September 22: Like a Little Child

Sermon
Full Service

Lisa Wiens Heinsohn

Like A Little Child

Homily for St. John’s Episcopal Church

by Lisa Wiens Heinsohn given September 22, 2024

Mark 9:30-37

There is a family at St. John’s who gave me permission to share this story as long as it remains anonymous. This family has a child who, as a teenager, was exploring sexual identity and gender orientation. The family was very open and affirming of their child’s evolving identity, but the teen had a really rough time in school. When the teen came back to school after the pandemic lockdown was over, they wore a facemask that had a rainbow flag on it, and other kids bullied and avoided them. So, the family considered changing schools to one that was smaller and more progressive and had a larger LGBTQ+ community. The teen didn’t want to change schools because they had a few friends at school and didn’t want to lose the few they had. I understand that the mom said to the teen, “I want you to have a community where you are loved and affirmed and accepted for exactly who you are.” And you know what the teen said? “Mom, I already have that. I have that at St. John’s.” When I heard that I thought, you know what? We are doing something right here.

In today’s gospel reading Jesus takes a child in his arms, embracing the child, and tells his disciples that how they treat children is how they treat Jesus. That anyone who welcomes a child welcomes Jesus. A chapter later in Mark’s gospel there is another scene where people bring little children to Jesus for him to embrace and bless them, and the disciples scold them. Jesus becomes indignant and says:

Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. In truth I tell you, anyone who does not welcome the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it. (Mark 10:13-16)

There are two things about children that Jesus is pointing out in these passages that are essential to his teaching, essential for us who are seeking to follow Jesus’ Way of Love to understand and digest and practice. The first is that children are in some ways the most invisible and vulnerable population there is. It is easy to idealize childhood, but not everyone has an ideal childhood. For example, it is estimated that 1 in 7 children in Minnesota is living with food insecurity.[1] Children are also defenseless against parents and caregivers who are violent. As I read the passage today from Mark’s gospel, where the disciples are arguing about who is the greatest, I notice that Jesus doesn’t just tell them that the one who wants to be first must be last. He also doesn’t just tell them that they have to reverse their expectations and make sure they welcome everyone, even children. He finds an actual child, a living human being. We don’t know the child’s name, but the child was a person, not a concept, not a statistic. Jesus takes the child in his arms—he embraces the child. And he takes the paradigm of competition the disciples are operating with and tears it apart. He is teaching something fundamental, which is the art of seeing and noticing everyone as truly an equal, as a subject and not an object. Seeing people, not in the abstract, but in the specific. I was so happy to hear that the teenager who was struggling at school felt loved and affirmed here. That matters, my friends. It matters very much.

The second thing Jesus is teaching us about children and welcome and inclusivity is just as significant. In the reading from the next chapter that I quoted a minute ago, when Jesus says “anyone who does not welcome the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it,” he is saying something perhaps even more profound. He is saying that not only must we welcome children, these little ones who could seem invisible and insignificant and even maybe sometimes annoying when they don’t behave like adults. He is saying we must become like them. What do you suppose he means?

The great gift of a lifetime of wisdom and knowledge and experience is that we know how to interpret people and events and ideas. And the great disadvantage of a lifetime of wisdom and knowledge and experience is that we know how to interpret people and events and ideas. It turns out that sometimes, all the knowledge in the world might prevent us from seeing something truly, with fresh eyes, with no emotional or intellectual baggage. As a child does. To see with wonder and curiosity and no self-consciousness. To recover what Buddhists would call “beginner’s mind.” To see something with fresh eyes, without preconceived notions and without rushing to judgment and opinion, is also the precondition for being creative, for being able to play—as a child does. I believe that being made in the image of God is partly about having the creative and playful impulse in us. If God the Creator was such an artist that They made a hundred million shades of the color green, and made countless sunrises and sunsets no two of which are ever the same, and made you and I each unique, each beautiful, each with significance and something original and important to say—then surely we too are creative, meant to play and express as God does?

Lest you think adults cannot be creative, I will share with you significant evidence to the contrary, and that is the Minnesota Renaissance Festival which happens every year in August and September, and which is meant to mimic a 16^th century England-like fantasy kingdom. If you have never been to it I urge you to go even if it is just to see the lengths to which people will go to play. Yesterday, my husband Jeff and daughter Carly and I went to the Renaissance Festival. We got there around 2pm and it was 85 degrees and dusty and humid and sweltering. There were so many cars it was about a three quarter mile walk from our car to the entrance. And walking with us were countless people, mostly adults – the majority of whom were wearing Renaissance and fantasy costumes of every kind. Knights, commoners, jesters, serving wenches, bishops, witches, fairies, queens and kings all marched through the heat in their long-sleeved dresses and tights and hats and robes. These were just people who were attending the festival, not counting those who worked at the festival. And at the festival were fire breathers, jousters, every kind of stage show, Renaissance food and drink, endless booths selling swords and magic wands and jewelry and clothing. This festival has been going for decades and I don’t even know if they advertise anymore, it is so well known and loved and attended. Hundreds of thousands of people visit it every year, all for the sake of enacting a 16^th century fantasy kingdom. These people have given themselves permission to play.

In a world that is as serious as ours is, in an election season that has so many people on edge, when there is so much at stake – it is more important than ever that we sometimes release the weight of our fear and intensity and simply relax and allow ourselves to have the wonder, delight and creativity of a child. It is almost impossible to create new solutions to the world’s problems with our fists gripped tight and our breath held and anxiety running high. It’s even hard to see what’s real in that state.

To follow Jesus’ Way of Love, we must see and notice, love and honor the smallest child, the most invisible and vulnerable among us. And not only that, but we must be humble enough to learn from them, humble enough to learn to play again, humble enough to forget ourselves and learn to create again.

Who around you has been mostly invisible to you, whom you need to begin to see, notice, and honor—not for what it will give you but purely for the good of that person? And, what if it could really be true that playing and creativity are essential spiritual practices that God wants you to engage in, not just for your own good but for the good of this beautiful planet we call home?

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to find time this week to do two things. First: notice and love on someone who has been invisible, and who is vulnerable—especially children. Second: find some time to really truly play or create, without apology, knowing that in doing so you are expressing the divine image in your soul. Amen.

[1] See Second Harvest website, https://www.2harvest.org/about-us2/about-hunger