Whoever Receives One Such as This in My Name, Receives Me

Today’s reflection is from Bondings 2.0 contributor Deacon Ray Dever.

Today’s liturgical readings for the 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time can be found here.

Two places in the Gospels show Jesus interacting with children: the familiar story where he tells his disciples to let the little children come to him, and the less familiar but probably more relevant story we have in today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark (Mk 9:30-37).    

As with many Gospel accounts, this story begins with the disciples discussing what they have been hearing and experiencing with Jesus. In this case, it is the all too familiar argument about whom among them is the greatest, a very human temptation which probably surfaces in our own lives from time to time. It is in this context in which Jesus turns to a child to share a powerful teaching.

When the more familiar Gospel stories about letting the children come to Jesus are discussed, the emphasis is often on those child-like qualities that can be conducive to faith: trust, openness, innocence. But in this context, Jesus turning to a child has a very different meaning. In the society of the time, a child was someone with a total lack of legal rights and social status, a virtual non-entity of little value, dependent on others for its very survival. In a discussion of who was the greatest among them, a child would quite frankly be the last person to even enter the conversation.

But Jesus turns the conversation on its head when he says if anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all. Going further, he places a child in their midst, a child who was as far out on the margins of religion and society as one could be, and declares that whoever receives a child such as this in his name, receives him.

Today of course, the place of children in society and religion is significantly different than it was at the time of Jesus, but there certainly is no lack of others who are today’s “children,” who are marginalized and treated as people who are somehow “less than” in some respect. LGBTQ people of faith are all too familiar with the constant specter of judgmentalism and various forms of discrimination with which they must contend as they simply seek to find a welcoming faith community and to practice their religion with the same God-given dignity as anyone else.

As I write this, my family is approaching the one-year anniversary of the wedding of our middle daughter, the first of our three children to be married. We have nothing but wonderful memories of that blessed and beautiful autumn day in rural Wisconsin. The wedding party of family and friends, including our transgender daughter, reflected the wonderful diversity of God’s creation.  Unfortunately, the prospect of  any member of the wedding party being made to feel less than welcome, even at a nominally LGBTQ-friendly parish, was enough for the couple to choose to be married outside of the church, a decision that I understood and supported.

It is difficult to imagine what Jesus, who brought that child into the midst of the first disciples, would have to say about the current state of affairs where too many people are still made to feel as if they are somehow excluded from our community of faith, as if they are somehow less than those who think they are the greatest among us. Or perhaps it’s not that difficult at all if we can just truly embrace the meaning of those merciful, powerful words of Jesus from today’s Gospel: whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me.

—Deacon Ray Dever, September 22, 2024