Sunday, October 6, 2024
The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
Faith of a child
The Rev. Mark Wilkinson, Rector
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
Katy TX 77450
I mentioned last week that the lectionary passages were challenging last week and this and I think you now know what I am talking about. The Mark gospel has been a cause of much debate, ill feeling and in some cases difficult choices in regards to marriage. Over the years of ministry I have dealt with this apparent prohibition of remarriage after divorce and have welcomed more than a few people into the Episcopal Church because we allow for marriage after divorce.
Just a few short comments for those who are new enough to have not heard my thoughts on the topic. You will notice this is not a prohibition of divorce. In reality, Jesus opens up divorce for at the time only the man had the option to divorce. Jesus states that either a man or woman can ask for the divorce. It was said that a man could divorce his wife for burning the soup but there were no grounds for a woman to divorce the man. Once the Jewish world fell under Greek influence the place of women in their society plummeted. Gone were the days of woman having standing in many parts of the Jewish world. As always there were exceptions like Lydia in Acts who was a prosperous businesswoman, but women overall were second class citizens. It is also worth noting that Paul creates another exception/acceptable reason for divorce in the Acts of the Apostles if the spouse is a nonbeliever. So it wasn’t more than 20 years after Jesus spoke those words that the church was already making modifications. Now I really do not want to spend a great deal of time on this today and am happy to talk with anyone that has questions.
However, there is a theme from the last several weeks that I have not said much about and in today’s world where we are right now I want to pick up on that. This in part is a return to the theme of last week in regard to creating stumbling blocks.
The theme is that of children over the past three weeks. If women were second class citizens, then children were even below that. Children in those days had a totally different place in the social world. It is hard for us to comprehend in today’s world just how insignificant children were to that society. Until recently most of the children in the world weren’t even counted in a census until they were 5 years old because of the incredible mortality rate. You’ve heard it said that children should be seen and not heard, but in the Greek and Roman world they were neither seen nor heard.
Two weeks ago Jesus after attempting for a second time to teach the disciples about what will soon happen in Jerusalem to him, has the teaching about who is first and the whoever wants to be first must be last and servant of all. He puts a child in their midst and says whoever welcomes a child like this welcomes me and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Let us start with the fact that there was a child in the presence of the disciples. Remember the story of Martha and Mary where Martha is complaining because she is stuck in the kitchen while Mary sits at Jesus’ feet listening to him and he praises her for that. Women would not normally be in the presence of the teacher, women had and still have today in some synagogues their own special section separate from the men and of course the children belong with them. So that Jesus had a child in the room with them was certainly unexpected and to be honest unthinkable.
Yet Jesus takes this child in his arms and puts them on equal footing with him. If the disciples were confused about the second foretelling of the arrest and crucifixion this would have really baffled them. This is truly an example of the last being the first.
He continues this theme in his teaching from last week when he picks up with the stumbling block theme. “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.” Again, he is speaking of the child and the peril we put ourselves in if we create stumbling blocks in the way of even the least in society in coming to Jesus.
This week we hear that “People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14 But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” 16 And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.”
First of all we can probably assume that it would be women, the mothers who are bringing the children to see Jesus since they were the caregivers. This meant that by encouraging the children to be brought he is also inviting the women to come and hear his teaching. Are you picking up that this whole passage is one that is moving the status of women forward in his circle? That men, women and children all have an equal place in the kingdom is his point. This was incredibly counter cultural.
Then there is the really important and almost always misunderstood statement, “15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” Many people take this to mean that we must come in innocence, dependence or some other childlike quality. Children in that world were utterly dependent on the “pater familias.”
To quote the New Interpreters commentary, “The child in antiquity was radically dependent upon the pater familias. The father decided whether the child would even be accepted into the family. Children belonged to their father and remained subject to his authority even as adults. The saying “to receive the kingdom like a child,” which most scholars treat as originally independent of the scene about accepting children, must, therefore, refer to the radical dependence of the child on the father for any status, inheritance, or, in families where children might be abandoned, for life itself. It warns the disciples that they are radically dependent upon God’s grace—they do not set the conditions for entering the kingdom.”
So what Jesus us saying is that acceptance into the kingdom is all a matter of grace, unearned and unmerited. The grace of God is not dependent on age, status, gender, nationality or religion. In the modern world Jesus might have brought a homeless person, an immigrant or any person without standing and said that we must receive the kingdom just as this non-person does. Just as God accepts the non-person whomever she or he may be. This is not about simplicity, childlike innocence or anything else. This is a lesson in grace. We enter the kingdom by the grace of God period end of statement. We do not get to say who is in and who is out, that is totally in God’s hands. We also do not get to declare anyone is insignificant or unimportant to God. God loves everyone, no exceptions and as hard as it is, we are asked to do the same. What an improvement it would be to our world if we could all learn this lesson to accept and love all of God’s children from the least to the greatest.