June 09, 2024 | Rev. Loren McGrail
This morning, we are going to have a sermon that will include listening to our children, think Art Linkletter with a religious twist. I am going to begin with a few words about our scripture passages and what we can learn about God by welcoming or receiving children.
Our first passage begins with the behavior of the disciples arguing about who is greater instead of listening to Jesus about why he will suffer, die, and rise again after three days. Once again, his disciples don’t seem to understand a word he is saying or maybe they are too afraid to ask again. Jesus stops their childish arguing about who is the greatest by upending their notion of greatness and power. He does this by lifting a child into his arms and saying, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
Dear Ones, it’s important to know that children were the most vulnerable members of society in Jesus’ time. They were marginalized and excluded. They were the least of these.
On the face of it, picking up a child is a tender gesture, so small and so straightforward; it’s easy to miss its importance. Theologian Debi Thomas says this is actually a very radical teaching for “Jesus doesn’t say, “Welcome the child because it’s a loving or kind or ethical or socially beneficial thing to do. He says: Do you want to see what God actually looks like? Do you want to find God’s stand-in, hidden here among you? Are you curious about the truest nature of divine power and greatness? Then welcome the child. Welcome the child, and you welcome God.”
Dear Ones, one of the most amazing truths about our faith is that God became a helpless human child. This alone should remind us that all children everywhere represent God’s heart therefore we have a moral obligation to take care of them----all of them. They represent God’s heart and are often mistreated and abused.
Please see this week’s enews to be reminded of some of the places where children are most vulnerable and exploited. This is also why we went to the school boards to stand up for our trans youth and why we support Sylvia’s Children. They are God’s children---all of them.
Thomas names 4 possible reasons Jesus wants us to welcome or receive the children. I am going to name them and then engage our own children in holy conversation. I invite you to listen and pay attention to see if you can hear any of these qualities being expressed.
The first is Children teach us to honor our imagination as pathways to God. Let us listen to how our own young people imaginatively understand God and Jesus. The second is Children teach us to risk hard questions on our way to God. Listen to the questions they ask about God’s character or why the world is the way it is. The third is Children teach us to trust God’s abundance. Notice how your grown-up self, worries about whether there will be enough and children trust or know there will be. Fourth and last, Children teach us what divine power looks like. Note how you think about this and how they do.
Dear Ones, on this Children’s Sunday, let us remember all of God’s children wherever they may be and make a commitment to not only celebrate them but to love and protect them, all of them are God’s and thus all of them are ours. Welcome and receive them all for this is where you will find Jesus and God’s kin-dom of shalom.