Sunday, September 20, 2015
First Congregational United
Church of Christ – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
Jesus is trying to help his friends pay attention to What
Matters. He goes up on a high mountain with some of his best friends and is
transfigured into a shiny, bright creature. His friends immediately build a
little shelter so they can stay together forever, but it’s not meant to be.
Jesus didn’t come to stay forever. In fact, he keeps trying to tell them, “I’m
leaving soon. Don’t you see?”
A little while later, the group is walking through
Galilee. Jesus is trying to fly under the radar. He doesn’t want anyone to
notice him and tries to explain to his friends, “I’m going to be betrayed soon.
They’re going to kill me. But a few days later, I will rise.”
But the disciples? They don’t see. They don’t hear. They
are too busy arguing amongst themselves: “Who do you think Jesus likes the
best? Which one of us is the greatest? Who do you think is next in line to do
important things?”
And Jesus catches them in the act. In my mind’s eye, I can
see him shaking his head slowly. “Don’t you see? Whoever wants to be first has
to be last and servant of all.” And then he finds a little child nearby and
picks the child up. He walks into the center of the crowd holding the child
close and says, “Whoever welcomes a child like this? Well, they’re welcoming
me. And anyone who welcomes me is really welcoming the one who sent me.”
He’s trying to show them What Matters. Do they see? Do we
see?
Earlier this year when I went to the Festival of
Homiletics, I heard a powerful sermon by the Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber on this
passage. Nadia cautioned us about the image we might have in our minds when we
think of Jesus picking up a child as a prop. She says, “Lest,
when we hear this story, we picture a cute little well dressed kid from an ad
for the Gap – we should consider how differently children were treated and
perceived back in Jesus’ day. Because sometimes it’s difficult to remember that
the sentimentality we as Westerners attach to childhood is a fairly recent
thing.”[1]
We need to readjust the illustration in our head when
we think of Jesus. Nadia says,
“These children didn’t exactly take bubble baths every night before
being tucked into their Sesame Street bed sheets and read Goodnight Moon. There
was no sentimentality about childhood because childhood was actually a time of
terror. Children in those days only really had value as replacement
adults but until then they were more like mongrel dogs than they were beloved
members of a family…Children were dirty and useless and often unwanted and to
teach his disciples about greatness and hospitality, Jesus puts not a
chubby-faced angel, but THIS kind of child in the center, folds THIS kind of
child into his arms and says when you welcome the likes of THIS child you
welcome me.”
And so Nadia’s sermon has me thinking this week about
children. The ones in our midst today. When we close my eyes and envision Jesus
picking up a child today, what do we see?
I’m certain Jesus was there when he was booked,
whispering, “It’s okay, Ahmed. I have no idea why this is happening to you and
I’m so incredibly sorry. I’ll be right here with you until it’s over. I
promise.” I do think I caught a glimpse of Jesus at Ahmed’s press conference on
Thursday, nudging him gently towards the microphone because surely the kid was
a little nervous. I mean, he woke up Wednesday morning excited to take a
project to school and by Wednesday afternoon he was a hashtag.
I see Christ in the story and in the face of Ahmed
Mohamed. I hear Christ saying, “Look. Watch. Listen. This matters.”
Part of the outcry over Ahmed’s situation, of course,
was that he is a brown-skinned child. Many were quick to note that if he had
looked more like my children and if his name had been, oh, almost anything
other than Ahmed Mohomed, he would not have been as likely to have been
arrested. We hope and pray that we do not subject children to the dire
consequences of living in a racist society….but we also know that we do. Every
day, it seems, there’s another story of how racism hurts children.
This past week it was a study published in the
Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics that caught my eye. A
study of children suffering from appendicitis ran from 2003 to 2010. They found
that white children were more likely to receive pain killers in the E.R. when
being treated for appendicitis. And even when black children received pain
killers, they received lower doses. They were not able to figure out why, just
that it’s happening.
