A lot of people turn to religion for answers. We want to know, like Job, why bad things happen to good people. We want to know what the meaning of life is. We want to know how to live more peaceful lives. So we turn to faith, hoping for an answer. And while it’s true that faith is more about helping us to ask better questions than it is about giving us pre-formed answers, in today’s Gospel reading from Mark, Jesus actually does give us a very clear answer about life and faith. Jesus tells us that the Kingdom belongs to the little children.
But
just as the idea of a crucified Messiah seems non-sensical, the idea that the
Kingdom belongs to children strikes many as absurd. So we ignore this wisdom
that Jesus gives us and set off trying to find another answer that allows us to
be at the top of the pyramid. Jesus though lays it out clearly: “Truly I tell
you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never
enter it.”
I
know that I don’t usually preach three-point sermons, maybe my students at Hood
are rubbing off on me, as the three-point sermon is the bread-and-butter format
in the AME-Zion tradition. This morning, there are three things I want to
explore: Jesus’ teaching about children, how this informs the mission of the Church,
and connecting this with our stewardship campaign.
We
begin in Mark. And before I get to verses about children, it would be a dereliction
of my pastoral duty to ignore the comments about divorce. A lot of people carry
a lot of baggage, wounds, and shame around divorce, either because they have
had one or grew up in a household that was impacted by it. This isn’t a sermon
about divorce, but if you need or want to talk about this further, this is what
I’m here for, so just reach out and we’ll connect. The short word on the topic
though is that grace and mercy abound. Divorce is never something to be
celebrated, as there’s always brokenness involved. But Jesus has compassion for
us and meets our brokenness with abundant forgiveness. In Jesus, all things are
being made new. Jesus’ comments on divorce were made in response to a very
specific context in which he was being put to the test and this is not the last
word on the divorce because the last word is always “Grace.”
After
that encounter, we heard that people were bringing little children to Jesus so that
he might bless them, but the disciples spoke sternly to them to prevent it. To
understand this passage, we have to know what the child meant in this context.
Today, children are celebrated as being full of potential, open to wonder and
play. To be sure, children then were those things as well. But that’s not what
a child represented. Because of disease and famine, the potential of many
children was never realized, so they weren’t treated in the idealized way that
we think of children. Children were loved and cared for then just as much as
they are today, but they were viewed differently. Whereas today, our first
thought about children might be about their curiosity or innocence, in the
Gospel context the first thought was about the lowliness, insignificance, and
vulnerability of children.
The
Gospel that Jesus announces is one of radical subversion. As I said in a sermon
a few weeks ago, faith turns everything upside down. We see it again here.
Jesus says that the Kingdom does not belong to the influential, strong, powerful,
rich, famous, eloquent, organized, or ordained. No, the Kingdom belongs to
those who have no resources of their own, who are completely dependent on
others for their survival, and who have no political or social power.
It’s
such a powerful statement that I worry we overlook it – the Kingdom belongs to
children. It’s theirs; not ours. And yet in this passage from Mark, the disciples
were controlling access to Jesus and preventing the rightful owners of the Kingdom
from coming to Jesus. In reality, it is children who give us access to the
Kingdom, but we, like the disciples, have it completely backwards.
I’ve
been thinking a lot this week about how we structure our lives and society in
such ways that we actually prevent children from coming to Jesus. Sometimes
this happens when parents say “I’m not going to teach my children about faith, they
can choose their own when they grow up.” But I don’t see those same parents
leaving medical, academic, or dietary decisions up to their children. We also
do it when we, as parents, grandparents, or those who have promised when children
are baptized that we will do all we can to support and nurture them in faith,
think that we can leave the job of faith formation to the paid professionals.
While
I’m immensely enjoying working with our youth group, Caroline is doing
fantastic ministry in Children’s Church, and Stephen’s leadership of the Children’s
Choir is amazing, it takes the entire community to raise children in faith. Faith
formation happens primarily not at church, but at home. Lest any of this feel like
finger-wagging, and truly it’s not, I’ll confess my own struggles with this.
There have been seasons of our family life when we’ve been consistent in praying
Compline every night as a family. But it’s been a while. By either being too busy
or tired, I’ve not prioritized this. I’ve let my busyness or desire to just sit
on the couch and read prevent our kids from coming to Jesus in family prayers
at night.
