18th Sunday after Pentecost
Mark 9:30-37
[Jesus and the disciples] went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it, for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But, they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
Then they came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But, they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 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 taking it in his arms he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
Double Rainbow
A few years ago, there was this video that went viral of a man seeing a double rainbow for the first time. A double rainbow is when there’s one rainbow in the sky, and then another one right above it, with the colors reversed, something about the light bouncing twice inside of the raindrops, instead of just once, like what happens for a normal single rainbow. Now, the reason that this video had gotten so popular wasn’t because of the double rainbow, it was because of how excited this man was at seeing a double rainbow for the first time. As the camera pans across the sky, you can hear him laughing and crying, asking, “What does it mean? What does it mean?” He’s sobbing, full on sobbing. To be honest, the first time I tried to watch it, I couldn’t even finish it because of how much secondhand embarrassment I was feeling over this man basically making a fool of himself for the whole world to see.
Was I judging him? Probably, even if it wasn’t on a strictly conscious level. We expect people, especially adult people, to act a certain way. But, this man wanted to share his childlike wonder with the world, and the entire Internet was making fun of him for it.
Our gospel reading today is about social hierarchy. Who’s first and who’s last, who’s important and who’s not. The disciples are arguing amongst themselves about which one of them is greater. I actually have a hard time imagining full-grown adult men having an argument like this, which is kind of ironic because at the end of this reading, Jesus takes a child and says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” When this story appears in the Gospel of Matthew, the author has Jesus saying something a little different. He says, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”
There are a few things going on here. First of all, Jesus says, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” In typical fashion, the disciples are confused, and it’s not clear if they even know who Jesus is talking about. This isn’t the first time Jesus has spoken about his death, but the disciples are afraid, and they don’t want to ask him about it.
Then we have the scene where the disciples are arguing about which one of them is the greatest, and then Jesus’ teaching about welcoming children. At first, it seems like the first part of the reading doesn’t really go with the second part, but if we think about what Jesus has to do and why he has to do it, all of us are like children. We are helpless and entirely dependent on someone else for our salvation. We don’t have the power to save ourselves, only Jesus can do that.
But, when they start acting like children, arguing about which of them is the greatest, Jesus chastises them, but what he says is that they need to welcome children and that they need to be like children, which is an odd way to chastise them for what they were doing. So, what aspects of childhood are we supposed to be aspiring to? I don’t think God wants us bickering amongst ourselves about who’s better than who. The disciples have proven that you don’t even have to be a child to do that. So, what is specific to childhood that we lose as we get older? What is it that children have that we don’t?
I remember my theology professor saying to us that it is only children who can truly laugh without holding back. As we get older, we become self-conscious of our laugh, so anytime we do it, some part of our minds is thinking about who’s listening, what we sound like, and what people might think about what we’re laughing at. Even when we think we’re alone, there’s a part of our brains wondering if anyone can hear us.
Kids don’t worry about stuff like that. Kids just laugh. It’s pure, and it’s beautiful, and the pure beauty of it is something that we lose as we get older and become more self-aware.
Children meet the world with curiosity and vulnerability. They have to be taught hatred and bigotry. They have to be taught to be judgmental and about the differences and importance of social hierarchy. Because we are judgmental, and we believe things like social hierarchy are important. They have to be taught a love of money and to be afraid of the scarcity of the world, instead of sharing what they have and trusting that God will provide.
Jesus was teaching the disciples this at a time when children where barely even considered to be human, when they were supposed to be seen and not heard. But, as Jesus is wont to do, he turns their expectations on their head. He tells them that they need to be like children, and that to welcome a child is to welcome him.
I would venture to say that we do know the value of children. Many of us have children in our lives that are important to us; I talk about my niece Mykaila all the time. We say things like, “The children are the future.” But, I worry, because I don’t know what the future is going to look like for them. Are we welcoming them into a world where the weather has gotten out of control and where they’ll be fighting for water? Are we welcoming them into a world where people don’t trust each other and where war is the norm? Will the aspects of childhood that Jesus seems to be lifting up still be seen a good and valuable in this future that we’re sending our children into? These are the things I wonder about when Jesus talks about welcoming children.
The first time I saw that double rainbow video, I was being a little judgmental. I had been primed for it; the only reason the video was making the rounds was because everyone was making fun of it. People couldn’t understand why this guy was making such a big deal out of seeing a double rainbow! They were ridiculing him; video responses kept popping up, mocking him and making fun of the things that he said and the way that he said them. Like I said, I was embarrassed for him, not only because of what people were saying but because of his over-the-top display of emotion…his childlike display of emotion. I mean, what possible reason was there for this guy to be gushing over the Internet like that, laughing and crying and carrying on.
Only, there was a reason. I didn’t know it at the time, but right before he saw that double rainbow, he had just finished writing an email to a friend saying how he felt like he was Noah from the Bible, because he was trying to live off the grid and how he was growing his own organic food. He was feeling separated from the rest of humanity, and he thought that maybe that was what Noah might have felt after the flood, after the waters had subsided and he had to start making a new life for himself without all of the social structures that he had lived with all of his life. This double rainbow guy had been seeing a lot of rainbows, and he had been wondering if it was some kind of sign from God. And, after he sent this email to his friend, all of a sudden, his room was filled with color and light, and he went outside, and there was this amazing double rainbow, right outside his front door! He said it looked like God’s eye, because only God could have an eye that big. He was having a God moment, an experience with the divine, and unless you’ve been there, unless you’ve felt the presence of God for yourself, there is no way to understand it. He was a child in the presence of the Almighty Creator, and all he could do was laugh and cry and look in awe and wonder at the glory of the Spirit.
I watched that double rainbow video again, and I have to say that I didn’t feel like it was embarrassing this time. Maybe it’s because I’ve graduated from seminary since then, and I’ve been working as an ordained minister for a few years now, or maybe it’s because I’ve been thinking about Jesus saying that we have to be like children, but now, when I watch it, I feel inspired. I hear the voice of a man who isn’t afraid to show the world how he really feels, a man who has once again connected to the part of himself that remembers what it was like to be a child. I want to be like that. I hope that we all have the chance to be like that, to fill the world with hope and joy, tears and laughter, and be like children. Amen.
~ Rev. Charles Wei
