Mark 10:13-16
And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.
Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week, I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. This week, we're continuing our sermon series on raising children in the faith. So the Gospel reading that is chosen for Sunday, October 8, comes from Mark chapter 10, verses 13 through 16. And they were bringing children to Jesus that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, Let the children come to Me, do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God, like a child shall not enter it. And when he took them in his arms and bless them, laying his hands on them, Here ends the reading. Before we get into the actual tax, let's take a look at what's going on. Jesus has just gone to the region of Judea, beyond the Jordan and a crowd gathers. And so he begins to teach them. During that teaching, Pharisees come up and they asked him a question. And they talk about whether it's lawful to divorce a wife and Jesus weighs in on this question. And in the middle of all this, some women bring up children to Jesus, that He might touch them, and the disciples are mad. Now we get this idea that the disciples were mad, and we get a little confused. Why would they be upset that Jesus is blessing children? Well consider the situation. Jesus is talking with the Pharisees, and he's teaching the crowds. And these people are bringing these babies up to Jesus. They can't talk, they can't learn. They can't do anything. They're not worth Jesus's time. What is going on? No, no, no, no, no. Jesus has got important things to do with important people. They're just going to distract. But Jesus is indignant. He says, Let the children come to Me, do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God, like a child shall not enter it. We must understand this pretty frequently. Much of the time, we think the idea of being like a child is this simple, trusting faith, like a child trusts their parents. But that's not the way the ancient world would have seen that. In the ancient world, your value to society grew as you aged. When you were a baby, or a young child, you are worth just about nothing. I mean, I'm sure your parents, the parents loved them, and wanted their kids to grow and all of that. But out in society, kids were neither to be seen nor heard. They were to be out of the way. They were the lowest of the low, ignored until they had something to contribute to society until they became adults. And so Jesus isn't saying received the kingdom like a trusting and loving child. He's saying the kingdom of heaven belongs to the lowly, to the least, to the people who are distracting and should be out of the way that maybe the adults don't want in the room because they're noisy and playful, and they make sounds and get in the way when adults are talking. Jesus thinks is important that the lowliest get it. And I think as we consider what it means to be blessed by Jesus, we need to consider what it means to have people in our congregation who are not like adults, the children, the neurodivergent, the people who can't read, maybe have have troubles controlling the volume of their voices or whether they talk or the sounds that they make, or the smells that they have. The people that often we would think, well, maybe they just shouldn't be around distracting us from the sermon. Jesus wants the lowest, the children, to come to Him and be blessed by Him. And where does that happen? It happens in the divine service, as the whole body of Christ gathers where Jesus is to receive his blessing. That's it for our gospel reading today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai