9-30-18
Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our
lord and savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
It’s hard to be a kid these days. First you arrive fresh
from the warm space of your mother’s womb into a cold and blinding world full
of strangers. And it just goes downhill from there. Then it’s learning to walk
and learning the word “no,” getting bumps and scrapes and growing pains, and before
you know it, you’re begging your folks to get you an iPhone 26 and to borrow
the keys to the car. And then, it’s time to look for colleges. And on and on
and on.
Jesus really loves kids. Just read the Gospel of Mark –
it seems that every other story involves a child, whether Jesus is healing them
or welcoming them. And it’s not just the cute and cuddly ones that he likes.
Jesus is always healing the sick ones, the ones who are deathly ill or
possessed by demons. He loves the well-behaved ones and the untamed ones, the
ones that throw tantrums, and I think he has a special place in his heart for
the ones who are always asking questions, unlike the disciples did last week. And
this week picks up right where we left off from last week. In fact, technically
Jesus has not yet put down the little child that he was holding from a week
ago. And the “little ones” he is talking about could be either new to the life
of faith OR little innocent children. Either way, there is a lot at stake in
how we live our lives to model discipleship. Especially when Jesus’s followers
make rules about who gets to speak for God and who doesn’t.
A few weeks ago, I participated in a special project of
an Episcopal pastor colleague of mine, who was realizing her dream of making a
full-length education film about church. But in order to do this, she needed
some pew sitters! So, I volunteer a few hours one Saturday to pretend to be
Episcopalian.
There are so many books to navigate! |
We had an actual worship service, including communion and
a sermon. My friend preached a sermon that she had already given, weeks prior,
during that Infamous Summer of Bread. Remember that? You thought we were done
talking about bread didn’t you!
She told a story about how orphaned children during WWII
were taken care of in refugee camps, where they could receive enough food and
care, and be kept safe. But theses traumatized kids could not sleep at night,
no matter how well they were cared for. Someone had the idea of giving each
child a piece of bread to take with them to bed, so that when they woke up in
the middle of the night, they would be reminded that they were fed that day,
and they would be fed tomorrow too.
Setting up the shots... |
Ironically, the very same text that my friend preached on
was the text for one of the weeks I was NOT preaching this summer… so I had
already heard a sermon on these very
readings…. And in fact, the preacher I heard this summer shared THAT EXACT SAME
STORY in HIS sermon as my friend had in hers. However, to be honest, when my
friend told that story, it me in a totally different way than when I heard it
previously, and I think I know why.
The first time I heard about the kids and the bread, it
was from a pastor in a Lutheran denomination that only recognizes the
ordination of straight men. I observed his story, but I didn’t really hear it –
though he was speaking my language and the sound system was working fine. And
yet, his very presence was a stumbling block to me and my ability to hear the
good news from him.
To me, this pastor represented a branch of our Christian
tradition that has silenced women and continues to silence women and other
groups. This branch of the church has sought to gatekeep the Gospel, in
rejecting that certain types of people can speak for God.
Astonishingly, and kind of frighteningly to me, this
congregation has THOUSANDS of members. When he called up that children for his
children’s sermon during the children’s sermon, at least 30 boys and girls came
forward. I wondered at the stumbling blocks that this pastor was putting before
half of his congregation, what he would say within earshot of these little ones.
I know for a fact that HE would never tell the girls that THEY TOO could be
pastors.
Professor and writer Karoline Lewis writes: “When we
place stumbling blocks in the paths of those trying to answer God’s call … we are effectively silencing them.”
And this silencing and tripping up began right from the
start, pretty much. Jesus’ disciple John said to him, with the child still in
Jesus’ arms: “Teacher, we saw SOMEONE ELSE… who is NOT US or LIKE US, doing
good work in your name. And we told them to stop, because they are not approved
by us.” These are words that were said within earshot of this child. And if Jesus
would not have intervened, this child might have grown up thinking that only
certain people can do the work of God, and only under certain circumstances. Does
this sound like the message that Jesus has been trying to teach for the last 9
chapters of Mark?
Instead, Jesus reminds his disciples, this child, and us,
that whoever is not against us is for us. Which is a word that is sorely needed
in our world today. Whoever is not against Jesus’s message of love and
inclusion for all of God’s children, is FOR Jesus and is contributing to the arrival
of God’s kingdom.
The second petition of the Lord’s Prayer is “your kingdom
come.” – meaning God’s kingdom. Martin Luther explains that the meaning in this
way: “in fact, God’s kingdom comes on its own without our prayer, but we ask in
this prayer that it may also come to us.” Daily we must ask ourselves, am I
hindering of helping the coming of God’s kingdom? How do we prevent ourselves
from becoming stumbling blocks to the younger ones in the faith, the ones who
look up to us as role models in our walk following Jesus? And how do we keep
from making this mistake fresh, through the ages?
I heard of an interesting example of this from a pastor
colleague – how one man is trying to prevent the past repeating itself by
creating his own literal stumbling blocks. An artist in Germany that has been
laying thousands of small brass bricks in streets in German cities, and in Austria,
Hungary, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Norway and Ukraine. Each
brick is labeled with the name and date of death of a Holocaust victim outside
their last known address. Locals and tourists alike will occasionally get
tripped up on the bricks, called Stolperstein, or literally "stumbling
stones.” The big Holocaust museums are important, but you can choose to not go
to them. But you really can’t avoid the past when you stub your toe on it. Walking down the street on your normal day, “suddenly
they are there... at your feet.”
This effort has been fairy controversial, but the artist Guenther
Demnig persists, because, as he says, “we must keep the memory alive, and
learn from our history, so that it doesn’t happen again.” Maybe history doesn’t
repeat itself, as Mark Twain is thought to have said, but it just might rhyme.
We stand by and watch as “our hands” keep harming these
little ones, until we have the boldness in Jesus’ name renounce them, as we
renounce the powers of evil in our baptismal liturgy. Same with feet that are
taking us away from the path of the Gospel. The same with eyes that too often
look backward to the past, or toward a future with only certain people given
access to God’s love… Jesus says the harsh words that they must be removed.
Because the Body of Christ might in fact BE MORE WHOLE… if we are a little more
intolerant of the intolerant, the closed-off, and the scarcity-minded… willing
to cut them off for the sake of the rest
of the body… especially for the sake of those who are vulnerable, for children,
for those who are not believed when they seek justice, and those who are
powerless and helpless.
A verse we heard from Psalm 19 is one spoken before many-a
sermon or homily. “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be
acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” And, I might be so bold to
add to this prayer, “May the words
of our mouths, and the meditation of our hearts, AND the actions of our hands,
feet, and EYES… be acceptable to you, O Lord.” May this be our prayer always.
AMEN.
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