Lent 5 - Tuesday - The Trophy: Kids Now ~ Kids Then

Text: Mark 9:33-37 (see below)

Children are venerated and idolized in American culture these days. From little things like bumper stickers on a car that read, “My son is an honor student at South Clemmens Elementary School”, to springtime graduations from kindergarten (something that to this day I do not understand). I was in a grocery store recently where I witnessed a mother negotiating with her daughter as if they were at some high level United Nations Security Council meeting. Honestly, it seems as if kids are the most important people in a room and their desires must be satisfied at the sake of all others.

We hold kids up so high that parents refuse to let them fail. For example, when my son, John, was a little tyke, he played on a community league basketball team that was absolutely horrible. The team went 1-12 that season.

About five games before the team finished its league play, one of the mothers came up to me and asked for ten dollars so that a trophy could be bought for each member of the team. “Trophy,” I said, startling the woman. “You must be kidding?! These kids don’t need a trophy, they need to practice!” I finished. From the look on the woman’s face, it was clear that I was in the wrong. Not wanting a scene, I quickly opened my wallet and produced a crisp ten dollar bill. Each team member got a trophy four weeks later and everybody was celebrated as a champion.

The real lesson came when my family was ready to move to Ohio. Kathy asked John what trophies he would like to take with him. Apparently, as she retells the story, he chose only one. It was the trophy that he won the following year when his league team actually won the playoffs and were crowned champions. That was the only trophy that meant something to him.

The shocking actions that Jesus takes by placing a child in the midst of twelve men cannot be appreciated by our generation for it is nearly impossible for us to believe that in antiquity children were nonentities. “Children should have been with the women, not hanging around a teacher and his students. To say that those who receive Jesus receive God does not constitute a problem. A person’s emissary was commonly understood to be like the one who sent him. But to insist that receiving a child might have some value for male disciples is almost inconceivable” (Mark, New Interpreters Bible, page 637).

“This example treats the child, who was socially invisible, as the stand-in for Jesus. It suggests that the greatness or desire to be ‘first’ being disputed among the disciples involved which one would be Jesus’ representative…. Jesus demands that the child be received ‘in my name’” (ibid., page 637).

It is absolutely scandalous that Jesus would use the example of a child to advance his understanding of the Kingdom of God. In addition, he does not use this example only once, but twice, later in chapter 10. The Master’s teaching flies in the face of the disciples’ debate about greatness and power. Jesus is going in one direction. The disciples are headed in the complete opposite.

The false self, ego, drives the person to want to be first, to be the greatest, to be recognized, and to have authority. But the false self is a lie. Jesus calls us to a deeper place – a place of truth – a place of life changing fellowship – where we welcome and embrace every person in the same manner.

This to me is the beauty of the 12 Step programs. Here I have learned that life is not about prestige and power. The journey is about accepting folks exactly where they are without judgment or discussion. The path less traveled is about being together in fellowship, listening to each, finding the way together, assisting with each other’s pain, and rejoicing in transformational recovery. I have found that 12 Step meetings are the closest example to what Robert Greenleaf called servant-leadership.  

Life’s real trophy is not made of silver and gold; but of welcoming, embracing, accepting and loving the little child amongst us.

Love One Another - Brian

Welcome Everyone Like A Child

Dan Clendenin

To welcome a child is to extend the simplest of acts to an individual that society normally dismisses as perhaps cute but ultimately insignificant, someone who entirely lacks any accomplishments, greatness, status, or pretensions. By extension, Jesus invites us to welcome every person in the same manner, without regard for external measures of their worldly importance, status, success or failure.

Source: journeywithjesus.net

Mark 9:33-37

Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house Jesus asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But the disciples were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. Jesus 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.’