Being The First To Welcome The Last

Mark 9:30-37

Once again we find ourselves in the Gospel of Mark. I don’t know how you feel about it, but I’m truly enjoying the journey Mark is taking us on. We’ve been told stories about the life and teachings of Jesus which have brought true insight as to where I find myself in my relationship with God, and I hope it’s done the same for you.

Before we delve into today’s story, I thought I’d take a little time to remind us about the settings against which Mark was written. Mark comes to us in the midst of chaos for the Judean and Christian people. The Jewish people have begun a revolt against the Roman Empire and the Emperor Nero will have nothing of it, persecuting all who speak out or act against the Empire.

He has also decided that the Christian movement, which by the mid-1st century has really begun to flourish, also needs to be stopped. An internal war centered on Jerusalem is erupting and the result will be the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. The author of Mark doesn’t know this, but I’m sure he can sense that the people for whom he is writing understand that their lives are being turned upside down; possibly once again facing a dispersion of their people across the lands.

Mark’s intent for the “Good News” he feels compelled to relay is to unify the people under one God, through the stories of Jesus’ life example and teachings. He intends to do this by showing how Jesus is the true Messiah, the one chosen by God to lead God’s people out of oppression. It’s not the oppression of being under the rule of the Roman Empire Mark seeks to help people understand, however, it’s the oppression society has placed on themselves by following antiquated laws which separate the people from one another and from God.

Mark tries to make the point that in order to fully live out God’s calling to us as human beings, we need to find a way to put aside that which divides us and find a way to take care of those who are in need of care the most – mainly those who are pushed outside the mainstream of civilization and into the fringes of community. Mark also reminds us that the focus of all we do needs to be placed on God, through Jesus Christ.

Last week we traveled with Jesus and his disciples to what is called the gateway of Mark’s Gospel. It is that place where Peter on the one hand publicly proclaims Jesus as the Christ, the chosen one, and on the other hand tries to stop Jesus from fulfilling his calling. When we left them, Jesus had pushed Peter aside and told everyone else that if they want to follow him the road ahead won’t be easy. In fact, they have to be willing to give their lives follow Jesus.

Today we find ourselves on the other side of that gate. In the passages before the one we heard today we are witness to the transfiguration of Jesus Christ, where Peter and James and John are witness to a very beautiful and intense transformation. By this show of flash and style Mark is signaling that from here on things are
going to be different.

That event is soon followed by the healing of a child who is described as a boy possessed by demons. An interesting note – Jesus only heals 3 children in the Gospel of Mark; this boy and 2 girls before him. Another interesting note, this boy is the second to last person Jesus heals in Mark. Yes, things sure are changing in the life of Jesus after he passes through that gate.

What we’re also invited to in the story of the healing of the possessed boy is how the crowds for which Mark is famous, those crowds who for the most part represent us, are becoming more aggressive. They run after Jesus, close in on him, become demanding of his healing abilities, and surround Jesus day and night.

Which brings us to today’s passage. Jesus has returned to his adopted home of Capernaum from the areas surrounding Caesarea Philippi, a distance of just under 30 miles. Capernaum is described by archaeologists as a small fishing village, most likely inhabited by no more than 1500 people and is located on the northern banks of the Sea of Galilee. This is where Jesus makes his home as well as the center of his ministry. His travels go from and back to the town of Capernaum.

What the readers of Mark would have understood more than all of this is that Capernaum was considered a safe haven, never having been occupied by the Roman Empire in the days Mark was written, and therefore not susceptible to the chaos of Mark’s intended audience. Jesus’ adopted home town would be seen by the first century readers as a place of refuge and safety.

So Jesus returns to his sanctuary, his place of refuge, and decides to have some quiet time with his disciples. However, the disciples have been arguing amongst themselves about something and Jesus feels the need to get the argument into the open.

It would seem that some of the disciples were in disagreement as to which one of them was the greatest. Mark doesn’t tell us what they measuring their greatness against, but the disciples must have felt that they had a right, if you will, to see which one of them was better than the other.

Jesus then does what Jesus does so well: he turns their time together into a teaching moment.

In the days of Jesus, children were not considered members of society. They served no purpose except to learn the trade of their father if they were a boy or learn how to be a wife, mother, and caretaker of the home if they were girls. There were no laws which protected the child in case his or her parent’s died, except for the first-born son who would inherit his father’s property.


The people of 1st Century Jerusalem saw no value in their children, not in the way we do today. Today we see our children as the future of our world. It’s in our children we invest as good an education as we can. We empower our children and do our best to ensure they have a great chance at success in whatever they decide to do. It’s in our children we place all hope for a better world, and we do that by leaving them with more opportunities than the ones we were left by our parents.

