Mark 10:13-16
To Such As These

According to a United Nations report, children in at least 68 countries live amid the threat of more than 110 million landmines still lodged in the ground. Because landmines and other makeshift explosives look like toys, pineapples, or butterflies, a child’s curiosity puts her or him at particular risk.

Landmines and hidden explosives are not the only war related risk to children. Children and women comprise 80% of the world’s estimated 27 million refugees and 30 million displaced people.

And the statistics calculating the numbers of child soldiers under the age of 18 around the world are gruesome. In two waves of war in Liberia between 1989 and 2003, roughly 70 percent of rebel and government combatants were children. In Colombia, children make up between 6,000 and 14,000 of guerilla and government paramilitary fighters. And in Sri Lanka, the Liberation Tigers boast an infamous “Baby Brigade,” a group of trained and armed recruits as young as 11 years old.

Many of you have read the story of Sadako Sasaki, the twelve-year-old Japanese girl who died from leukemia brought on by the bombing of Hirsoshima. Injury, disease, and of course, radiation, also ravage the lives of children as a result of war.

While leaders in positions of power wrestle for strategic resources or fight to redraw lines on a map, war disproportionately affects the world’s weakest and most vulnerable. Often those living in the deepest poverty - the sickest, the hungriest, the defenseless - are powerless to stop the wars being waged on their land and in their villages. These people who have no political or social power are often incapable of avoiding war’s wrath, and the first to fall to war’s ravages.

And the image of Jesus blessing the children stands in stark contrast to the images we see in the statistics about all of God’s children whose lives are destroyed by war. Jesus welcomes a child, and not just any child. The gospel writer Mark chooses to use the word for a very small child. Jesus welcomes an infant, or toddler at best. And everyone knows that little children have neither wealth nor political influence. Children do not possess the sort of power that gets things done. They are among the people in society who require advocates. They are the people we are apt to call “defenseless.”

Mark wants his reader to see the contrasting images of weak and powerful. He uses the disciples to make his point. In the story it is clear that the disciples are not pleased to have such small children in the picture. They, who were living in a time of Roman rule and religious persecution, were thinking that a God-on-their-side kind of reign would involve a powerful messiah. They were hoping for a hero to swoop in and prove that God was a mighty force to be reckoned with. And so, the disciples are prepared to turn anyone away who will lessen the political impact of Jesus’ ministry. The people bring their little ones to Jesus in the hopes that he will lay hands on them and bless them. But the disciples are quick to shield Jesus from these people and their politically useless children. Their rabbi, their leader, their messiah is too important for little ones.

Mark helps us to see that the disciples were slow to pick up on the meaning of Jesus’ actions, perhaps because his notions were so radical. I believe this is what Mark would have us understand. Leading up to this moment, Jesus has not once, but twice instructed the disciples about the place of importance that children take in God’s holy reign. When the disciples argued about who was the greatest, Jesus took a small child and told them, “Whoever welcomes a little child in my name welcomes me.” And again, he warned them that putting a stumbling block before a little one who believes would be better thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck. These images that emphasize the importance of the socially or politically powerless are too significant to ignore.

However, Jesus’ message had not sunk in by the time the people were bringing their children for Jesus’ blessing. And so taking the children up in his arms, Jesus shows the disciples another way.

Unlike the disciples, I think the congregation of St. Philip understands Jesus’ message. As a faith community you have a rich history of welcoming the least of these, of offering a transformative vision of the reign of God to children, refugees, people with mental illness, and countless others.

As a child in this church, I knew what it meant to feel like a very special person. I remember being called by name during Moments with the Children. I remember visiting Russ Berget, who sat at the desk in the pastor’s office after worship to give children butterscotches; I felt safe wandering the hallways of this urban church and I delighted in being greeted by a respected elder of this community. I remember leading this congregation in worship as a member of Betty Brandenburger’s children’s choir. I remember my 7th grade English class essay about our chancel choir being published in the Philip-Eye.

I also remember that at some point during my childhood, this congregation embraced a woman, nameless in my memory, who suffered from severe mental illness. She would participate in worship and in Sunday school classes with oddly timed, sometimes unusual comments. She would ask of members things that weren’t customary for people to share or give in typical church context. And yet, my parents and teachers and pastors helped me understand that all people belong here, even if they look or act different than me. And they belong especially if they have no other place to belong in society. This church, knowingly or unknowingly, was and is constantly teaching its young people what it means to envision God’s reign of peace by its hospitality, by its commitment to service, and by its faithful worship.

We know that Jesus’ message is not only about those that are young in years. “. . . for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” Throughout the gospels, we read that the orphan, the widow, the tax collector, the prostitute, the mourning, the hungry, the sick…all are welcome. What a relief that God’s reign is so inclusive. What a relief that God intends peace for all God’s children.

Like the image of children in the text, the story of Sadako Sasaki provides another image of the kind of kingdom Jesus was talking about. Those of you who have spent time with patients at Texas Children’s Hospital will not have trouble imagining with me the young Sadako Sasaki spending hours in her hospital bed, occupying her time folding origami cranes. According to Japanese legend, if she folded 1,000 cranes, she would be granted her wish to live a long life, instead of one tragically shortened by her illness. After her death, Sadako’s story inspired thousands of Japanese still reeling from the atomic bombings. She is a heroine to survivors of the atom bomb and its radiating effects. In 1958, a statue of Sadako holding an origami peace crane was unveiled at the Hiroshima Peace Park. To this day, people place thousands of peace cranes at the foot of her statue on August 6th. Her memorial stands as a sign of hope for the same kind of peace Jesus lived and died for. Though Sadako might not have finished making the 1,000 cranes she needed, her memory inspires peace seekers all over the world.

Sadako’s colorful cranes give us a picture much like the image of the little children Jesus held close in his arms and blessed with his hands. They are simple: pieces of paper folded by a little girl with big dreams. They are hopeful, inspiring us to imagine a world where war will no longer be waged for the purpose of peace. “…for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.”

More than 2,000 peace cranes currently hang in the sanctuary of Central Presbyterian Church where I serve in Atlanta. These are the very cranes that inspired the gorgeous Peacemaking Banner my mother quilted for this sanctuary. Members of Central folded these cranes, and as they folded they wrote or said prayers with each bird. 2,000 cranes hang to symbolize our church’s vocation of peace. Yet sometimes, I look at them hanging there, and I start to wonder: will the weight of those cranes, those prayers - those cries for peace and justice, for relief and freedom, those prayers about health, and grief, and loneliness –will the weight of those prayers get heavy enough to bring down the ceiling? Because as long as those cranes still hang, as long as there is need for prayer, then our vocation of peace remains at hand. As long as God’s children suffer all around the world, we will await the kingdom of God.

Today we recognize and respond to the church’s peacemaking efforts around the globe. We lift up our call to seek reconciliation, to provide aid, and to pray for our sisters and brothers living in places and situations void of peace. Jesus calls the church to this vocation of peace. He gives us the radical message that peace is made by hands that pick up the children and bless them. And so we live out our vocation of peace as we embrace the gift of God’s grace and forgiveness for all people everywhere. It is our vocation as we worship, as we share the gospel, and as we serve. It is our vocation this morning as, with the global church, we celebrate World Wide Communion. At the table, we are God’s children, all one body, sustained by the nourishment of Christ himself.

Thanks be to God!