Hi everyone,
Welcome to worship on this 18th Sunday after Pentecost, landing on September 22, 2024!
The bulletin for this service can be found here. You can use it to follow along with the order and words of worship, as well as the full sermon. Alternatively, you can just follow along with the words that will appear on your screen and with the sermon that is included on this page beneath the video of the service.
For an enhanced online worship experience, you are invited to have a candle in your space, lit at the beginning of the service and extinguished near the end when the altar candles are extinguished. And you are also welcome to participate in communion if you are comfortable, by having something small to eat and drink prepared. More instruction will be given at the appropriate time of the service.
May God’s unending love and presence fill you with joy and peace, now and always!
May your wisdom, O God, land in our hearts and minds this day, that by your Spirit we be set free to hear and heed to your call into community, service, and your kingdom, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me,” Jesus says. So basically he’s saying that we should welcome kids? Well, I have news for you, Jesus. We don’t have a problem with welcoming kids, our problem is that the kids don’t come. If only we had a pastor or musician that had young kids that would actually come to church, am I right? Because if we had kids here, I’m pretty sure we’d welcome the heck out of them. We can’t exactly do what Jesus did in this gospel reading, pull a random kid out of thin air…
Anyway, this has to be one of the easiest of Jesus’ commands to complete, right? Most of us would easily welcome kids with open arms. How could we not? Kids can be cute, fun to play with, and they seem to love the same toys that I love. Kids can be hilarious, say the darnedest things, and without even trying they make me feel super smart. Kids remind us of a simpler time when we had less responsibilities and stress and they often have an uncanny ability of bringing us joy. Sure, maybe we prefer if kids would be quieter, a bit tidier, and a little less snotty, but it’s not like we’re Vulgaria from the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and would totally ban kids or something like that. So yeah, I think we, especially us in this church, would have an easy time welcoming kids like Jesus asks us to.
It’s the kid’s parents that I have issue with.
No one here, of course, but I’m talking about those random parents that have no control over their kids that I come across at the mall when I’m shopping for those toys. Or those parents that are too busy on their phones around pick up time at our child care groups here at the church to corral their really distracting and screamy kids that run up and down the ramp that connects our front door to the parking lot, while I’m just sitting in my office trying to get some work done. And don’t even get me started with the parents at the morning drop off time at school.
Actually, too late, I already got going. I’ve complained about this before, you know, the woes of dropping the kids off right before the bell. More like the woes of dealing with the other parent drivers who are dropping their kids off right before the bell. I mean really, if there is a spot, take it. If there is a way around the traffic, then go that way. But whatever you do, do NOT stop in the middle of the road or parking lot to let your kids out, especially when there’s already a line up of cars behind you trying to do the same exact thing. No offense to anyone here who might drive that way, but seriously, I don’t think anyone would really know that level of frustration until they fully experience the chaos that happens between 8:50 and 8:56 around our kids’ school.
Actually, you know who doesn’t feel this frustration? These parent drivers that I’m talking about. It’s like they’re completely oblivious to the inconvenience and hair pulling that they are causing around them. I mean, it’s great for them for being a bad driver. It’s just that… it isn’t great for me, because I’m not one.
So I guess I’m glad that Jesus asks us to welcome kids, and not their parents. Because I don’t know if I could handle the parents.
But then, if we take in consideration the culture of that time, children weren’t seen as the cute and cuddly little people that we see them as today. They weren’t the funny, fun, say-the-darnedest-things type that they are now. They for sure weren’t regarded back then as they are regarded in our time, as the centers of our world, as the light in our eyes, as our future that we need to teach well and let lead the way. You know, so we can show them all the beauty they possess inside…
No, in those days children would land very squarely in the “seen but not heard” category, except they weren’t really seen much either. The kids had no rights, no voice, they weren’t even seen as humans until they reach the age of adulthood. So very different from today.
So thinking about that, Jesus telling his disciples to welcome these kids was a big deal. It was sort of a counter cultural thing, because these kids wouldn’t even be at the same events as the adults to even be welcomed. It would have been a foreign concept for them as they may not have even interacted with a kid since they were kids themselves. It wouldn’t have been as easy for them as it would be for us.
Maybe it’d be as hard for them to welcome kids as it would be for us to welcome those parents that annoy us, those people that can’t control their children, those folk who can’t drive worth a darn.
Suddenly I can see why Jesus’ words were so hard to swallow back in those days.
Still, maybe some of you think that still isn’t that hard. That you can welcome those poor-driving-parents. But I wonder if there is a people group, a type of person, a certain demographic that you would have a hard time welcoming. Maybe it’s someone who acts in a way that you never would act. Maybe it’s a group that hails from a different nation, different church, different political slant. Or maybe it’s the really rich who don’t show any type of accountability when they do what they do and say what they say online and beyond.
It’d be harder to welcome those people, right? We might have to muster all of our morality and ethical strength to pull that off. We might have to really lean on our faith and trust that Jesus knows what he’s talking about here.
Because if you think about it, this conflict that we have with others, these times that we complain about those we might or might not encounter, these people that we have a hard time welcoming, it’s all about who we think is the greatest, isn’t it? Sure, we might not go out and literally argue with them about who should be considered the greatest and all that, but our disapproval for a lot of things comes out of our thoughts and feelings of superiority, doesn’t it?
Like, we complain about this person because they don’t do things the way we do them… you know, the right way. Or we feel frustrated with the actions of this group because that isn’t how we would act, which is the only proper way of course. Or we have a hard time welcoming a certain demographic because we’ve equated them as completely inferior, not as great or smart as we are, unworthy of even being welcomed.
And to that, Jesus says that we need to be a servant to all. Huh. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d rather just welcome children. But Jesus telling us to serve others actually helps us to see how all are worthy, us and those who aren’t us, alike. By saying the first is last isn’t a confusion of terms or positions, but it is abolishing those terms and positions altogether. That’s why Jesus materializes a kid out of nowhere and tells them to welcome such a child. Because in doing so we’ll see that we are them, and they are us, and we are all in this together in the great grand scheme of life.
But it’s still hard, isn’t it. We like to belong in a hierarchy because then we are praised for what we deserve and recognised for what we do. We can clearly look down on who is below us and puff out our chest when we’re like those above us. We get a sense of accomplishment when we successfully climb that ladder.
But Jesus is telling us that it isn’t about who is at the top rung of that ladder. It isn’t about ranking each other. It isn’t about besting others in order to be called the greatest. But it’s about service to show how all have worth. It’s about the grace to acknowledge that our way might not always be the only right way. It’s about the love that we can show others as it was first shown to us.
Shown to us as expansive, wholistic, and inclusive. Shown to us as universal, unconditional, and grace-filled. Shown to us as a parent loves their child.
So as we continue in this season after Pentecost, may we always see and recognise the value and worth in others, not because of what they have done or can do, but because God has selected them to be God’s children and joint-heirs to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God. Amen.