Kids, cookies, and bread for the world - a reflection on Mark's Gospel

Sermon for September 20, 2009.

Mark 9:30-37 (New International Version)

30They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, 31because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise." 32But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it. 33They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the road?" 34But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest. Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all."

36He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, 37"Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."

For those of you who cannot see this, I am holding a cookie. It’s a nice cookie, with chocolate chips and M&Ms. There are probably a day’s calories in this cookie. Now, if a 2-year-old was eating this cookie and you told him or her that it looked like a really good cookie and you bet it tasted good, what would the child do? Chances are she/he would hand you the cookie, perhaps right out of the mouth. Soggy with saliva, maybe a little snot, and perhaps even some swine flu mixed in, but this gift, being lifted to your mouth by messy little hands would be coming from the heart, because this little person has not yet learned the adult lesson that he/she doesn’t really have to share. In fact, sharing comes quite naturally to children. It is only when we become smart, sophisticated adults that we learn to say, “I’ve got mine. Now, you get yours!”

Compare the innocent sharing of a child with what was going on between Jesus’ disciples in the Gospel today. James and John, Zebedee’s sons, were arguing about who would get the honored place in the Kingdom. Jesus wasn’t even dead and risen yet, and these guys were planning it all out. They were sophisticated adults, wanting to get their piece of the kingdom before the other, at the expense of the other.

Without diving deeply into today’s political debates, we know statistically that the vast majority of people who do not favor health insurance reform already have health insurance. Those who oppose same-gender marriage probably already have the right to marry. On a global level, people starve in some places, while we Americans eat way too much. “I’ve got mine, now you get your own!”

Children, on the other hand, have not yet learned to hate or to be selfish. They are not born racist – they learn it. They are not born homophobic or greedy – they develop these traits if they are taught a certain way. Jesus knew of the innocence of children when he called one forward, not to make a new claim for children’s rights, but to remind us that we should be like the little child who has not yet learned the sophisticated, adult message of selfishness.
Jesus shared. He died and rose, and his gift of resurrection has been shared with all of us. Jesus did not rise from the grave as part of some big show, but rather as an ultimate sharing of grace, of hope. We are challenged to do the same. Can we possibly take on the childlike innocence that Jesus exalts today? Can we share our tasty cookies with other people? Even if our cookies are soggy, dirty, germy, and half-eaten, what we have to share is priceless, and if given in true love, what we have to give is Christlike. In a world where the last come last and the first come first, Jesus mixes it up. He reverses the traditional way of looking at things, and he offers us a challenge to think differently. Like a child who knows nothing but sharing, the Christian is called to do the same.