"Fear and Faith"
Mark 9:30-37
In last week’s gospel
lesson, Jesus traveled to the region of Tyre and then to the Decapolis.[1]
In today’s text, he’s back in his home
territory of Galilee, but “he did not want anyone to know it.” The reason he didn’t want anyone to know he
was there? He had some important teaching to do with his disciples.
Some very important things have happened in the
meantime. In Caesarea Philippi, Jesus
had asked his disciples, “Who are people saying that I am? Who do you say I
am?” Then he began teaching the disciples about what awaits him in Jerusalem
and about the cost of following him. Peter, James, and John had seen Jesus
transfigured on a mountain.[2]
Later, Jesus cast a demon out of a boy.
Now, as they’re passing through Galilee, Jesus is trying
again to avoid being noticed while he continues to teach
his disciples, saying, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and
they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise
again.” But the disciples didn’t
understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. Maybe they don’t want
to understand. This is a hard teaching about a Messiah who suffers and dies.
I wonder what the disciples might have asked if they had not
been afraid. Are we really very different?
I agree with David Lose that it’s important to ask good
questions. But our fears can get in the way. What fears pursue you during the
day and haunt you at night? What worries weigh you down so that it’s difficult
to move forward in faith?”[3]
Our fears have a way of sneaking into our very being, and robbing us of the
abundant life Jesus came both to announce and to share.
Did you notice? The disciples don’t ask Jesus any
questions in response to his prediction of his crucifixion because they’re
afraid. And the next thing you know they’re talking about who was the greatest,
who was going to have a place of privilege and power in the coming kingdom.
Fear can do that. It can paralyze you. It can
motivate you to look out only for yourself.
This isn’t the only time Mark contrasts and faith and
fear. In the fourth chapter of Mark, after Jesus stills the storm that had
terrified the disciples, Jesus asks them, “Why are you afraid? Have you no
faith?” As he was restoring Jairus’ daughter, he tells the distraught father,
“Don’t be afraid. Only believe.”[4]
The opposite of faith is not doubt--but fear. The kind of fear that can paralyze you…
distort how you perceive reality… and drive you to despair.
The disciples didn’t understand what Jesus was saying and
were afraid to ask him.
In the house in Capernaum, Jesus asked them, “What were
you arguing about on the way? But they were silent, for on the way they had
argued with one another who was the greatest.
He called the twelve and said to them, “whoever wants to
be first must be last of all and servant of all. Then he took a little child and put it among
them, and taking it in his arms, and 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.”
Now, in ancient times, a child was regarded as a
non-person, or a not-yet-person, the possession of the father in the
household. When Jesus held up a child
as an emblem of living in God’s household, and perhaps even as a stand-in for
Jesus himself, he was challenging the social norms of the day.
This child was as important to Jesus as the vision on the
mountain. Jesus wanted his disciples to see
the child…and welcome the child. Not because the child is innocent or pure or
perfect or cute. No. Jesus wanted them
to welcome the child because the child was at the bottom of the social
heap. In Mark’s gospel, children aren’t
symbols of innocence or holiness. More often, they are the victims of poverty
and disease. Jesus brings the child from the margins into the very center.
But, surely, we want to think, we are different. We value children in our churches and in
society. And yet…
In the United States of America--one of the richest
countries in the world-- children remain the poorest age group. According to
the Children’s Defense Fund, nearly one in five children--12.8 million in
total-- were poor in 2017. Over 45 percent of these children lived in extreme
poverty at less than half the poverty level.
Nearly 70 percent of poor children were children of color. The youngest children are most likely to be
poor, with 1 in 5 children under 5 living in poverty during the years of rapid
brain development.
Child poverty hurts children. Child poverty hurts our
nation’s future. It creates gaps in cognitive skills for very young children,
puts children at greater risk of hunger and homelessness, jeopardizes their
health and ability to learn, and fuels the inter-generational cycle of poverty.
Ponder this: 3 million children in the U.S. live in
families surviving on $2 a day per person.[5]
I hope you’ll take that statistic home
with you and consider what $2 a day per person would buy and what it wouldn’t.
Something else to ponder: More than 400 children who were separated from
their families at the southern border are still separated from their families.
These are moral issues that reflect how we are living our
values in our society. When we look at the federal and state budgets and see
actions to limit access to medical services for lower income Americans
including children, or cut-backs in nutrition programs for children, we need to
see how these actions affect children’s lives.
Do we see the
children? Do we welcome them?
Joyce Ann Mercer suggests that Jesus’ treatment of children
shows his “struggle and resistance to the purposes of empire.” The politics of empire favors relationships of power and
privilege, while the politics embodied of the kingdom of God lifts up the
lowly, and those with no power or privilege. [6]
Jesus came to live among us, full of grace and truth.[7]
He proclaimed the reign of God, preaching
good news to the poor and release to the poor and release to the
captives…teaching by word and deed and blessing the children.[8]
Do we see them?
Do we welcome them? If we don’t, what are the fears that hold us
back from fully welcoming them?
Jesus called his followers to live out gospel values. He
calls us to extending hospitality to those who were considered little more than
property. He healed when he wasn’t
supposed to, touched people he shouldn’t have touched. He taught that all our ideas about greatness mean nothing if we don’t stoop down low enough to see the
little ones in our midst.
That day in Capernaum, Jesus held a little child in his
arms and brought the words of heaven down to earth. I imagine Jesus whispering
in the child’s ear, “You are God’s
beloved child.”[9]
The good news is that God has named us all as beloved
children and calls us to welcome children in Christ’s name. This isn’t as
simple or limited as it might seem. It means caring for children-- not only our
own children and grandchildren, but children of migrant workers and
asylum-seekers, children of poverty in our cities and impoverished rural areas.
The good news is that Jesus has promised to be with us
always and has given us the Holy Spirit to lead and empower us. In this broken and fearful world, the Spirit
gives us courage to pray without ceasing, to witness among all peoples to
Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask idolatries in Church and culture, to hear
the voices of peoples long silenced, and to work with others for justice,
freedom, and peace.[10]
Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! Amen!
Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor
Littlefield Presbyterian
Church
Dearborn, Michigan
September 16, 2018
[1]
Mark 7:24-37
[2]
Mark 9:2-8
[3]
David Lose, “Faith and Fear,” at his blog In the Meantime. https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=1619
[4]
Mark 4:40; Mark 5:36
:
[5] Child Poverty, at Children’s Defense Fund
website: https://www.childrensdefense.org/policy/policy-priorities/child-poverty/
[6] Martha L. Moore-Keish, Theological Perspective, in Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 4:
Season after Pentecost 2. Location 3408.
[7] John 1:14.
[8] “A Brief Statement of Faith” of the Presbyterian
Church (USA), 1991.
[9] I’m grateful to the Rev. Dr. Barbara K. Lundblad for
this image in “A Hopeful
Fanatic.” http://day1.org/4049-a_hopeful_fanatic
[10] “Brief Statement of Faith.”
