By Danish artist Carl Heinrich Bloch, "Suffer the Little Children"
My Sisters and Brothers:
Today’s Gospel reading is one of my favorites (see Mark 9:30-37). In it we hear Jesus proclaim the following words: “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” And then, to demonstrate what he had said, Jesus took a small child into his arms and he then said the following: “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.” We’ve all seen beautiful illustrations depicting this event; it’s something we might regularly encounter depicted in stained-glass windows. Jesus is usually surrounded by small children, some of whom are sitting on his lap and others around whom Jesus places his warm embrace. We love this image because it makes us feel good, and it assures us that Jesus loves the little children! But if we focus only on the sweetness of that picture of Jesus with all those innocent children, then we risk really missing the point of the lesson his words were meant to teach.
We need to remember that at the time of Jesus any sense of a “legal status within society” for children was essentially non-existent. Although there’s no doubt they were typically loved and cherished by their parents, children were essentially without societal “rights” and/or “privileges,” as we might expect and demand in our own time. Within that very patriarchal society, and as with wives, livestock, land, and other material possessions, children were more-or-less considered to be “the property” of their fathers. They were definitely “to be seen, and not to be heard.” There was no need to acknowledge them and/or to show them any kind of deference or respect. This would have been demonstrated and “channeled” only through whatever deference or respect was shown to their fathers by others. In other words: Children weren’t given “the time of day” by people outside their immediate families. The down-side to this was there was no communal sense of any need for the “protection of children.” Everyone assumed this to be completely under the control of their fathers. And so, if a child was maltreated within a family, there was essentially no way for that negative situation to be alleviated. Unfortunately, there were no “Child Protective Services” at work during the time Jesus preached and worked miracles in those cities and towns of Galilee.
Jesus proclaimed: “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me!” When he said this, his audience was undoubtedly astounded! Because he focused on children as his subject in that teaching moment, they likely would have completely understood the very dramatic statement he in fact had made. And so, the real message of Jesus was the following: “In my name, if you show respect and affirm the dignity of the voiceless, the poor, the marginalized, the outcasts, and anyone without stature in society, then you will surely receive not just me but the Father in heaven who sent me!”
In our own time, all people have rights, privileges, and legal statuses within our society (and we might say this is especially true of children as we desire to give them voice in times of difficulties, and we wish to always protect them from any possibility of abuse and/or harm). But we really need to try to understand the contrary situation at the time of Jesus. In those days, those who were among the many types of “outcasts” were summarily “dismissed,” and therefore they were thought to be unworthy of attention and respect. Certainly, they were not worthy of receiving the love of the Father in Heaven. And Jesus clearly taught otherwise!
And so, we must ask: “Who are those considered to be the marginalized and the pariahs in our own time?” Jesus teaches us today that such people are always, and with love, to be received by the “the One who sent him.” These are the ones for whom Jesus wants us to be “servants.” That means we are to be “servants” of those who are “different than us,” and of those whom we might have concluded are “sinners” and “unworthy of our attention.” This is a very “tall order” but one for which we are obligated if we wish to consider ourselves to be disciples of the Lord Jesus!
My friends, let’s encourage and admonish each other with this message! And may we always treat all others with respect and dignity. And “all others” means “all others!”
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