Sermon for 2003 September 21, 8 a.m. Communion, St Mary Magdalen, Sheet

Bible readings: Jeremiah 11:18-20, Mark 9:30-37

The welfare and safety of children is never far from our headlines. Education, the social services, child protection, these are all in the news. We have this complete review of government policy on children, so that there might never (we pray) be another case like that of poor little Victoria Climbié. We now need to have so many rules to protect children that it really does seem that this simple act, of Jesus taking a child in his arms to demonstrate an act of welcome, somehow belongs to a lost innocent age. Any children not our own flesh and blood it now seems we have to have a rather formal arm’s length relationship with. We may feel (as I do) some regret about this; we may even tut-tut at some of the bureaucracy that now surrounds our dealings with children. Or we may feel (as I also do, reluctantly) that the rules are a necessary sledgehammer approach to make sure that children are protected. This debate will rumble on and on, and like most such debates will probably neglect children themselves, especially their spiritual needs. Jesus does not neglect their spiritual needs. He says, Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.

There’s no doubt that this episode with the child conjures up a powerful image. For me, I have to admit, this episode can easily get confused with the story in the next chapter of Mark’s gospel, where Jesus rebukes his disciples for stopping the children coming to him, the message there being whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it. That’s not the message here; here we are being told that it is our attitude to children that matters. Though, in fact, I don’t think today’s reading is actually about children at all. It is really about service.

Now Jesus has just come down from the mountain where three privileged disciples of his had seen the glorious transfiguration that came to him. And maybe because some of them had been singled out, they were now arguing who was the greatest. I have just returned from a conference of mainly academic people and without wishing to condemn the academic world (because I am sort of part of that world), a conference like that is a good reminder that it is not just money that drives people (there is after all not much of that to go round in academia), but also one’s standing, or status, is pretty important. There’s no doubt that it is one of the great motivators for human activity. But Jesus’ disciples were rightly pretty ashamed about that kind of talk. And Jesus turns it on its head. Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all. As always, every word there is important. You must be last of all, yes, but not for the sake of it. Last of all and servant of all. And this is where the child comes in. I rather think that it could have been any one of many sorts of people that Jesus could have used for his visual aid. You see, the disciples’ conversation was all to do with status, with getting on, meeting the right people. The child Jesus takes into his arms is the antidote to all that. Since his moment of glory on the mountain, Jesus has already healed a mere boy, changed his life completely, and here are the disciples still arguing about who is the greatest. But it could have have been anyone. A child in his arms, the woman at the well, the leper, the despised tax collector. Not one of these people was going to advance Jesus’ status.

But there is a supreme irony that we see time and time again, in the Old and New Testaments and today. Jeremiah, in our first reading: he is perscuted, at odds with his people, sometimes even railing against God himself. And yet without seeking it he becomes one of the greatest of all the prophets. It struck me on hearing that reading how many of his phrases come over as his contribution to the collective memory of all people: I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter; Let us cut him off from the land of the living; To you I have committed my cause. Houeshold phrases. But what brought that greatness to Jeremiah was his attitude of service in speaking God’s word to his people. It didn’t come easily to him – he even accused God of deceiving him and said those words which are certainly special to me and probably to any preacher: If I say, "I will not mention him or speak any more in his name," there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.

It’s the same with the disciples. I had the great privilege to prepare this sermon, when I’d had enough of papers on Markov Random Fields and Lapped Orthogonal Transforms, sitting high above the wonderful city of Barcelona where the conference was held and looking down to that wonderful church of Gaudí, the Sagrada Familia. The church is going to have twelve bell towers, eight of them have been completed, and they are the most exquiste things, an incredible shape and pattern of construction, topped with amazing colours. And why twelve? One for each of the Apostles, there they are, dominating the capital of Catalonia. They truly did obtain greatness, but it was despite their attitude on that day, not because of it. It came about as for Jeremiah through service and by the grace of God.

Of course, most of all we see the irony in Jesus himself. He really did have the chance to be famous, to obtain power and status , by the conventional route. He appears in dazzling white on that mountain – and then what does he do? He continues his life of love and service to his fellow human beings, and for the second time he tells his friends the truth, that he will be betrayed, and will suffer and die. But there is that amazing twist. Everything he has done and said is to prepare him for that terrible event, and yet he is able to add that he will rise again on the third day. Well, you could say that sounds like he is making a bit of a status claim for himself. But I think that would be to miss out on a greater truth. The consequence of this life of service, of welcoming the humble little child into his arms, of turning his back on comparisons and arguments, of setting his face to the cross and the ultimate service of his Father, the consequence of all this is life. Everlasting life. Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all. Maybe we should not after all be ashamed of wanting to be first, as long as we can see what the path involves. Last of all, and servant of all regardless of how irrelevant they may seem to our status and standing in society. To go all-out to seek such status is a bankrupt aim. Our aim, I pray, through being last and the servant of all, is to choose life!

© Mike Knee, 2003