Pentrcost 18B A Little Child

Proper 20B  Pentecost 18 September 23, 2018

Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe, a Norwegian zoologist and psychologist, lived 82 years, from 1894 to 1976. In his 1921 Ph.D. dissertation he described the pecking order of hens, called the dominance hierarchy. The birds had an order in which individuals were allowed to get to the food trough, enforced by pecking each other. For 17 years, from age 10, Thorleif had kept and watched chickens. Since then similar dominance hierarchies have been observed in many other species.

When I was 10 I got interested in a Pacific sea bird, the blue footed booby, and finally got to see one in the Galapagos. The blue footed booby lays two eggs 4 days apart. The older chick frequently picks on the younger.  I’m an only child, but we have two children and our daughter has two daughters. I’ve learned from observation about sibling rivalry.

Dominance hierarchies and sibling rivalry come from competition for what are perceived as scarce resources. There is only so much food, so much parental attention, so much time to give. That is true in this life, but God is eternal and infinite. God created everything that is, and God has provided enough for everyone to have a fair share.  

So dominance hierarchy, pecking order, sibling rivalry, are all part of the sinful order of the natural world. As St. Paul wrote In Romans 8, “22 we know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as God’s children, the redemption of our bodies.”

 In today’s epistle St. James says, “Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.”

Christian faith trusts in God’s grace to provide. God is eternal and infinite. God created everything that is, and God created enough for everyone to have a fair share.  Christian life is radically egalitarian. We are all beloved children of God. The God who made us all loves us all equally. We are all sinners, saved by grace. Sin is sin, an offense against God’s will for the world God has created.

In today’s gospel Jesus takes a little child and tells the disciples, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” It took a long time before Christians began to act in the world according to Jesus’ word, but in the past century we have begun to end child labor - at least in the western world.

Children are now regarded as gifts of God, not as small laborers, or as extensions of their parents.  We are now more able to see children as gifts and we are more able to recognize ourselves as God’s children, as God’s gift to the world, and so we are more able to see the gift of Jesus, God’s gift to all humankind, given for our salvation.

We can recognize in the simple trust of a child the trusting relationship God seeks with us. Babies have a grab reflex. Put your finger in a baby’s open hand and he will grab for it. The baby doesn’t know what it is; it could be harmful, and over the years we have all grabbed on to things that have in fact harmed us. We have to learn to evaluate what comes to hand, take the good and leave the rest.

But God is good, and God’s will for us is good, and God gives us many good gifts of life, and health, and ability, and wisdom. He calls us to serve him, using his gifts to his glory.

We serve with the cross as our model and example. In the last days of the Davidic kingdom of Judah Jeremiah warned about those who devised schemes to destroy and make people forget God’s care for his people. The rulers of Jesus’ people fulfilled Jeremiah’s prophecy. They sought to destroy Jesus, , saying, "Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, let us cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name will no longer be remembered!"  

The wicked will always to destroy the goodness and love of Jesus. But they failed, and they will always fail,  because God raised Jesus from the dead and in his new life gave all who will believe in him new life – new life every morning, new life from the grave, new life in child-like trust and joy. 

          All God’s children are God’s gifts in the world Jesus Christ has redeemed. Let us live seeking greatness in God through service to him and to all the other children of God has given us to love.

Remembering

Remembering  9-9-18 

 

Jesus took bread and wine, gave them to his friends, and said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” So this morning we receive bread and wine, remembering Jesus and giving thanks for his current presence in our lives and his spiritual nourishment in the new life we share with him.

The church where St. Mark wrote his gospel began with a small group of Jewish men and women. Over time others came to join, strangers, people who did not grow up in the Jewish community. And then the larger Jewish community divided,  leaving the Jews who knew the new life in Jesus separated from their family members who could not accept Jesus’ death and resurrection.

 

The new church community knew Jesus’ healing. They knew the spiritual freedom from forgiven sins. They knew the truth and the power of the Holy Spirit. They knew the spiritual food of Christ’s spiritual body received by faith in, with, and under the forms of bread and wine.

 But they missed their friends, and these new people were different. Their food was different; they brought non-kosher food to the parish suppers. They ate barbeque.  In a time of public baths, all could see the new Christian men were not circumcised. It was not easy to establish fellowship of Jews and Gentiles in the church community. Christian fellowship is not easy, but God can do it when we want him to. 

But Mark’s gospel told how Jesus had gone to Gentile territory and told how Jesus healed Gentiles.  Mark’s gospel told about the woman from the Lebanon coast whose daughter Jesus had healed of the demon and about healing the deaf man in the Greek speaking city on the far side of the Sea of Galilee.

Jesus had moved around. He spoke in synagogues. He spoke to groups of people wherever they were. Sometimes he needed time by himself, away from people, some quiet time with the Father.  Jesus went for quiet time to the mountains and went for quiet time at the beach.

Jesus had become a public figure. He was known. He was known as a teacher, and he was particularly known as a healer. People were amazed at his power over the demons. We don’t talk about demons.  We sing the third verse of “A Mighty Fortress” about this world with devils filled, but that language is 500 years old. We don’t use it.  We talk about mental illness. We name as epilepsy the convulsions the ancient world associated with demonic possession. We prescribe phenobarbital.   Many of us know something from our own experience and from raising adolescent children about obsessive thinking and compulsive behavior. For most of us supportive families and friends help us develop systems and strategies to keep our thinking and behavior within moderate and socially acceptable limits. But all of us who serve or have served as parents know something of the anxiety that our children’s obsessions can cause – whether it is rock music, sports, cars, boys, girls – single-minded enthusiasm can be hard to take. The woman who came to disturb Jesus’ time of rest and reflection was suffering from an extreme and debilitating ca1se of a not-uncommon experience.

And Jesus listens to her. “Almighty God from whom no secrets are hid.” The God who made us knows us, and loves us, and hears us when we pray, even when we can’t articulate our need. He helps by his indwelling spirit of truth to know what we need and want, and he helps us by his indwelling spirit of power to ask for what we need.

Jesus’ first response looks like rejection. I think it is testing. God does test us in prayer. He wants us to be clear in our minds, wills, and spirits about what we need, do we can recognize God’s answer when he gives it.  Jesus‘ dialogue about the dogs may have been heard by the early church as a reminder that Jesus’ ministry was to first to the Jews, to the people God had preparing through their history to receive his Messiah. The church is reminded that Jesus is a Jew, that the apostles were Jews, that the early church began as part of the Jewish community. We honor the Jews, and we thank God for offering salvation in Jesus Christ to all people, Jews and Gentiles, slave and free, men and women, native born and immigrants. The Gentile woman’s response shows she is ready to receive her daughter’s healing, and Jesus cast out the demon. He casts out our demons when we ask him to.

The deaf man miles away in the Decapolis needed more than the word the woman heard. Jesus took him aside and communicated to him what was going to happen. He opened his mouth and felt Jesus’ finger and heard Jesus’ word, “Be opened.”

We come to the rail and open our hands, remembering Jesus at the Last Supper, remembering with thanksgiving those who brought us here to receive the bread of life and the cup of salvation, our spiritual nourishment, as we are set free from the burden of sin to live the new life in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.