Last week, Pastor Tim led us in thinking about the lines we draw as human beings--some are lines of conscience, some are boundaries that keep us and others healthy and safe, and some don’t need to be drawn, or are drawn out of fear, anger, or bigotry. Today, our Scripture continues with this theme of drawing lines. 

This passage comes after a long discussion with the disciples while traveling into the region of Judea. First, the disciples had been obsessed with what Jesus had been talking about when predicting his future betrayal. Then they were arguing about who would be the greatest in the kin-dom of heaven, to which Jesus responded that whoever welcomes children will be welcome in heaven. Then after that, as Pastor Tim preached about last week, the disciples were frustrated that they didn’t have the power to heal someone suffering from possession...to which Jesus responded that they had missed the point entirely! Jesus’ closest followers had been so obsessed with looking good and getting credit for doing the healings, that they had totally skipped over the fact that healing was taking place at all! 

So then, as we move into chapter 10, we read that as the travelers entered Judea, Jesus was met with crowds of people, including some folks who wanted to test his knowledge of the law in the scriptures. Interestingly, they asked about the legality of divorce...to which Jesus does a typical Jesus-y thing and turns the question back on them. The questioner responds that it is legal for a man to divorce his wife. Then, Jesus turns from the legal towards the ethical and theological implications of this question...and while there is much to be studied in this pericope, that is best left to another sermon. What I wish to emphasize for now is that Jesus was not concerned with only what is permissible via the law, but what is ethical towards fellow humans created in the image of God. 

And wow! If we don’t have similar questions today!

Then comes our Scripture for today, Mark chapter 10: 13-16: 

“13 People were bringing children to Jesus so that he would bless them. But the disciples scolded them. 14 When Jesus saw this, he grew angry and said to them, “Allow the children to come to me. Don’t forbid them, because God’s kingdom belongs to people like these children. 15 I assure you that whoever doesn’t welcome God’s kingdom like a child will never enter it.” 16 Then he hugged the children and blessed them.”

On this World Communion Sunday, after a few weeks of considering how humans divide ourselves into groups, how we draw lines of inclusion and exclusion, how we categorize people into belonging and not-belonging, I find myself grateful for this text--simple, straightforward, clear. Right? Jesus welcomes children. Children are blessed. To them the kin-dom of God belongs. We get it, right? No further explanation needed? 

Well....no. You might have figured out by now, whether you are new to attending church or whether you have been a Christian your whole life, either way,  you may have figured out that things are rarely that simple with Jesus. His teachings and preachings are filled with moments like this one, where he makes a simple statement that causes you to think and ponder and wonder until you realize how profound it really is. 

The disciples, those who had traveled with Jesus on his journey around the region, who had listened to him teach and who had witnessed his healing miracles, these same disciples tried to prevent children from coming near to Jesus. They should know better, right? 

Well, maybe not. Children in that time did not have much power: social, political, religious or economic. Children of the lower classes were often laborers, with no educational opportunities. Childhood ended early. And so what did children have to do with the kin-dom of God? What value did children have, if they distracted the adults, if they distracted Jesus, from the work that really needed to be done? 

This is what sets Jesus apart--Jesus welcomes children into the crowd of listeners, and is even angry, or indignant toward those who sought to keep the young ones away. William B. McClain in the commentary Preaching God’s Transforming Justice, writes,

“Jesus...not only says that children are important in the realm, but uses them as examples of citizenship in the realm.” Then, speaking from personal experience, “There was a similar attitude in the civil rights movement of the 1960s—especially in Birmingham, Alabama. After the children were allowed to come and participate in public demonstrations, the adults in the movement were much more prepared to face fire hoses, police dogs, cattle prods, and other instruments of cruelty and pain. The adults became more courageous because the children came—a fact of history often ignored.”

Jesus welcomed the children because he knew they were integral to the movement. They were not distractions to be kept out, they did not dilute the “real” work that Jesus was trying to do, they were not “too young” to understand...in fact, their presence and their way of being would model to the fledgling Jesus movement how relationships in the kin-dom of God would be. As William B. McClain said, “the adults became more courageous because the children came.” Amen to that. 

Have you ever been kind of nervous about doing something, and then a child did it and their courage emboldened you? I know I have! That’s honestly probably a big reason I’m here with you today-- because a child encouraged me to live into my call, because a child showed me the kin-dom of God.

