We know it is not a contest in this life to be the
greatest in the terms set by the world’s values. Yet, most of us cannot live as
if we give no thought to worldly successes: status, wealth, power,
self-aggrandisement of all sorts. We live torn by the tension between our
desires and God’s desire for us.
Jesus knows this. It is one of the primary troubles of
life against which stands his gospel of resting in the arms of the one who
loves us, as did the little child.
Mark 9:30-37
Jesus has heard the disciples’ inability to
understand his teaching about the death of the Son-of-Man, and then he hears
them arguing about who will be the greatest. He responds by setting the least
powerful person, a child, in their midst in order to teach them again about
welcoming the one who has no standing, no voice, no greatness.
[Before you] write your own sermon.
. . check the statistics on child poverty, child violence and child hunger in
this country. . . . Jesus isn't talking about economic and political policy
because he probably didn't envision the day when his followers would have
economic and political power. But we do. Welcoming the child is not just about
what we do in church school. . . it's about what we do with our votes, our
taxes, our contributions, our dismay. . . .
[T]he child here is a sign and
surrogate for all those people who need welcome—for the strangers and
sojourners of every type and every race. . . Jesus' reaching out is a reminder, warning,
promise to the church that we reach out, too.
. . . The focus is on the child and
on the one who sent the child.– David Bartlett
Jeremiah 11:18-20
The prophet here utters a prayer for release from the
scheming of his enemies, acknowledging that it was the Lord who showed the
prophet the problem, revealing the evil. The one who is menaced asks that the
schemers receive their just due.
How we are to connect this prayer with the words of
gracious welcome spoken by Jesus to the little child in the Gospel story has to
do with the perspective from which we are to “see” Jesus’ point. Here in
Jeremiah is the cry of the one who is voiceless, powerless, without hope for
“greatness.” We hear the cry of the little child (i.e., the poor and destitute,
the refugee and migrant, the families caught in war, those who have no
employment, those who have no hope). The
prayer begs for justice to come from God when there is no human advocate.
Jeremiah speaks for all those who need welcome. Jesus
commands the people to see those who are in need.
James 3:13 – 4:3,7-8a
As with all Epistle readings, James gives us a vision of the
church’s rightful response to what Jesus has set before us and what Jeremiah
causes us to notice. James says we can either see with earthly or heavenly
wisdom. Which will we choose?
[H]ere again James is writing
Christian wisdom literature. The distinction he makes is between those who
trust in the guidance of heavenly wisdom and those who trust in human wisdom.
Heavenly wisdom is especially noteworthy for the way it brings peace among
believers. Earthly “wisdom” looks a good deal like envy and covetousness, and
wherever it appears, disorder follows.
. . . God will honor God's friends
and humble those who proudly cling to the world and the ways of the world. –
David Bartlett
Putting it all
together, the gospel message for this day is summed up in narrative form by
John Barden in this way, taking the perspective of the little child in Mark:
I imagined hearing the grown man,
no longer a child, tell these people, children and young teens and adults, what
it was like the day Jesus came to his house. He had been quiet, he told them,
just as his parents instructed him, trying to stay out of the way of these
weary travelers. But he had been curious to see the man everybody was talking
about. He had heard that this Jesus was a great leader. He had heard that
people were calling him Messiah. He had already learned from the rabbi that the
Messiah was the anointed one of God who would lead the people of Israel in a
great rebellion against the Romans. The Messiah would gather armies and they
would run the Romans out of the holy land. Then the Messiah would establish
once again the house of David on the throne, and Israel would be a great and
mighty nation.
. . . So he crept into the room [to]
see and hear what was going on without being noticed. But then a hush fell over
the strangers and this Messiah, this great leader of them all, started saying
something about the first being last and being the servant of all. . . . Is
this the way to train your generals for a battle. . .?
Then the Messiah's eyes saw him. .
. and grabbed him by the shoulder. At first he was afraid; would the Messiah
yell at him for overhearing their discussion?. . . But instead, Jesus embraced
him, held him close. He felt safe and important. . . . And he told others about
it. – John H. Barden
David Bartlett, an
ordained American Baptist minister, is Professor Emeritus of New Testament at
Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, and Lantz Professor Emeritus
of Christian Communication at Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut.
John H.
Barden, a Presbyterian pastor, received the Angell Award in 2005 from the
Presbyterian Writers’ Guild for his book of original folktales, ‘Postle Jack
Tales (KiwE Publishing, 2004).
Homily Service 39, no. 10 (2006): 35-44.
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