Why do I mention this? I mention this because in the church, we have certain expectations of who the devil is and what he's going to do. We assume that he is going to tempt us into murder or adultery or something like that. We assume that the devil is going to tempt us to a life of criminal larceny, rubbing his hands together all the way. But, of course, the devil is just using that old classic of the feigned retreat. He is prenteding to run away from you, and allowing you to become complacent. He is doing this because he is a sapper.
What is a sapper? A sapper is someone who gets past fortifications not by battering himself against them until one of them breaks, but someone who digs under them, and makes the fortifications useless. This is what the devil is all about, attacking you not where you are strong, where you want to be attacked, but where you are weak.
So where are we as Christians terribly weak? And no, it's not where you wish it was. You want me to say something like drugs, alcohol, gambling, prostitution, murder, or any one of a number of other problems that you doubtlessly don't have. But you've spent a lifetime building fortifications against these things, building defenses, preparing for the expected onslaught. All the while, you left yourself open in a few key areas, that when examining your defenses,, made it obvious where the enemy was going to hit you. And it should be no surprise that he hits you exactly there.
Think of the reading from the Gospel of Mark for Sunday. The reading in which the disciples do a very good impression of you on a Sunday morning. They hear the Gospel of Jesus in its fullness preached very simply and straightforwardly. Jesus tells them that he is going to be taken away, killed, and rise on the third day, and for some reason the disciples don't get what he's all about on that one. Not only that, but even though they don't understand what's being talked about, they don't dare ask any questions to clarify. Sound familiar yet?
But while they are on their way home from the preaching, they chit chat amongst themselves. And if this story was made up, if it was fabricated from whole cloth, you would expect the disciples to be meditating in quiet contemplation. You would expect them to be worshiping, praying penitential psalms, and self-flagellating. But they aren't. Instead, they are talking about which of them is best.
Now, this is easy to talk about at present, because we are in an election season in both the USA and Canada. And in this election season, all the politicans want you to believe that they are the best suited for the job, so they can get elected, and enact sweeping legislation. Think for a second about how it is that politicians promote themselves. Think about the ads you see for any political party or candidate. Pick any one you want, odds are they're all the same, really. The most successful ads are attack ads. The best way to convince people to vote for you is to convince them to vote against someone else. This is sad, but it is also true. The disciples were on their way back with Jesus, right after hearing the Gospel message and not getting it, and the whole way back, they were discussing which of them was best. And they likely did so by knocking each other down, and talking about how the rest of the 11 were basically no good.
So Jesus stops them, and asks them what they were talking about, and none of them want to answer, I guess because what they were talking about was pretty embarrassing. Nobody wants to tell Jesus 'yes, we were all talking about which of us was the best ever.' Not likely. But Jesus knew what they were talking about, and so he goes and places a child before them, and tells them that it is their job to serve that child. I want you to take a good look at this child in this picture of Jesus. What does this child look like?
These children look like darling cherubs. Because they always do. And if the children in question looked and behaved like these children, then it would be no problem, no issue, for the disciples to serve them and care for them and love them.
But you know children, right? Do children look and behave like this? I mean real children. Because they don't. They look more like this.
But for those of us who are proud, who feel very good about what we do and say, those of us who love and adore our place and position in the church, and in society, this is humbling. To be called to serve the grubby, the untidy and unkempt, the messy and loud, that's humbling. And you probably don't want to do it. But think about what Jesus is actually doing with you and for you by doing this, by pushing you and extending you to be more mindful of who you ought to serve and look after. What is Jesus doing here? He is working very hard to do what you don't do, because he knows where your walls are weak. He knows where you're going to be hit, and he's doing his best to make sure that you're defended.
For most of us, we don't think too much about pride. We think about the big problems being murder, adultery, prostitution, abortion, any or all of these things, and we dont' think much about pride. Our spiritual defenses have been raised up against the prospect of attack in these areas, and we've spent years preparing for a frontal assault designed to get us to murder or drink or gamble. Then we get lulled into a false sense of security when we start to see that the attack isn't going to come at those points, and we figure that if the attack isn't going to come there, if temptation isn't going to come there, then it's not going to show up anywhere. All the while, we ignore the devil digging into where we are weak.
This is what the book of James is all about. This is what this passage from the Gospels is all about, which is to highlight where we are weak. It's the stuff that we dont' often think about, the things we ignore and don't spend time on. The things that we forget, leave off to the side, and when we encounter them, want to surpress. When we get word from the scriptures as to what our problems are going to be, that we are going to spend far more time working on our pride than listening to the gospel message, it's tempting to just close the Bible, and talk about the issues we don't have.
And that's why the child in this passage being a real child is so important. It's so important because Jesus shows us a real child, not a well behaved fictional child, and tells us to recieve him. And if we balk at that, or get concerned, get concerned, or feel as though it was beneath us, then we are finding out exactly where we are weak, and where we need to be strengthened. It does us no good to focus on where we are strong, and sit around polishing our bulwarks. If Jesus is highlighting our weaknesses, this is not the time to remind him of our strengths. The fortress is only as strong as its weakest wall.
What Jesus promises is to forgive sins; real genuine sins, not the ones you think other people have. He came to forgive pride, and hard-heartedness. He came to forgive our inflated sense of self, our obsession with our needs and wants. He came to take that away. Perhaps the most humbling thing about that entire encounter with that child was the knowledge that the disciples couldn't claim power or authority over that child . They were called by Jesus to serve him. And if that seems like a lot, then meditate on this - This is exactly what we ask Jesus to do for us. We ask him to humble himself to serve us, to wait on us hand and foot, to wash our feet and to do our bidding. We are honestly beneath him, far more than that child was beneath the disciples. But the point of the story is that the work we balk against, the stuff we don't want to do, is what Jesus does for us, bearing our sins and taking them away, restoring us and making us whole. He is here, and has come, to work for those who have done nothing, earned nothing, and who are far far beneath him.
Us.
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