Jesus loves the little children

A sermon based upon Mark 10:13-16.

Pentecost 18 Year B October 8, 2006

In the name of Jesus; amen.

September 27~ A drifter took 6 teenage girls hostage at their high school in the small mountain community of Bailey southwest of Denver. After sexually assaulting them he shot and killed one girl then turned the gun on himself.

September 29~ Congressman Mark Foley, Chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children resigns after ABC News reports that he had been sending sexually explicit email and instant messages to a 16 and 17 year old congressional pages.

October 2~ A milk truck delivery driver storms into a one room Amish school house, sends the boys and adults outside then opened fire on the dozen girls, killing 3 and fatally wounding several others before killing himself.

Two weeks ago~ up in this pulpit I read the following statistic from John and Sylvia Ronsvalle's book, Behind the Stained Glass Windows: Money Dynamics in the Church:
“We live in a world where it is estimated that thirty-five thousand children under the age of five die daily around the globe, most from preventable poverty conditions and many in areas where no church has been planted to tell them of Jesus' love. We can be confident that such conditions are not God's will: Perhaps one idea that would not be debatable in any part of the church is that Jesus loves the little children of the world. The financial cost to end most of these child deaths, it has been proposed, is about $2.5 billion a year, which is the amount Americans spend on chewing gum.”

And this is nothing. I could fill up the next hour with stories from in this country and around the world detailing horrors that occur in the lives of children and only scratch the surface. So I don’t find it all ironic or coincidental that (what I read of) the gospel from this morning reports a story about Jesus’ disciples speaking sternly to people who were bringing their children to be blessed by him.

I don’t find it at all ironic or coincidental that when Jesus sees this taking place he becomes indignant.

I have been downright angry by the news stories of the last two weeks. I have been angry and depressed and filled with sorrow. I’ve found myself crying, unable to listen anymore and unable to stop listening the way a parent listens when you hear things like this. Because as a parent you can only hear these reports so clearly before shutting down your emotions.

According to dictionary.com, Indignant is: -adjective… a feeling, characterized by, or expressing strong displeasure at something considered unjust, offensive, insulting, or base.

Jesus gets indignant only once in scripture and it happens when little children are prevented from being brought to him in order that they might be touched by him, the good kind of touch, the kind of touch which is blessing.
This Gospel couldn’t have come at a better time. This story of how Jesus cares for the little children of the world is a word of condemnation for the way children are treated and abused in this day and it’s a word of comfort assuring us that God does indeed care about what happens to children.

I don’t want you to get me wrong. There is forgiveness in the gospel for those who abuse and neglect and harm. God also loves the sinner and God loves those men who did these horrible things. God loves Mark Foley and God loves Charles Roberts. We need to know that because we are also sinners in need of God’s love and forgiveness.

You don’t believe me, talk Marie Roberts, Charles Robert’s wife, who has been embraced by the Amish community, whose children are being supported because the Amish Elders insisted that a fund be set up for them.

I don’t know if any of these crimes could have been prevented. How do you stop a person who has issues like these from doing the unthinkable? But I do know that this congregation cares about children. I do know that this congregation takes the indignation of Christ seriously when children are prevented from receiving blessing.

We said so in our mission statement: To proclaim Christ through worship, fellowship, and caring for our neighbor with an emphasis on families, children and youth, the elderly, and the poor.
We say so at the table, because no child is kept from the bread and the wine which are Christ’s own body and blood. We say so in our Sunday School where children are taught about God’s love throughout the entirety of time.

We say so in worship, because children are not made to sit silent, but encouraged to sing out and lead our praise and thanksgiving to God. We say so in the way we give to our camper-ship fund and our vacation bible school. We say so in the food we give to the food bank that services the families of this community.

We say so! But we need to say more. We need to say it in the way we vote, in the way we joke, in the way we interact with our friends, in the way we spend our money, in the way we do our jobs, in the way we raise our own children, and care for other people’s children.

We need to speak Christ’s indignation to a world which still sees children as throw-away property.

I want us to be indignant like Christ and continue to welcome the little children of the world into blessing. Not because they are innocent, or precious, or the future, but because Christ was innocent when he died for us, Christ is precious to us and because Christ is our future!

We can report a different story. We can proclaim this gospel to the world because the world needs it to be shouted from the mountaintops and throughout the valleys.

Jesus loves the little children!

Amen.