19 Pentecost Cycle b Proper 20 September 22, 2024
Proverb 31:10-31 Ps. 54
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a Mark 9:30-37
One might safely say that the child motif of the Gospels, especially the synoptic Gospels is significant.
What is the chief message of the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke? Welcome the presence of God in your midst as an infant. That is what Merry Christmas means.
You want to be profound in your theism, then welcome God as an infant incognito among us.
This encapsulates the counter logic of the words of Jesus; the first shall be last and the last, first.
Who is last in the world? Those who have newly arrived. A newborn infant is the last in the world and young children are the latest to be in this world. And what does Jesus say? Make them first in importance and care.
Is not not ironic that Jesus is using a child to say to his male disciples who are jealous for power in his earthly administration and he's saying, "Guys, you're going to have to be more like women, like mothers, like child-care givers."
In the history of patriarchy, the role of women has been hidden in the privacy of the home and they have been designated as the primary child-care givers. Indeed their nursing bodies seem to better fit them for significant relevance to the lives of their children in the time of their infancy. Too long children, and women have been regarded by men as Dad's trophy children and wives at best, labor force for the family, and disgraces if they don't please their fathers and husbands in the right way. The reading from the book of Proverb extols the virtues of a "good wife," one of which relates to the care children such that, "Her children rise up and call her happy;
her husband too, and he praises her:"The teaching found in the appointed lesson from the Epistle of James touts gentleness and not being jealous or envious with the highly desirable trait of wisdom: "Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy."
This teaching from James is the attitude which Jesus both demonstrated and taught to his disciples. Being a disciple of Christ means undergoing a counter programming in the way in which men have been taught to be adults.
What are adults taught? We are taught to be selfish, ambitious, competitive, biased, prejudiced, and judgmental.
The spirituality of Jesus Christ involves being deprogrammed from selfishness, ambition, competitive, judgmental, and biased. And how do we know that the spiritual reprogramming has been effective? When we can welcome the child with gentleness and care. When we can tend to the vulnerable within our world as the very sign of our wise leadership among people.
The Gospel of Jesus is this: Take care of children and the vulnerable as proof of your vocation in life. This may first involve a healing of one's own child aspect of personality in being able to return to the original joy of having been born before one may have received harmful conditioning by imperfect adults in one's life.
The Gospel of Christ is to know the presence of the Holy Spirit as the recovery of the original blessing of our birth, and as we cherish all that is gentle and tender within ourselves, we go forth to minister to those who need the gentle and tender hospitality of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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