Saturday, October 6, 2018

Receiving the Kingdom

Summer is back.  Autumnal Summer.  Dog days?  No, those are usually in August aren’t they?  The Dog days of summer?  Besides if you ask my dog he’s say these aren’t dog days.  These are hot and steamy days that wear you out every time you go down the street a ways.  Not the crisp cool October we’re used to.  There is a house down the street already decorated for Halloween, orange lights and black cloth and spider’s webs and tombstones with skeletons.  But if this keeps up, kids will Trick or Treat in bathing suits, and ask for a popsicle instead of a candy apple.  

Apparently we aren’t the only ones with odd weather.  Our friends in England told us about an uncomfortably hot summer for that island nation.  Our daughter Maddie was frustrated checking the weather before going to Europe, not being sure how to pack for her two weeks in the mountain villages of Germany and Austria.  Then of course the unusually strong hurricanes and tropical storms dropping a deluge on the south east and other island nations nearby.   Earthquakes in Indonesia, fires in California and Oregon and Colorado, and probably more. Now this isn’t a sign of the end times kind of rant.  Instead I’m heading in the completely different direction.  While I am in no way celebrating tragic circumstances, I do want to point out how these events tend to bring us together.  They also shrink the planet until we feel like neighbors with those in another hemisphere.  “Not in my backyard” gives way to how can we help dig out, dry off, cool down, restock, rehouse those in our world wide suburb?

It’s World Communion Sunday this week.  A date when we remember that when we partake of the sacrament of Holy Communion we don’t do it alone.  This meal we share is not for us alone.  The ritual is performed in more languages than we can count, the bread takes many forms and flavors.  The celebrants come in all colors and answer to a variety of titles.  It’s a World Communion observance in a diverse and divided world.  And yet it’s a world with needs as real as bread, and hungers as deep as the ocean that links us.

Here’s a question – Is communion primarily a spiritual event or a physical one?  Well, a bit of both is the answer of course.  But don’t we lean to the spiritual side?  Sure there is bread and juice, but it is the grace and the remembrance that really make it.  Our task on communion days is to experience the presence of Christ.  Isn’t it?  To transport ourselves onto a spiritual plane and commune with the One who set the table.  We’re to move beyond the mundane, to enjoy the sublime.  Right?

Well, I’m not so sure.  Jesus seemed intent on making things, making faith real.  He was always grounded in the reality of the world in which we live.  His images of the Kingdom, the metaphors he used were of earth - seeds and pearls, light and darkness, sheep and coins, the stuff we live with every day.  I think he sat at the table and took hold of the reality of bread and, here, this, this is my body.  This is me.  I’m here, I’m as real as bread.  And every time you pick up a loaf of bread, you’ll be touching me, holding me, claiming me.  I’m here, right here in this world with you.  He wanted them grounded, not floating around on some heavenly cloud somewhere.  When they tried to turn the talk to the reality of the Kingdom, asking about the seating arrangements, the place cards on His table, He got exasperated with them.  This cup, He said, this cup is my whole life.  I’m as present as the clay it took to make this cup.  I’m as alive as the bouquet of this wine, the fruit of the vine.  I’m that vine, He said.  He was trying to get them to live in the world, to pay attention to what was right in front of them.  

It was a trait of His, the invitation to pay attention. He was always pointing to the most unlikely of things, the most unlikely of people and asking His followers to see them.  To really see them.  Like this ...

Mark 10:13-16  People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them.  14 But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.  15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it."  16 And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them. 

This is the Jesus we know and love best of all, I believe.  But we have to realize what a radical departure this action was from normal behavior.  No one with any authority or power or standing in society in this period of history would even have time for children.  It just wasn’t done.  And yet here is Jesus, not only allowing children to be in His presence, but taking them up in His arms and blessing them.  Almost embarrassing, at least I am sure that some - like the disciples themselves - were scandalized by this behavior.

Yet, Jesus didn’t care.  What He cared about was blessing.  He cared about touching and putting them on His lap, because they were real people, worthy of His attention, His presence.  He cared about welcoming and including.  He cared about making sure that everyone understood the value of those of whom he said “let them come.”  Mark says He was angry, indignant our translation says.  It’s a harsh word in Greek.  It seems Jesus was trying to be concrete.  You’re in the way, He said to His disciples turned bouncers trying to keep the kids away.  You’re in the way, not just of these kids, but of the Kingdom.  This was a “get behind me Satan” moment.  One of many.  The disciples were missing something fundamental.  So Jesus was trying to help His hearers see something of the glory and the wonder of the Kingdom and He grabbed the nearest visual aid He could find.  

Come and see, He could have said.  See through these eyes the wonder of God’s creation.  Come and see the needs and the opportunities to serve.  Come and see how we can live out the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves.  And then He gathered them up.  So that we could see that the best way to rid oneself of doubts and fears and suspicions and animosity is by getting outside of yourself long enough to bless a child.  To talk to them, to listen to them, to experience the world through their eyes.

But then, He wanted to make sure we didn’t miss the point here.  That they didn’t miss it and that through them we don’t miss it either.  To such as these belongs the Kingdom of God.  Actually, He didn’t say belongs.  The verb here isn’t belongs.  It is is.  Is.  For it is to such as these that the Kingdom of God is.  Is?  They’ve got it, He says, or they are it.  You want to embrace the Kingdom, embrace a child.  Let them come, He says.  Which means how we treat children, what we allow done to children or not done to children is what we do to the Kingdom of God.  

Wow.  I mean, wow.  Don’t you think?  And then, in case we were still unclear, Jesus drives it home.  Whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, will never enter it.  Which means what exactly?  That’s the question that has driven biblical scholars crazy for over two millennia.  On the one hand are we supposed to receive the Kingdom like a child would receive the Kingdom, or like a child would receive anything?  Or are we supposed to receive the Kingdom like we receive a child.  Or as we receive a child?  In other words is our ability to receive the Kingdom dependent upon how we receive children into our midst?  How we treat children.  Or mistreat them, as individuals and as a society.  When children suffer at the hands of adults, or governments, or religious leaders, or parents, are we in danger of losing our grip on the Kingdom of God?  

Maybe the heaviness of that line of thinking is why most commentators take the other track.  How do children receive things?  And how do we emulate them?  Lots of ink has been spilt trying to answer that.  Words like innocence and purity, or dependence or wonder, are often used to help us grasp the attitude it takes to receive the Kingdom.  But I wonder if it isn’t about an attitude, but an action.  Attitude is important, I don’t mean to suggest that it isn’t.  Yet, Jesus is being concrete here, grounding us in the world of doing.  So maybe His point is more earthy than we tend to think.  More simple.  So, how do children receive anything?  With both hands.  That’s how.  Then, how shall we receive the Kingdom?

Shalom,
Derek

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