As I grow older, and experience that weird out-of-sync feeling as I watch social media progress and realize I don’t understand as many pop culture references as I used to, I find myself looking to those younger than me for guidance. Sometimes this is rather humorous and endearing, like last spring when the Youth Group showed me and Brooke their favorite videos on the TikTok social media platform, because we wanted to know what they were watching and what was interesting to these teenagers--because we love them! 

But other times, when I look to younger people for guidance, it is when I ask questions like these: What is Gen Z (the teens today) thinking about capitalism and work-life-balance and rest? How are teenagers talking about racial justice in their schools and in our political system? What social media trends are raising awareness to indigenous peoples’ lives and transgender rights and voter suppression? How did school-age kids become so educated about gender identity and gender expression and sexual orientation? And then, my follow-up questions...can you help me know what you know? Will you please recommend resources that have helped you? I want to care about what you care about. 

Friends, this thought from Rev. Osagyefo Sekou’s Romney Lecture two weeks ago continues to move me and call me in. Rev. Sekou said something like “understanding is not a prerequisite for compassion.” We might not understand someone else, their life experiences, their worries and fears and hopes and dreams, but we do not need to understand in order to live with compassion towards them. I do not need to know the most up-to-date slang or understand the trend of 90s flare jeans coming back into fashion in order to care about the kids and teens and young adults in my life, or in order to take them seriously when they ask me to pay attention to climate change or antiracism. And neither do you need to understand all these things. Simply paying attention to a child, and refraining from hindering them from living their authentic lives, will go a long way. 

Do we care about what children care about? Do we know what children care about? For some of you who are children in the pews and watching online today, I wonder what you see going on in the world that you want to affect, or to change? What do you want grown-ups to know about what life is like for you? How can grown-ups help take action on the topics that you care about? 

Again, from the Preaching God’s Transforming Justice commentary, William B. McClain says,

“In our world, in which we become so used to cruelties, so familiar with so many evils, we can easily become indifferent unless an injury happens directly to us or to those dearest to us. By comparison, it is humbling to compare the things about which Jesus became indignant: money changing in the temple; when the crowd sought to discourage the woman who sought to anoint Jesus for burial and he cried ‘let her alone!’; indifference to human need; the callous attitude of his disciples...that would keep children away.” 

When Jesus got wind of the disciples blocking children from getting to him, Jesus became “indignant.” Didn’t the disciples know better? They should, right? How many times did Jesus need to tell them to treasure children and welcome them, to center them and listen to them and care about what children care about? Apparently at least once more.

I would venture a guess that we know that feeling, too, right? That feeling of exasperation, that throwing-hands-in-the-air moment of “how many times do we have to do this?”, that feeling of “why are we still talking about this?”, that feeling of “haven’t we done enough yet? Can we move on?”

Note that this is different from the desperate, prophetic yearning of “how long, O Lord, must we wait,” as that is voiced by people longing for deliverance from oppression...whereas these disciples are concerned with power and status, and keep forgetting the children that Jesus prioritizes. 

Church, have you ever experienced the feelings these disciples are dealing with? Have you wondered, “why are we still talking about race in 2021?” or “we’ve done a lot for lesbian and gay people in this city, isn’t that enough?” or “the USA has its own problems, why are we focusing on Cuba or Haiti or Ghana or Korea?” If you have ever had similar thoughts, friends, listen again to what Jesus tells his disciples. 

“God’s kin-dom belongs to children such as these.” 

This Scripture is not saying that only those young in age can access the kin-dom of God. It’s not saying that only children are worthy of being Christ-followers. It’s not saying that children are the salvation of the Church. Beloveds, we are all God’s children, you and me and that family member who annoys you and that pretentious head of state and the child you see on the milk carton and the people you watch on the evening news. And what grieves any number of God’s children should grieve all God’s children. This Scripture is calling us today to recognize the way to be the kin-dom is by welcoming all God’s children, and by including them and providing a place for them to belong, and by celebrating their experiences and their gifts and their vision, and by embracing the leadership of children who have been pushed to the margins of society by the powerful. 

Beloveds, moving from welcoming to including to affirming to celebrating all God’s children is a challenge--we are human, we are not perfect, we have much to learn. But it is a task that gives me hope, because I, and because we, have seen glimmers of success that spur us forward. 

Here is what the dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School, my alma mater, Rev. Dr. emilie townes says about challenge and hope: 

“To combine challenge with hope is powerful. For together they enable us to press onward when we feel like giving up; to draw strength from the future to live in a discouraging present. Challenge and hope make it possible for us to see the world, not only as it is, but also as it can be; to move us to new places and turn us into a new people.

