Mark 10:13-16
Isaiah 11: 1-9
Are there any artists here today? How about musicians? Any athletes, maybe some really fast runners? You should see the response when I ask my mother’s first graders those questions. There is nothing that a first grader cannot do. My mother is a first grade teacher, and so I have spent most of my life watching group after group pass through her tutelage, each class as full of unabashedly self-named talent as the previous. Don’t get me wrong, it was not that each student could actually do everything well, it was just that nobody had told them that yet. When it came time for art, each student was an artist. If you asked one of them if she could draw, she would undoubtedly reply, “Sure I can draw. Wanna see?” And sure enough, she would sit down and start drawing as if she were the next Picasso. When it came time for music, each child was a classically trained singer; or so you would think if you asked them. If you heard them sing, well, it was a different story. The group would waddle down the hall to the music room and Miss. Blanton, the music teacher, would hold their attention for about 30 seconds, while she tried to get them to sing something together. Each child would sing in his or her own way, some loud, some softly, some just swaying to the music, all out of tune. But if you asked them if they could sing, they would each reply, “Of course I can sing. Wanna hear?” It’s the same with running, each child the next Marion Jones. “I can run real fast. Wanna see?” There is nothing that a first grader cannot do.
Of course, we know better. We have cultivated fine taste in art, we know a Rembrandt when we see it, and we know that we are no Rembrandt. And we have the NC Symphony to tune our ear to fine music; and we know that we are not symphony quality musicians. No need to mention the running, I suppose. It’s cute that kids think that they can do everything, but we know better. And someday, they will too. Someday, someone, somewhere will hold their work up and say, “you know, you really aren’t that good at this.”
That day, according to Jesus, our children will grow up a little bit, and they will grow a little further away from the Kingdom of God. In our Gospel lesson this morning, children are doing what they do best: breaking all the rules. By the time we get to the 10th chapter of Mark, Jesus is a celebrity. Crowds have been pushing on him for quite some time now, and he cannot go anywhere without being recognized. The disciples, seeing Jesus’ rise to fame and finding themselves often lost in the overwhelming crowds, have taken it upon themselves to protect Jesus from all of the people continuously trying to push in on him. Here, in the 10th chapter of Mark, they find themselves in the thick of it again. The crowds have gathered, people are pushing in just to be touched by Jesus, and, well, frankly, it’s a little overwhelming. What makes it worse is all these kids running around. Don’t these kids know that Jesus is important?! He does not have time to waste on children. Besides, where are their parents? Shouldn’t they be keeping their kids at bay, teaching them how to act when someone really important comes around? So the disciples, knowing that they are very important, and that Jesus is even more important, rebuke the kids and their parents, putting everyone in their proper place.
But it’s too late. The kids have already made their way to Jesus. Or did Jesus make his way to them? Jesus, looking down at the children says, “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”
Which, you know, really makes sense. The kingdom of God is so foolish, that only a child would think that it is possible. I mean, have you ever really tried to love your enemies? Everybody knows that we really can’t do that, what with national security and all that. Or have you ever sold your possessions and given them away to the poor? I mean, come on, St. Francis we are not! Do we have anyone here that thinks that their work can help God save the world? Of course, we know better than that. But I wonder what would happen if we asked some first graders. According to Jesus, the kingdom of God is only available to those who, like a child, actually think that they can do the absurd.
Which, I think, reveals as much about who God is as it does about us. We sort of have this image of God as a great grandfatherly figure with a great white beard and a Charlton Heston voice. This God, the grandfather-god, sits on a throne somewhere and makes sure that everyone obeys the rules…“no running in the house…no fibbing…play nice with one another”, we hear him say. But what if a better picture of God is a child. Lord Chesterton said, "I think that God is the only child left in the universe and all the rest of us have grown old and cynical because of sin.”
The first glimpse we get of God in scripture is one of God playfully creating, almost like a child sitting down with a ball of clay with no inhibitions, ready to make the first thing that comes to mind. Anything is possible. God shows up, and out of nowhere starts dreaming up the most absurd things like sky, sea, snails and aardvarks. With childlike creativity and imagination, God playfully makes all of creation, and it’s good: very good, if God does say so Godself. The creation thing goes awry, but God doesn’t give up. Apparently, nobody has told God that God’s not too good at this creation business. God starts again, creating Israel, then the law, then the prophets, continually creating, tinkering with this experiment. Eventually, God decides to go all the way. And in a dusty stable in the middle of nowhere, the God-child is born and creation is made new all over again. For the rest of his life, this God-child goes around trying to find playmates, people who will join him in this creative work. People who will dream with him about the most amazing things, like the hungry being fed, the enemy being loved, peace on earth. Sure, all these things are absurd. So absurd that only a child could possibly believe they are attainable. Such, says Jesus, is the kingdom of God.
Like Aubyn Burnside from Hickory, North Carolina. When she was 11 years old, she saw a foster child carrying his stuff in a trashbag to his new home. She said that it broke her heart, “He must have felt like garbage, himself.” So, she made posters and put them up around her community, and then make speeches trying to raise interest. She got no interest, so she took her own savings, $15.00, to the salvation army and bought 31 suitcases. She gave them away, the local news caught wind of it, and her charity caught on. Now she has given away over 25,000 suitcases to foster children, has chapters set up in every state and in 10 countries.
Or Brandon Keefe, a 3rd grader who overheard his parents talking in a meeting about how difficult it was to get books for a new library going into a children’s home. He went home, collected all of his old books, called his friends and had them do the same, telling each one of them to call someone and tell them to bring books for this new library. In his words, "Everybody had books on their shelves that they'd outgrown, why not give the ones we've already read to kids who need them?" This effort grew and grew until he founded “BookEnds” which has given away 76,000 books to children in need, has completed 23 libraries and has 19 other libraries in development. This will result in books and improved literacy opportunities for more than 33,000 underprivileged kids and their families.
Crazy kids. Don’t they know they can’t do that?!
