When we meet someone at a party, or a church social we ask, “What do you do?” 

It’s probably more of a guy thing. It’s all about status and pecking order.

Not “How do you do?” but “What do you do?”

When I became a Pastor many years ago there was still some status to my vocation, at least in that part of the country that is known as the “buckle of the Bible Belt”, Nashville, Tenn. Home of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Boardman Press, Trevecca College (Nazarene).  But even then the status thing was beginning to slip.

I remember being asked by a fellow traveler on a flight between Nashville and Atlanta, what I did.  I told the questioner that I was CEO of a small corporation.

Oh yes, what’s the name of your corporation? St. John’s Lutheran Church. So you are a preacher… I had been found out. Once people know you are a member of the clergy they treat you differently. Like if they let slip an expletive they apologize…

Jesus in today's Gospel told his disciples “The son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands and they will kill him and after three days he will rise again.”

It’s not like they had not heard this before… remember Peter when he heard it…no way, Lord!

They just don’t get it… On the way to wherever they were going Jesus had overheard arguing among themselves as to who would be the greatest.

You want to know about status, prestige, honor… you want to know who is king of the mountain.

He took a little child and sat her on His lap, (I’m following Matthew’s rendition of this incident) and he speaks these strange and frivolous words… whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me…

All three, Matt. Mk. And Lk. have Jesus pointing to a child as an example of God’s presence in the world.

In Mk. 10.15 the next chapter “Whoever does not receive the Kingdom as a little child will never enter it” It is easy to sentimentalize these words.

But in all three of the Gospels, it is part of a conversation in which Jesus talks about his impending trial and crucifixion… so maybe we’d better pay attention.

He speaks of a time that we too were children. A time of innocence. A time of wonder. A time of infinite possibility and newness. A time of King of the Mountain, Hide and Go Seek, of tearful confessions when we were caught with our hand in the cookie jar, and kisses and hugs that said “you are bad but not too bad…”

It is a theme that takes up much of the Bible. Sarah, an old woman laughs when she learns that at age 90, Sarah who had given up a long time ago… is expecting.

Who wouldn’t laugh or cry… and she named him Isaac, “laughter.”

King David, who at the displeasure of his wife, danced naked before the Ark as it was brought back to the home land.

We hear it again in the “lilies of the field” passage; they neither sew nor spin and yet outshine Solomon in their splendor.

The apostle Paul carries the theme of childlike innocence in his letter to the Corinthians when he writes “We are fools for Christ’s sake…”

So, here we are celebrating “Fools for Christ Day” while the rest of the world goes zooming by on their Harleys.

Fools all of us, and in particular those celebrating their Baptismal day... and for Jim it has been a long time in coming. It actually presents quite a theological dilemma…

Lucky for Lutherans we live by grace and not by law… so Jim is making his profession of faith along with the rest of us. 

Fools for Christ we are. Maybe you have heard the expression “how odd of God to choose the Jews?” What that means is of all the empires and nations of the ancient world: Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Rome, why the Jews?

But look at the Jews who God chose! God seems to have a definite bias for the young, the small, the least… the most insignificant.

When Saul was named the first King of Israel, he came from the smallest tribe. Cain who killed his brother Able continued the family line, Jacob over Esau, Rachel over Leah, Joseph over his brothers, the prodigal over his obedient elder brother.

It must be God’s way of reminding us and the world that His ways are not our ways.

It is this truth that the disciples had such a hard time understanding when they were arguing among themselves as to which one of them was the greatest.

Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of God, they wanted to know.

Jesus picked up a child, placed it in his lap – a child that had not been baptized or confirmed, could not read or write and had never heard of the Trinity – and we have trouble nominating folk to council who have not been a part of the congregation for some time…

and here God slipped one in on us today.

James Charles Bacon... a Lutheran less than 3 years and the vice-president of our Leadership team… How did that happen?

Depending which of the three Gospels you are reading, Jesus tells us to become a child again, or welcome one, and in welcoming a child they welcomed him and in welcoming him they welcomed the One who sent him.

And knowing we can’t become a child again as Nicodemus found out…

It is in that moment of “knowing” that we come as near to the heart of God as we are able. 

It is in the realization that it is impossible by any effort of our own to make ourselves children and thus to enter the Kingdom, that we indeed become children.  We are children at the very moment that we know that it is as children that God loves us…

Not because of any effort on our part, but simply because he has chosen to love us.

Fred Beuchner, “Become like Children” The Magnificent Defeat, 1966. The Seabury Press.

Stephen Montgomery and Cosey Thompson. “Preaching During Ordinary Time” Year B.

Journal for Preachers, Pentecost 2009