betrayal and killed. Didn’t he tell his friend and follower Peter, “Get behind me Satan!” So when he takes a child and places it in the midst of the disciples, it wasn’t about being cute. It was nothing less than the whole of the Gospel message. To be great in the reign of God is to be last of all and servant of all. To be great in the kingdom of God is to love and serve children.
Regardless of whether a culture honors children or dismisses them, regardless of whether they are beloved or not, children have the lowest social standing. They are powerless, dependant, and have few rights. They are least, they are last, and in God’s economy they are signs of the kingdom. In very important ways, children are no different than adults. We all bear the image of God. We are all beloved. We are all limited human beings. Just as it would be a mistake to dismiss Jesus’ encounter with this child as “sweet,” it would also be a mistake to romanticize children as somehow more pure than adults. In trying to explain why Jesus would hold up a child as an example of the reign of God, many people focus on what qualities children have that adults lack. Now we might be tempted to think of children as possessing the good kind of wisdom that we heard about today in the reading from the letter of James. James speaks of two kinds of wisdom: an earthly one full of ambition, and one from above which is pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full mercy and good fruits without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. So we could say that in arguing about greatness the disciples displayed an earthly wisdom full of ambition while children…but honestly the rest doesn’t follow. I may be the only one, but I have experienced four-year-olds who are not pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits or without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.
Children are not examples of the kingdom because they are somehow different than adults in nature, but because of their status. They are powerless: easily ignored, mistreated, and overlooked. When Jesus takes that child and places her in the midst of his disciples, he demonstrates that welcoming children is the responsibility of all who would be great in the community. When he picks up that child and holds her, he shows that serving children is part of being kingdom bound. And if his actions are not enough, there are his words, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”
The word welcome here means to receive, like to receive guests. It implies offering hospitality-- a hospitality which includes serving those who you welcome into your home. Jesus demonstrates service by taking that child into his arms.
Physician, writer, and child advocate Janusz Korczak was a man before his time. During the early part of the 20th century he dedicated his life to respecting and serving children. Advocating for their rights in his native Poland, he founded orphanages that were models of caring communities. He included the children in decision making. He treated them as full human beings, made in the image of God. When the Nazis invaded Poland during WW II, Korczak and the orphans were forced to move into the Warsaw Ghetto: the doctor and the children were Jewish. A renowned physician, Korczak was offered the chance to escape to safety, but he refused to leave the children.
On an August day in 1942, Dr. Koczak and 200 children were marched from the ghetto, through Warsaw, to the train station to be “relocated.” The loving staff of the orphanage organized the children into rows of four and they walked calmly through the streets, singing as they went, Dr. Korczak carrying one child in his arms and holding another by the hand. When they arrived at the deportation point, again the good doctor was recognized and offered a chance to leave. He refused. He and the children boarded the trains that took them to Treblinka: the death camp where everyone was immediately sent to the gas chambers.
Welcoming children, serving children, is the responsibility of all who would be great in the Kingdom of God. But it is even more than that. Welcoming children is a way of receiving and serving Jesus as well. And if Jesus, then God. Whoever welcomes, whoever receives one such child in my name, receives me. And whoever receives me, receives not me, but the one who sent me. To welcome is to receive with open arms and hearts. Which of us would not want to open our hearts to God? To draw near to God?
Dr. Korczak wrote, “Children are not the people of tomorrow, but are people of today. They have a right to be taken seriously and to be treated with tenderness and respect. They should be allowed to grow into whoever they were meant to be. The unknown person inside each of them is our hope for the future.” (as quoted in Ten Amazing People by Maura D. Shaw)
The unknown person inside a child is our hope--what are we going to do about it? The unknown person inside the child sitting nearest to you is our hope--what are we going to do about it? The unknown persons inside the children who use our Welcome Place are our hope--what are we going to do about it?
Copyright © Anne E. Kitch 2006
