Today's Sermon for 9-23-18

Welcoming

 (based on Mark 9:30-37, I Corinthians 12:12-27)

          They weren’t walking with him as they made their way through Galilee toward Capernaum.  They must have either been ahead of him or behind him.  They were walking apart from him because they had a sensitive subject to discuss: their relationship to Jesus, and their importance in Jesus’ coming kingdom.  We have no record in the gospels of what they actually said to one another, but we can reconstruct the scene in our imaginations based on details taken from all the gospels about what each of them had contributed so far to Jesus’ ministry.

          Peter said to the others, “I am the most important.  Didn’t I come up with the correct answer when he asked us who he is?  Didn’t he tell me that I am the rock upon which he will build his new community?  Obviously, he’ll choose me for second in command.”

          John stepped in, “That might be true, but you just made a lucky guess, Peter.  You didn’t really know for sure.  You didn’t know the answer any more than the rest of us did.  What he said about the place you might have in his new community only means that he thinks you would make a good building block to begin his new church.  I think importance is love, hasn’t he shown that to us, and he obviously loves me best.  I am the most important.”

          Judas could barely contain his impatience.  “The most important person is the one with the money.  The world is ruled by money; everybody knows that.  And Jesus entrusted the money to me.  I am the most important.”

          Philip, not to be outdone, pointed out, “When we were out in the middle of nowhere that day by the sea and it was time to eat, Jesus turned to me for advice.  If he didn’t know what to do with all those thousands and had to ask me, then I must be the most important!”

          Jesus had been preoccupied during that journey as they passed through Galilee.  He hadn’t been paying much attention to them, but he told them for a second time that, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.”  But the disciples missed the point.

          Jesus talked about others, about carrying their burdens, but the disciples spoke about themselves, preoccupied with their own inner circle.  Who would be the most important in the coming kingdom?  Who would Jesus pick?  Pick me, pick me.  Like some kind of playground competition for the selection of teammates.

          Jesus told them to deny themselves, to take up the cross, to be servants of all.  Instead they argued about who would be the masters in Jesus’ new kingdom, who would be the kingpins, the right-hand man to Jesus.  As the disciples wrangled with one another, each was talking about his own interests.  Not one of them had understood Jesus’ vision.

          This portrait of the disciples is hardly flattering, but thanks to Mark’s gospel he portrayed them as real human beings, not some kind of perfect pupils who always had the right answers, who were always the teacher’s pets.  Instead Mark portrays them with warts, greed, bad tempers, thick-headedness and all.

          Jesus cornered the disciples when they arrived in Capernaum.  When he asked them what had been going on during their journey, they had no answer for him; they realized that he already knew, anyway.  In the oppressive, embarrassed silence that followed, Jesus went out and found a child.  He held the child among the disciples and said: “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

          The disciples didn’t get Jesus’ teaching about suffering, dying, and rising again, but would they get this?  Would they understand this teaching about welcoming children?

          This latter lesson in the gospel account is enshrined in collective Sunday school classes around the nation.  Jesus seated in the midst of children or taking a child in his arms or being surrounded by a bunch of children.  We look upon that picture today and think how sweet, how gentle, how kind.  What an example Jesus set for us.  We want to emulate his behavior.  We welcome the child.  But I don’t think we truly grasp the lesson that Jesus was teaching his disciples.  In Jesus’ day, children were not welcomed, at all.  They were treated as little more than the property of their fathers.  It wasn’t until boys were apprenticed to an adult for training in a particular line of work did a child move closer to the adult world and begin to be recognized.  And girls faired far worse in Jesus’ day.  It wasn’t until they came into child-bearing years that girls were recognized at all and then only for the prospects of what they might bring to a family in the way of a dowry. 

          Today we think it was adorable and sweet how Jesus recognized the children.  But Jesus meant it as a slap in the face to bring them into reality of what he was trying to teach them.  Discipleship is counted in welcoming those unwelcome elsewhere.  In Jesus’ day, it was a good lesson.  Perhaps for us to truly grasp Jesus’ intent you might want to consider who are the unwelcome among us.

          What group of people are the unwelcome in today’s society?  And then substitute Jesus’ teaching here, “Whoever welcomes this one who had been denied, this God-created, God-loved being, that most of society rejects, whoever welcomes such a one in my name, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

          There is no greatest or best.  There is no front of the line. 

The author of I Corinthians likens the parts of a body to the different members of a congregation.  (Read I Corinthians 12:12-27.)

          The body is a unit, though it is made up on many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body.  So it is with Christ.  For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body – whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

          Now the body is not made up of one part but of many.  If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.  And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.  If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be?  If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?  But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, everyone one of them, just as he wanted them to be.  If they were all one part, where would the body be?  As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

          The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!”  And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!”  On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor.  And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment.  But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.  If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.  Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is part of it.

The picture of a foot withdrawing from the body because it can’t be a hand, or an ear resigning from the body if it can’t be an eye, is really so ridiculous that it’s rather funny.  The picture of a body made up of nothing but eyes or nothing but ears is ludicrous.  The author is trying to point out that just like in the physical body all the parts work together, so too in the congregation.  No one is most or more important.  And no one is unimportant.  Every part, every piece, every person is needed and welcomed.  And sometimes the parts that seem to be the weakest are actually the strongest. 

          The more mature we become in Christ, the more we realize that throughout our entire life we will continue to need each other.  We complement each other, challenge each other, comfort each other, and communicate with each other.  And within this context we find our Christian identity, our ministry to one another and the world, we find our growth, and our support.  The church is the place where each of us is welcomed and each of us welcomes others.  And finally, what affects one member is felt by all of us.  “If one member suffers, all the members suffer and if one member is honored, all the members rejoice…”

          We welcome and the child, the teenager, the adult and the mature senior and we welcome those who act like us and we welcome the outcast, we welcome the widow and the widower, the worker and the student.  We welcome those with deep, dark skin, and those whose skin is pale.  We welcome those with mobility problems and those who are light of feet.  We welcome those whose past is riddled with pain and a difficult story and we welcome those who seem to be blessed with everything they touch.  We welcome those who question and those who seem to have all the answers.  In other words, we welcome you – because you are part of our body together.

AMEN.