And
then there’s overscheduling – when we jam-pack our weekends so full of stuff
that we aren’t allowing space for children to come and meet Jesus in the Body
of Christ – meaning both the gathered community and the Eucharist. This, I know,
might land as a hard word to some. And I don’t mean it that way, truly. But we
only get one chance to raise a child, and I’ve never heard a parent in the Episcopal
Church reflect back and say “You know, we really spent too much time at church.”
And
the thing about making sure we are letting our children get to Jesus is that
they bring us along with them. The Kingdom is theirs, and when we make the time
and space for them to draw near to Jesus, we get to tag along. Think about
those parents who had their children blessed by Jesus – they were blessed by
drawing near to him as well. And just as a child does not earn the food,
shelter, or resources that are given to them in love, we also receive the love
and peace of God as gracious gifts when we accompany children. We don’t grab
these things, we receive them. By focusing on letting children, to whom the Kingdom
belongs, come to Jesus, we receive the Kingdom through them. It’s an upside-down
way of being, but that’s the Gospel – in giving, we receive.
Next,
taking this wisdom and applying it to the mission of the Church. On this point,
I’m going to very succinctly summarize a book called The Congregation in the
Secular Age by Andrew Root. He writes about the anxious and depressed state
that many congregations find themselves in these days. Essentially, the world
is moving and changing so quickly that we can’t keep up, we can’t focus on
relationships, we can’t find time for the things that we know matter most. The
result is that we feel alienated, disconnected, and like we’re stuck on a
hamster wheel that we can’t stop.
Congregations
have gotten sucked up into this cycle and we’ve made resource acquisition our
mission. We pursue money, members, and reach. So many churches have become
marketplaces of ministries to try to attract people into investing their
resources to increase our own. Root, like Jesus, reminds us though that the
Kingdom is about connection, not resources. His suggestion for churches that
are navigating our way through a time of uncertainty and religious decline is
to give our attention and energy to resonance, not resources. Resonance, he
defines as those moments when life is teeming with meaning, when we are
connected to reality, when we let ourselves get lost in wonder, love, and
praise. Towards the end of the book, Root writes “I have only one answer for
how congregations can escape alienation and have encounters of resonance:
carrying children.”
The
thing is, when we are caring for children, focusing on them as persons, as those
to whom the Kingdom belongs, and not resources or future sources of potential resources,
we enter the Kingdom along with them. In giving ourselves fully to children, to
those who rely and depend on us, our hands are opened, and we are, therefore,
able to receive the grace of the Kingdom. By focusing on those who need us and
have nothing to offer in exchange, we find resonance with the subversive nature
of the Kingdom in which the last are first, where all are forgiven and worthy
of dignity, where it is more blessed to give than to receive, where love is the
way.
Root
says that the questions a congregation should be asking are not “how do we
grow, how do we survive, how do we innovate”, but rather, “How do we care for and
carry children?” Ministry with and for children, people who are resourceless,
means that we will be investing in resonant relationships instead of tirelessly
chasing more resources. So not only does the Kingdom belong to children, but
children also remind us that the mission of the Church is to be, not to acquire.
And
lastly, this has implications for our stewardship efforts – the process by
which we plan to fund the ministries of this parish in 2025. I’ll have more to
say about this in the coming weeks – but the children of this parish help us to
see and remember that we are all made and are living in the image of God. As we
know from Creation, God is creative, loving, and generous. When we practice generosity,
we are aligning ourselves with love and creating opportunities for the Spirit
to move and act in our lives. Being generous is a part of what it means to reflect
the divine image in which we are made. And when we are not generous, well, then
the image is distorted, and we end up with dysfunction and brokenness.
In
stewardship, we give not in order to receive anything back, but rather to
provide a place of refuge for those who need comfort, a community that promotes
justice, that tells the truth about God’s mercy, that envelops us in the love
of God that is making all things well. We respond in generosity as a way of
ensuring that children, the vulnerable, and the lost have a place to receive
the Kingdom that rightly belongs to them.
To
paraphrase a well-known passage and hymn: seek ye first the Kingdom of God by
bringing children to Jesus, and all these things shall be added unto you as
well.
[To the children of St. Luke’s – don’t ever let us keep you from Jesus. Don’t let us adults tell you that we don’t have the time or the resources to help you walk with Jesus. Don’t let us fool you into thinking that this is our church – because it’s not. Jesus clearly tells us that the Kingdom belongs to you. And if the Kingdom is yours, then so is the Church. Thank you for sharing the Kingdom with us. We, adults, are so used to being in control, so help us to let go so that we, like you, can receive the Kingdom.]