For there is something about challenge yoked with hope, when it is grounded in living for tomorrow as we live for today, that is solid enough to sustain our lives and overcome skepticism and doubt. But it is frightening because we know that loving and caring for others and ourselves interrupts the mundane and comfortable in us, and calls to us to move beyond ourselves and accept a new agenda for living. Hope cannot simply be given a nod of recognition, for it demands not only a contract from us; but covenant and commitment. When we truly live in this deep-walking hope, then we must order and shape our lives in ways that are not always predictable, not always safe, rarely conventional, and protests with prophetic fury the sins of a world (and sometimes theological worldviews) that encourage us to separate our bodies from our spirits, our minds from our hearts, our beliefs from our action.”

Our church has a long history of progressive theology and action in the Seattle community, and within American Baptist Life. This church is known for doing some powerful witnessing--showing solidarity with our Japanese siblings during the time of Internment; becoming one of the first ABC-USA congregations to openly affirm same-gender marriage and the leadership of queer ministers; and much more. And if it did not have that history, if some of you had not participated in that history, would any of us be here? I wouldn’t! 

But I don’t think that history is all our faith wants from us, all that this community of Seattle First Baptist Church is called to do. I think Jesus sees us doing our thing and says, “Yes, keep going!” but then Jesus also sees other churches doing their thing and says, “Yes, keep going!” and then sees folks not in churches but still doing the work of justice and says “Yes, keep going!” There are many people doing great work around us, in their corner of the world, and there are many who are calling out to us “see me! Listen to me! Join me!” Friends, this is good news--when we encounter an injustice that we feel called to speak into, we do not have to reinvent the wheel! We do not have to remain content in our privileged position as a moderately-wealthy, downtown, historic church with an endowment, trying to figure out our specific response to issues of the time. We can let go of our pride and admit that maybe someone else has a more effective way of confronting an issue we care about--and we can ask to join them! We can reach out to our siblings in the Evergreen Region, or in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, or in the Faith Action Network, and we can say “we are all children of the Holy--what work are you doing that we can support?” 

This very Scripture today is calling us to continue moving forward, spurred on by the rich legacy of this historic church-- so let the children, those without power, those who have been pushed to the margins by the will and/or apathy of those hanging onto power in the center---let them come! Let them come to us, asking to be heard and encountering people who will sit a spell and listen to them. Let them come to us, asking for resources to keep movements for justice alive and strong, and encountering people who say “yes, how much do you need?” and “how can I help?” and “where can I drop off these items?” Let them come to us, challenging us to be serious about what we say about ourselves, and may they encounter in this community people who do what we say, that is, people who are united in the cause of following the Way of Jesus. And let us go to them. And let us recognize that some among our number, some in this gathering today, are those who have been or are currently experiencing oppression. The “them” is “us.”

Let us be present in each other’s lives. Let us not hinder each other by questioning each other’s experiences or downplaying each other’s traumas or stereotyping each other. Instead, let us practice welcoming all God’s children by welcoming those who are already here, by listening to each other, by learning from each other, by trying something new, by humbling ourselves and saying “I didn’t know that. Thank you” when something is pointed out to us. Let us welcome opportunities for that sacred conversion, that holy “changing hearts and minds” Jesus often preached about, that reorientation to the world that the disciples had to do when Jesus welcomed the children among them. 

On this World Communion Sunday, remember that we are all God’s children. We are each created in God’s image, beautiful and beloved beyond all knowing. There is nothing any of us can do to make God ashamed of us, or that will make us unworthy of God’s love. And each of us has the power to be present in the world looking for God’s image wherever we go--in the person sitting next to you in the pew, in that one guy who annoys the crap out of you, in your grandmother, in your grandchild, in your taxi driver and in the people you read about in the paper and the people you hear about halfway across the world.

Given that we are all God’s children, and given that Jesus called his followers to not prevent any of the children from coming to him, and given that Jesus blessed the children--hear this:

You are blessed by the Heart of the Holy One. 

Come to this table, as you are, perfectly imperfect, and re-member your true nature as one made in the image of God. 

Come to this table, all of you, and here, let us re-member our community, coming together as one body united in following the Way of Love.

Come to this table, anyone who will, and remember you are connected, we are connected, with people from across time and space as we share this meal together today. 

Let us dedicate ourselves to knowing better and doing better, as the poet Maya Angelou says, so all God’s children can experience the radical hospitality, joyful abundance and deep belonging that characterizes the kin-dom of the Holy. 

May it be so. Amen. 

This sermon originally preached for Seattle First Baptist Church on October 9, 2021.