'Some Pharisees came, and to test Jesus
they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them,
“What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a
certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” But Jesus said to them, “Because
of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the
beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man
shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall
become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God
has joined together, let no one separate.”
Then in the house the
disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces
his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces
her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
People were bringing little
children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke
sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them,
“Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as
these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not
receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” And he took
them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.'
--Mark 10: 2-16
I would be remiss if I did not comment on how difficult this Gospel is, as Jesus unpacks the Levitical law regarding divorce. Three years ago I wrote on this part of the Gospel, but this year the Spirit was leading me to focus more on that last paragraph, on a part of the text that I left untouched for y’all the last time around. So if you’d like to know my thoughts on the divorce piece, I invite you to check out my blog post from October 5, 2015, which you can find here My wife Kristen also has written an excellent piece on the divorce for the blog Modern Metanoia . As for today, I’d like to invite us to unpack what Jesus means when he talks about children and the Kingdom of God.
A typical storybook image of Jesus and little children.
For the last three weeks Jesus has used small children as part of his teachings. Two weeks ago it was a child that he took in his arms and placed among those gathered, saying, : “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” Last week, as he reminded folks that whoever is not against us is for us, he pointed to the children in the crowd and said: “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.” Clearly, Jesus wants people to honor the children among them as full and equal members and co-recipients of the Kingdom of God. Perhaps this is why the actions of the disciples, who instinctively brush the children aside, seems so harsh.
We have to remember that, as usual, the disciples are not entirely wrong when they try to prohibit the children from coming to Jesus. They are merely enforcing their social norms. No parent would let a child interrupt a rabbi when he was speaking; after all, it's just plain rude. What's more, it was a poor reflection on the parents themselves, much more so than the children. So by trying to stop the children the disciples do what they always do: they act in accordance with how their society would expect folks to act. And once again their behavior illustrates that the disciples just don’t get it. They fail once more to understand that one of the major points of Jesus’ ministry is the inclusion of everyone, especially those on the margins. And it isn't just about children. To welcome the children means also welcoming their mothers, who, let’s not forget, would not have been offered the same privilege as men to sit and listen to this great rabbi Thus, Jesus' action flings the doors of the Kingdom wide open! It is to such as these that the Kingdom of God belongs.
Such as what, exactly? Modern readers have a tendency to romanticize Jesus’ words about children; we look at a child and we use words like ‘innocent’ or ‘loving’ or ‘sweet’ to describe their behavior. The Kingdom must then belong to folks who exhibit these qualities, we might say, but ancient societies, including that of Jesus, lacked such romantic notions of childhood. We must understand that children were not considered people. Not yet, anyway. Women and children both were treated as property belonging to the pater families. When the disciples dismiss the children they are not, in their view or the views of others, dismissing cute little innocent people, but rather they're dismissing non-people. The child in antiquity was radically dependent upon the parent, even more so than a child today might be; in fact, the father often decided whether the child would even be accepted into the family, which is why it was not uncommon for deformed children to be dismissed from their homes altogether. Children belonged to their father and remained so even into early adulthood, especially if they were female, in which case she belonged to the father until being given away to her her husband, at which point she became his property. The point Jesus is making is that the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these, to those who are considered non-people, who have no rights and privileges of their own and are completely dependent upon others for their needs.
This is the great teaching for the disciples. They are being challenged by Jesus's words about receiving the Kingdom as a child to identify with a group of non-people, to turn their attention to such folks and realize that these are the ones with whom God has most associated the Kingdom, which means that these are the folks with whom the disciples themselves must associate. This is hard for them, as we heard the disciples two weeks ago complaining about who is the greatest. Last week they tore down the freelance exorcist to make themselves look better. Mark’s Gospel is filled with constant imagery of the disciples trying to build themselves up over and over again—and the trend will continue next week—but Jesus offers a radical alternative. What if, instead of using their own social norms and constructs and talking about greatness in a worldly sense, the disciples focused more on identifying with the very individuals that they would consider not-so-great? What would happen if they really saw such folks, and instead of treating them as if they didn’t exist or as charity cases for them to throw a nickel at, they began to identify with such folks spending time with them, welcoming them into their social circles, maybe even into their worship spaces? What would happen to them and their community if they acted in such a manner?
In short, Jesus’ language about receiving the Kingdom as a child, means that hose who hear it are to identify with the powerless persons, with those weak and vulnerable ones who have no claims to stake out and no demands to make, and to be as one such person, in order to truly be recipients of the Kingdom. Yes, God’s grace has made it possible for all of to be inheritors of the Kingdom, but what if folks focused less on getting into the Kingdom when they die and more on building the Kingdom while they are alive? After all, that is what Jesus’ teachings focused on, not the Kingdom that is to come but the Kingdom that is right here and now. Remember his first words from the Gospel of Mark: "The Kingdom of God is at hand!" So if we who are the Body of Christ are to be the ones proclaiming that Good News—with a capital G and N—then these words today are for us as much as they were for those bull-headed disciples. They kept wanting to look at the Kingdom of God like it was a Kingdom of Humanity. They wanted God’s greatness and power to look like the kind human beings seek, but it’s not. It looks like the most vulnerable, the powerless, and those who are utterly dependent on others for their own survival. Like the disciples, we too must redefine for ourselves what true greatness and power look like, and not only reach out to, but identify with the people on the very margins of our communities, those who have historically been ignored, treated as though they were non-people. Can you imagine what our world might look like if we who are powerful identified with the powerful, if we are who are loud identified with the voiceless, if we who are privileged identified with the unprivileged? Jesus has already welcomed ones such as these, and as his Body in the world today it is our baptismal call to be Christ-like in everything that we do.
Perhaps no one embodied this call better than St. Francis of Assisi, whose feast day was this past Thursday and whom we will honor with our Blessing of the Animals next week. A man born with great privilege, Francis gave it all up to not only minister to but identify with the most vulnerable of God’s children. His example, which has inspired everyone from the current Bishop of Rome to a little farming community in Siler City, both of whom took his name as their own, that example stands as an invitation for us all to redefine what greatness and power really look like; for as Francis himself once said, “Let it be your privilege to know no privilege.”
This guy got it!
So we must ask ourselves: Who is the vulnerable one? Who is the one who, like a child, has been silenced, ignored, and brushed aside? Who are the unprivileged whom our societal norms keep telling us we should not listen to or care about? You know such a person. We all do. The next time you see them, remember Jesus’ words. The Kingdom of God belongs to such a one. And may you have the compassion and grace to embody the spirit of Francis, to not only address their need but to step into a relationship with that person and together, as co-recipients, build up the Kingdom here and now.
