Christ Episcopal Church
September 23, 2012
20 Proper B
When I was a child, I loved going to church. We did not go to church as a family-rather my mom dropped the three children off at the little Presbyterian Church close to our house and our parents enjoyed some peace and quiet at home by themselves. And, as I have told you before, Mom always gave each of us 25 cents for the offering plate, because, as she said in 1965, you shouldn’t pay less than a quarter for good babysitting.
What I loved about church was that the playing field was leveled there. Church did not require a person to be athletic, which I was not, smart, which I was not, outgoing, which I was not, or any of the other qualities the world thought a person should have. Church was a place where people were happy to see us just because we were there. We could sing in the choir without tryouts, sit in Sunday School and say nothing, and no one chose teams for games of any sort. There were pictures of Jesus, who seemed to like children and sheep, arts and crafts that required more glue than skill, and some nice grown ups to make sure we all shared at snack time. Church was a place where we felt accepted and valued as children of God.
At Christ Church, we try to give children this same sort of experience. In the words from the baptismal service, we work hard to bring our children up in the Christian life and faith, and to help our children grow into the full stature of Christ. We have wonderfully decorated rooms for Sunday School, nurseries for the babies and younger children, and many adults committed to working with them. We have a Director of Christian Education and college students who work with our middle school and high school youth. On Sunday morning, our youth serve as lectors, ushers, greeters, and acolytes, and even our youngest parishioners are invited to bring the bread and wine to the altar at the offertory. We welcome neighborhood children to Christ Church for Reading Camp in the summer and treat them as the children of God that they are. We offer Safe Church training on a regular basis so that we offer the safest environment possible for our children.
So, when I see Jesus take a little child in his arms and hear him say "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and who ever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me," I am so much happier than last week when we heard Jesus say "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel will save it." That sounds hard. Welcoming children is easy. Not only can we do that, we already do.
However, this is not what Jesus is talking about. Jesus is not talking about 21st century children. Jesus is talking about 1st century children. In the first century, children were liabilities, not assets. Sixty percent of all children did not make it to their 16th birthday, so parents had many children in order to have a few survive. Children had no rights; no status. If an adult male needed an heir, he adopted another adult to inherit his wealth, not a child. Children ranked below women and only slightly above slaves. So, for Jesus, an adult male, to bring someone from the very margins of society right into his own arms was outrageous. For Jesus to tell the disciples that whoever welcomed one such child in Jesus’ name, welcomed him, and welcomed the God who sent him was an abomination
The gospel lesson begins with Jesus’ prediction that he will be betrayed into human hands, be killed, and three days after being killed, rise again. We are told that the disciples did not understand what Jesus was saying but were afraid to ask. Their lack of understanding is emphasized when their immediate response to Jesus’ prediction of his suffering and death is to argue among themselves about which one of them is the greatest. Jesus settles their argument by telling them that whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all. Taking the child into his arms is an object lesson of sorts, to emphasize his point about the last being first. But Jesus is doing much more than simply settling an argument among his disciples and teaching them about true greatness. Jesus is teaching them the appropriate response to his teaching that he will be betrayed, killed and rise again. The appropriate response is not to argue over who will get first class tickets and reserved seating. The faithful response to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection is radical hospitality. The faithful response is to imitate the radical hospitality of God, in which Jesus gives his life for the life of the world, a world that betrayed him, rejected him, and handed him over to death and God’s response is to redeem the world nonetheless.
The reading from Proverbs and the reading from James both speak to this radical hospitality. The reading from Proverbs, when taken by itself, looks like a hopelessly outdated job description for the over worked, and probably exhausted, perfect wife and mother. However, the description given of the capable wife mirrors the description of Wisdom in the second and third chapters of Proverbs, making the description of the capable wife more the personification of wisdom than a description of a living, breathing human being. And what does Wisdom personified do? Wisdom provides hospitality, food and shelter and kindness, to both her family, which are the members of her community, as well as reaching out her hand to offer hospitality to those outside the fold, to the poor and needy. Example is piled upon example in this passage to show the depth of the hospitality Wisdom offers.
The letter from James describes a hospitality that is peaceable, gentle, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. Conflicts and disputes, we are told, come from selfish ambition, or the opposite of radical hospitality. A community that is torn by strife and disagreement is not capable of genuine and radical hospitality. But a community infused with the wisdom from above, which is pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy, is able to welcome everyone from each other to the total stranger, with equal warmth and hospitality.
Jesus calls us to make our response to his suffering, death, and resurrection a radical hospitality, not arguing over who is the greatest, or who is right, or even who is the most hospitable, but welcoming and serving the least likely, the 21st century equivalent of the 1st century child, by bringing them into our arms as Jesus took that child into his. Jesus calls us to a life of radical hospitality, because radical hospitality is the faithful response to the gospel.
Amen.
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