And so I can imagine Jesus sitting there in the E.R.
with a young black child and her father. Holding her hand and speaking words of
comfort as she works through the pain. Counseling the father on how to best
advocate for his child. It’s hard being a parent. It’s even harder when the
deck frequently seems to be stacked against your beloved child.
I see Christ in the pages of a medical journal. I
hear Christ saying, “Look. Watch. Listen. This matters.”
 |
| Aylan Kurdi and his brother, Galip. Family photo. |
Surely Jesus was there with them in the boat – Jesus
knows a few things about storms at sea, you know. I just know that Jesus was
there holding Aylan and his brother and speaking words of comfort and love. I
have no idea how you would comfort a child in the midst of that terror, but I trust
that Jesus knows.
I see Christ on the beach there with Aylan. I hear
Christ saying, “Look. Watch. Listen. This matters.”
We want to believe, of course, that we here in the
United States would handle the steady stream of refugees better. But then I
think about the refugees who have been coming into this country from Central
America. Migrants? Refugees? It’s semantics, right? How about humans? How about
beloved children of God?
Right now in our own nation, there are apparently
for-profit companies that incarcerate mothers, toddlers, preschoolers, children
from Central America.[2] There is a newly-constructed
Family Residential Center (“residential center” sounds so much nicer than
“prison,” doesn’t it?) in Dilley, TX that can hold up to 2,400 human beings,
mostly women and children who are seeking asylum in the U.S. and have come here
illegally while our government figures out how to deport them back to their
home countries. Accusations of mistreatment are plentiful. Bryan Johnson, an
immigration attorney working near Dilley says this, “In
[the past] year, these investment companies have profited millions off of the
illegal detention of children and babies fleeing unthinkable harm in Central
America. Because these companies wanted a bigger quarterly dividend, dozens of
children, including some of my clients, were denied medical treatment to such a
shocking degree that their lives were put at imminent risk of death or serious
bodily harm.”[3]
God, please let Jesus be there in that detention center. I
hope and pray that Jesus is there with those children. Covering them with a
warm blanket at night. Singing lullabies to drown out the sounds of prison
life. And providing strength and care for their mothers who have to figure out
how to care for these children in the midst of chaos.
I see Christ there at that prison in Dilley, Texas. I
hear Christ saying, “Look. Watch. Listen. This matters.”
Jesus holds before us images of children…Ahmed handcuffed for building a clock, black
and brown children trusting doctors and nurses to ease their pain in the E.R., Aylan
washed ashore, Maria and Diego and Jessica and Carlos locked up in South
Texas…fleeing one horror only to find another.
I don’t really want to see these images. I’d rather
think instead of my own children – safe and warm and well-fed and playing
without a care in the world. But Jesus has other plans.
The disciples went for a walk with Jesus. They argued
about petty things – who’s the most popular? Which one of us will get to be in
charge if Jesus goes on vacation next week?
And Jesus picked up a child and redirected their
attention. “Look. Watch. Listen. This matters.” The prophet Micah speaks words
of instruction: “God has shown you, O Mortals, what is good. And what does the
Lord require of you? To act justly and love mercy and to walk humbly with your
God.” Jesus shows us, O Mortals, What Matters.
We might not always want to see it. After all, as
Nadia Bolz-Weber said in her sermon, children back in Jesus’s day were
perceived as “useless and often unwanted.” The disciples probably weren’t
planning on paying attention to any children that day.
But Jesus had other plans. Jesus asked them to
refocus their attention on What Matters. And What Mattered to Jesus in that
moment was a child. I think if Jesus was in the room today, he’d probably do
the very same thing. He’d pick up someone who society has labeled as last,
least, lost and say to us, “This person right here? They are What Matters.”
And you know what? Thanks be to God for that. Because
I don’t know about you, but I really NEED someone to keep me focused on What
Matters. Even when it’s unpleasant. Gosh, who are we kidding. ESPECIALLY when
it’s unpleasant. That’s a big reason that I come to church and read the Bible
and try to keep my eyes on Jesus…because we can count of him to show us What
Matters.
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