This was not the view of children for the communities in which Jesus lived and ministered. Yes, children had the unwavering love of their parents, but they had no better an opportunity than did their parents.

So when Jesus takes one of these children and places him in the middle of those gathered and says to his disciples that it is to the children of the world we need to show hospitality, he is going against all of the conventions and norms of society.

Our passage, in its English translation, uses the word “welcome” to describe what the disciples are being asked to do with their children. The Greek word being used is dechomai,  and when being used to refer to something which is being taught is defined as to receive favorably, to embrace, to make one’s own, or more to the point in today’s passage, not to reject.

Jesus is using this moment, when the disciples are arguing over which of them is the best, to teach them that it is the least of those among us who should be given the place of greatness and who should be embraced as an integral part of society, instead of being rejected. In doing so we embrace our Christ in the same way, and by extension we embrace God as well.

For the past 2 or 3 weeks I’ve been watching the reaction from around the world to the Syrian refugee situation. I’ve watched, as I’m sure some of you have, as the people from the war-torn country fled their bleak situations in hope for a better life away from their homeland. In a way I’m reminded of the plight of the Judean-Christian people in 1st Century Jerusalem as they were being persecuted and chased from their homeland. I can imagine the same chaotic scenes happening to the people for whom Mark was written and the people fleeing from Syria.

I first began to notice the refugee situation when in late August I heard the news story of 71 people who were found dead in the back of a delivery truck which was abandoned on the side of the road close to the border of Hungary. These people had hired smugglers to take them from their situation in Syria and over the border with hopes of finding a better life for themselves and their families. Unfortunately they fell short as they were left to suffocate in the back of that delivery truck, trapped like cattle and unable to escape.

Among the dead were 59 men, 8 women, and 4 children.

This was in no way an isolated event. For weeks before that particular story made it to the news, tens of thousands of people have made that same journey. They found themselves packed into the back of delivery trucks, sometimes with as many as 90 or more others crammed in there with them. They were transported to the shores along the Turkish coast and put into tiny rubber dinghies, with no personal items except the hope that they will make it to Greece and find a way to enter the European Union.

Then Greece shut down their borders. So these sojourners had to find other ways to find hope, resorting to hiring smugglers to get them over the border into Hungary. And now Hungary is closing their borders.

How I viewed the plight of the Syrian people took a sharp turn a little more than 2 weeks ago, and until this week I didn’t know quite how God was calling me to action in respect to their situation. That call became clear after reading this week’s passage.

On September 2nd a rubber boat carrying 23 Syrian nationals left the shores of Turkey’s peninsula and headed towards Greece. They had been in the open sea for no more than 4 minutes when a large wave capsized the boat, tossing all 23 aboard into the rough waters.

Among those in the boat was a Kurdish family; Abdullah and his wife Rehan along with their children, 5 year old Galip and 3 year old Aylan. As the family discussed taking this trip, which would have eventually taken them to Canada where other family members were waiting for them, Rehan told Abdullah she was afraid to make the trip because she didn’t know how to swim. Among the lifeless bodies which washed ashore were those of Rehan and her 2 children.

This story in and of itself really doesn’t highlight anything that hasn’t been happening in the region for several weeks, if not months. But it’s what came out of this particular incident that asks for us to pay closer attention.

This time there were pictures taken while the bodies were being recovered from the shoreline and it’s the picture of 3 year old Aylan that really jump-started the recognition of what these Syrian people are going through. Before the picture went viral, the Syrian refugee crisis was just something that was happening across the world. After the picture went viral, the rest of the world, including America, took notice and cried out for the world leaders to do something. If nothing else to find a way to take in everyone’s fair share of refugees who are trying to escape the persecution of their people and are being dispersed from their homeland.

That picture is one I’m sure you’ve seen. It is that of a rescue worker carrying the lifeless body of 3 year old Aylan. In the photo, the boy is being carried away by a policeman. The policeman is cradling Aylan in his latex-covered hands while the boy’s tiny feet dangle below the policeman’s waist. A closer look reveals that one of the Velcro straps on his sneakers has come undone.

I listened to an interview on National Public radio where the person being interviewed said that he couldn’t stop focusing on that shoe. He kept thinking about how he would have to help his son tighten those same kind of Velcro straps, and how it would always seem to come loose during the day. All he could think about was that this boy, this 3 year old who had no choice but to follow his family into what ended up being the final moments of his much too young life, needed someone to be his voice. This young child needed someone to tell his story as well as the story of others like him.

Jesus reached for a little child, placed him among the Twelve, and embraced him. Then he said, “Whoever welcomes one of these children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me isn’t actually welcoming me but rather the one who sent me.”

God is always with us.  Amen.