Loving husband Ed was in big trouble.  He forgot his wedding anniversary.  His wife was really angry.  She told him, “Tomorrow afternoon, when I get home from work, I expect to find a gift in the driveway that goes from 0 to 180 in 6 seconds flat and IT BETTER BE THERE!”

The wife arrived home just before Ed and was surprised to find a small box gift-wrapped sitting in the middle of the driveway.  Confused, she stopped her car and picked up the box.  Ed followed her into the house and was there when she opened the box to find a bright red, state-of-the-art bathroom scale.  Funeral services for Ed have been scheduled for Friday.

Sometimes, even when you have followed the instructions precisely, you can’t win.

The rabbi named Jesus was attempting to be clear with the instructions and directions he was passing on to the disciples.  Mark says, “But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask.”  Apparently, they decided that since they had no idea what he was talking about they would argue about which one of them was to be the leader if these silly things came to pass about which he was speaking.  Perhaps they had devised a ranking system to judge the relative greatness of each.  Andrew was the first called and might get 5 points for that.  Peter was the most vocal in answering the tough questions the rabbi asked them from time to time.  He might get 5 points for that.  James could argue that family connections should figure in the equation somewhere.  John might claim that age should not be a factor but the degree of love the rabbi had demonstrated to each one of them.  On and on it might have gone.  Andrew and Philip make a case for themselves.  Thomas said he doubted they could solve the issue with a grid of pluses and minuses.  Matthew could write better than the others.  And Judas was the treasurer and kept the ministry in the black.  Surely, he would be considered the greatest.

Finally, Rabbi Jesus provides them an object lesson in order to teach about God’s definition of greatness.  He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”  Then he took a little child and put it among them and took the child up into his arms.  He looked at them squarely in the eye for a moment and said, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”  This is what your faith must look like.  A childlike faith is the one that leads to the Kingdom of God.

That is a difficult lesson for me.  I suspect it might be difficult for you, as well.  What does it mean to be childlike in receiving this one called Jesus the Christ?  Perhaps the first thing that has to be said is that a child represents the exact opposite of what the world calls greatness.  Children cannot vote, rarely pay taxes, and don’t send money to Political Action Committees, so they exert no direct political power.  Children do not have much physical strength when compared to in-shape adults.  They can’t usually defend themselves from abuse and violence.  Children in the western world do not earn money usually and cannot provide all their needs themselves.  They are as dependent emotionally on significant adults as they are physically and spiritually.  Children rarely make their own decisions about what behaviors are acceptable or not, but do sometimes act on an impulse.  Like the three-year old whose mother had to take him with her for a doctor’s appointment.

She signed in and sat down to wait.  Shortly a woman rolled an elderly man in a wheelchair into the room.  As she went to the receptionist’s desk, the old man just sat there, alone and quiet.  The mother thought she should maybe make some small talk.  As she thought about it, her son slipped out of the chair next to her and walked over to the old man in the wheelchair.  Placing his hand on the man’s, he said, “I know how you feel.  My Mom makes me ride in the stroller too.”

Jesus sat a little one like that on his lap in the midst of the disciples; a boy who possessed no greatness in terms of the standards applied by the world.  This three-year old had no political power, no real influence, hardly any sense of proper protocol, and no real reason to blush yet.  As of that moment he wasn’t jaded by life’s experiences.  He couldn’t do deep abstract reasoning and that prevented cynicism and the need to impress others with it.  He probably still believed there are such things as gifts, free gifts.  He had not yet comprehended the intricacies of merit and obligation as gift-motivators.  He doesn’t know about the “I’ll scratch your back, if you scratch mine,” way of doing things.  He probably has Mom and Dad and a few other adults wrapped around his little finger, and he might be a holy terror at times.  Nevertheless, he is unaware of earning and deserving the love others give him.  All that might motivate him to reach out and pat the hand of a fellow “stroller” rider.

Why would Jesus the Christ use a child like that to teach the disciples, then and now, about what it takes to receive and welcome him?  The first point is that the disciples are to seek to make other disciples.  “It is not ourselves that we proclaim; we proclaim Christ Jesus as Lord and ourselves as servants for Christ’s sake.”

That is to say, if disciples are competing with each other to see who is best, then the people to whom they extend discipleship become nothing more than means to an end.  The one thing we can do to see the angry, temple-clearing, ranting, raving mad Jesus is to treat another human being as an object; just a means to an end.  That’s the reason Jesus said political systems belong to the devil because they do that very thing all the time.  Jesus was simply saying to those who would follow him, both then and now, that other human beings are ends in themselves.  Anything other that that makes disciples exploiters and not servants.

True faith that issues in works of justice, mercy, and love is not possible without compassion.  Compassion and competition rarely coexist very long.  When acting out of a competitive mode, the disciples, then and now, will want to get something out of the relationship, something to show off as a prize in the competition.  But a child, Jesus says, has nothing to repay with, except who they are.  A child is as empty-handed as they are open-handed.  A child is willing to accept without thought of payback.  So it seems to be with the poor, the dispossessed, the stranger, the sick, the widowed, the orphaned, those who lose a child to tragedy, for whom the child on Jesus’ lap and the child in the doctor’s office are but examples.

Thus the motivation for all ministry is not to put a notch on one’s service belt, in order to move up the ranks, but comes out of thankful self-emptying for the love of Jesus the Christ.  With Jesus there is no question of rank and status in discipleship at all.  There is no thought of repayment.  To serve Christ in our brothers and sisters is its own payment.  For they, like we ourselves, are the ones for whom Christ died.

So, don’t be afraid to bow before children; it is the proper posture for discipleship.  For the one whom we proclaim as Lord took a child and sat it on his lap and said, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”  Amen.