God of the Nobodies

God of the Nobodies--September 12, 2018

“Then [Jesus] 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.’” [Mark 9:36-37]

This isn't a scene for sentimentalism about the cute innocence of children.  This is a moment to see clearly that Jesus values the people deemed as worthless by everyone else around.

We need to get that much straight from the outset, or we are going to sentimentalize this moment from the Gospels.  We'll assume that Jesus posed for this scene, like in so many vaguely religious ceramic figurine sets and schmaltzy "inspirational" paintings of this episode, with everyone else nodding approvingly and fawning over the cuteness of children.  

But it just ain't so.  In Jesus' world, at least the world of the Roman empire under which Jesus' homeland was ruled, children weren't cute... they were nobodies.  And that meant Jesus wasn't uplifting the inherently adorable nature of smiling cherubs; Jesus was saying that God's agenda puts the "nobodies" ahead of the Big Name "somebodies."

The crux of it is this: in the Greek and Roman world which stands as the backdrop for the New Testament world, children were not held in high esteem at all. I remember coming across a book on the shelves of the bookstore at the seminary where I worked in my last year of studies, a book whose title caught me completely off guard when I saw it.  It was called When Children Became People.  And while I never had the chance to read it in full, the author, O. M. Bakke, makes the case that in the ancient Greco-Roman world, children were treated as non-persons, and that it really was a radical thing that the early Christian community put any value at all on children.  (Consider, for a moment, that the Empire was comfortable with infanticide, while the early church was well-known for its refusal to leave children exposed to the elements to die like the ethic of the Empire allowed.)

We have a hard time getting a feel for how bizarre and upside-down Jesus’ teaching here was, because we do not view children this way anymore.  (That, by and large, of course, is a good thing—we do not treat children like property in our culture, and in fact we place a high premium on keeping our children safe.  But in the Greco-Roman culture, children were thought of more as property than as full persons, until adulthood.)  You might almost say that our culture is child-obsessed and youth-driven, since young people are the target demographic of marketing departments, movie studios, television producers, advertisers, and the like.  

We might have a hard time hearing what was so surprising about Jesus taking a child and saying, “The way you treat this person is the way you are treating me,” because we get sentimental about children.  In our culture, it is an honor to get to have a role in a child’s life.  In our culture, children are seen as cute and funny and innocent and pure, and we are delighted to hear a child speak, because he or she might say something that is absolutely hilarious and absolutely profound all at the same time.  So, in one sense, we have already taken to heart Jesus’ saying about welcoming children.  We would all surely nod our heads in agreement with Jesus and would all gladly obey Jesus’ teaching to welcome children.

But in another sense, we are missing some of the punch of Jesus’ words precisely because our culture makes it easy to love and appreciate and welcome children.  Because our country already has laws to protect children from abuse or exploitation, we all grow up in a culture that assumes children have value, and which punishes (or is supposed to punish) those who harm children.  We hear Jesus tell us to welcome children and think, “Of course!—that is what the law and all our cultural norms teach us to do anyway, and that is what a respectable person does!”  To our ears, it sounds like Jesus is simply giving a friendly reminder to his followers to do what society would expect us to do already, which requires no risk or scandal and which is easy to do.  To our ears, it can sound like Jesus is simply reminding us of how cute and adorable and precious children are, so we don't think there's anything provocative about Jesus lifting up children as his--and also God's!--ambassadors.

But for Jesus’ hearers in the first century, his words have more subversive power to them.  If children are "nobodies" (as they were regarded in the culture of the Empire), then Jesus is specifically going out of his way to welcome, to care for, and to honor... nobodies in his arms. He is saying, “Find the nobodies and treat them like you would treat me, your Lord and rabbi—and in fact, treat them like you would treat almighty God…” (That is, after all, what he is implying with the phrase “the one who sent me”.) 

Hear that again: Jesus' taking a little child in arms and saying, "If you welcome this little one, you welcome the One who sent me," is like saying, "God identifies with the helpless, the powerless, the marginalized, and the empty-handed... God identifies with the ones who can't do a thing for you in return."  Jesus is saying, “If you want to be great according to the values of the Reign of God, find the ones who don’t have a voice, don’t have a say, don’t have bank accounts of their own, don’t have political power or favors you can cash in, and don’t get treated as full human beings, and welcome them with the same reception you would give to the Creator of the universe.”  

Well, all of a sudden, Jesus’ words have a little more edge to them.  Who are the folks we would put in those categories?  Dare we open that Pandora’s box and name them?  Welcome the illegal immigrants and asylum seekers? Welcome the addicts going to their first meeting out of rehab and trying to stay clean? Welcome the homeless? Welcome the uneducated and unemployed? Welcome the Palestinian kid with cancer whose one chance at treatment just vanished because we have decided to withdraw millions of dollars of support to a Lutheran hospital in East Jerusalem just to flex some political muscle? Welcome the ones who have been told they are unacceptable sinners?  Welcome the ones who have nothing to offer you back for your trouble, or who have flaked out on the debts they owe you? Welcome the one who got shunned from their family and told not to come back? Welcome the ones who have nothing to offer you but their neediness?  

That is a pretty potent list, don’t you think?  Surely someone on it provokes you?  Surely someone on that list strikes you as going too far?  Well, there’s a good sign you’re paying attention:  Jesus’ teaching is meant to provoke us, and Jesus’ gracious way of welcoming nobodies is meant to sound like it is going “too far.”  

Here's a rule of thumb then: if our picture of Jesus' authorized list of his official ambassadors and divine representatives only includes the members of the Respectable Religious Crowd, we have gotten the wrong Jesus and traded the authentic one for a cardboard cut-out.

If we sentimentalize Jesus’ words here, we are only going to ever hear Jesus asking us politely to do what society would already commend us to do anyway: be nice to cute children, because--aww, shucks--they do say the darnedest things, after all.  And then we lose something of how wonderful radical and upside-down the Kingdom’s values really are.

But if we can dare to hear Jesus’ words with something of the ring they would have had in the first century, where children were not first and foremost cute and innocent bundles of wonder and hope, but needy, hungry, dirty, messy non-persons who didn’t have anything to offer, well, then we can see a glimpse of the values of the Kingdom life Jesus calls us to, a Kingdom that has room for nobodies, and in fact affords the “nobodies” the same love and honor given to the Maker of the universe.  That is going to challenge us, as we recognize that Jesus is calling us to make room for the ones our society regards as the “nobodies.” But it also offers us straight up, undiluted, un-watered-down grace, too—because a Kingdom that offers a welcome for nobodies is a Kingdom where there is a welcome for the likes of you and me.  

Think of it—you and I, in all of our “nobody-ness”—have been received as honored guests in the Kingdom of Jesus.  How can we do any differently for others in our midst?

Lord Jesus, let us be a part of your wonderfully wide embrace that meets us and enfolds us when we have nothing else to offer but our need.