Whoever Welcomes One Such Child

“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me ….”

“Hey, Maryam, Jesus wants your little Ya’acov for a minute. Bring him in here, wouldya?” What do you suppose that mother was thinking as she picked up her little son and walked into the room where Jesus and his friends were sitting? Why would the rabbi want her son in with them? They weren’t going to do anything strange to him, were they? Of course the young mother didn’t know how clueless the rabbi’s twelve followers were about what Jesus was trying to teach them. She didn’t know how reluctant and afraid they were to ask him what he meant when he said all that stuff about dying on a cross and rising again. She didn’t know that they still thought he was going to throw out the Romans and establish a new political order. She didn’t know that some of them – John maybe, who might have thought he played second fiddle to Peter, or Judas perhaps, who was starting to doubt that Jesus would do anything worthwhile – had been quarreling about who would be top dog in the new order. She just thought they were hangers on of the miracle-working rabbi, following him around as if they had nothing better to do. Reluctantly, she handed over her child.

Perhaps Maryam shouldn’t have been too hard on the Twelve. We wouldn’t have done much better, because Jesus was preaching and practicing a radically world-changing message. Jesus was “turning the world upside down.”1 Jesus taught his disciples that the religious leaders, whom everyone was supposed to admire and follow, had actually forsaken the Law of Moses in favor of myriad, complicated human traditions. Jesus taught his disciples that peoples’ needs supersede even the demands of the Law, and that it is OK, for example, to heal even on the Sabbath. Jesus taught them to love their enemies and to pray for those who persecute them. Jesus taught them that God loves and cares for all people – Gentiles, women, the disabled, the poor, the hungry, those in prison – all people. Jesus taught them that if they truly wanted to see God they must look among those on the margins of society: the homeless, the destitute, prostitutes, and even the hated tax collectors. Jesus taught them that those who wanted to be his disciples were expected to lead by serving everyone. Pointing to Maryam’s child, Jesus taught them that he himself could be seen in the most insignificant, vulnerable, defenseless members of society. And in all his teaching, whether they understood it or not, Jesus gave them fair warning that by serving as he had served they risked losing everything dear to them, including their own lives.

The Twelve may have had trouble understanding Jesus’ teachings, at least until after the resurrection, but down through the centuries a lot of his followers did understand what he was getting at. Many of them tried hard, risking – and even losing – their lives to welcome in Jesus’ name those whom polite society disdained. St. Brigid, St. Francis, St. Catherine of Siena, Bishop John Coleridge Patteson, who was martyred in Melanesia 1871, Constance and her companions, who died nursing Yellow Fever victims in Memphis in 1878, all of them understood Jesus’ teaching.

One who deeply understood Jesus’ command to welcome children in his name was Prudence Crandall.2 Have you ever heard of her? She is now on our church calendar. She was born into a Quaker family in Rhode Island in 1803 and was educated at the New England Friends School. Her own access to education left her passionate about teaching. She opened a girls’ school in Canterbury, Connecticut in 1831. Initially all her students were white. However, in 1833 Crandall defied convention and admitted Sarah Harris, an African American student who herself wanted to become a teacher. When outraged white parents demanded that Harris be expelled, Crandall started a new school, for African American girls. Demands that she close the school and threats to destroy it soon followed, but Crandall kept her word to her students to continue teaching them. When the school began to attract pupils from other states, the Connecticut legislature passed the so-called “Black Law,” making it a crime to teach out of state African American children. Under the law, Crandall was arrested, jailed, and convicted. The good citizens of Canterbury were outraged when her case was finally dismissed. On September 9, 1834 an angry mob smashed the windows of her school and set it on fire. For the safety of her students, her family, and herself, Crandall closed her school the next day. Having just married in August, Crandall then moved with her husband to Massachusetts. Following her husband’s death, Crandall moved to Elk Falls, Kansas, where she continued to work with children of all communities. A state historical marker in Elk Falls recognizes her work.

Many in our own time have also understood Jesus’ command to welcome in his name children, and all those disdained by polite society. I think of the Saint Joseph’s Family in Haiti, which runs an orphanage for formerly street boys in Port au Prince, another orphanage and day school for poor neighborhood children in Jacmel, and an orphanage for disabled children in the hills above Port au Prince. I think of Haiti Partners, which runs schools and trains teachers. I think of Episcopal Relief and Development, which has partnered with other agencies to end preventable deaths of children worldwide. I think of L’Arche, an international network of more than 150 communities dedicated to serving those with developmental disabilities. I think of the intentional community, the Rutba House in Durham, North Carolina. They serve a diverse group of young people in their own neighborhood, in a program that keeps children in school through mentoring and tutoring. I think of those who work with U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, children who are American citizens, yet who face possible deportation with their parents. And I think of the collective efforts of this parish to be the Body of Christ in the world through providing for children’s physical needs in our diaper program and through welcoming children and their families to our Loaves and Fishes Dinners.

“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me ….” Despite what we already do, I still hear a challenge in Jesus’ command. Do we understand that in following Jesus we leave ourselves open to the possibility that Jesus might want to change our expectations? Is there another way to welcome children and those with them on the margins that we have yet to see? Are we doing all that we can to effectively minister to children? Let’s start with our own children. Are we doing all we can to nurture them in the Christian faith? What else might we doing? Even now, work is going forward on cleaning out what once was a space for youth. Surely, creating an inviting space where our older children can gather is important to their formation. I’d like us to develop ways for our children to enjoy being together for activities other than worship, to work beside caring, thoughtful adults, to enjoy themselves as they are formed more closely to Jesus. We might also ask ourselves, what happens when our children leave this place? Is their formation as Jesus’ disciples happening anywhere else? What are they learning at home?

We might go on to ask ourselves, what are we doing for other people’s children? Do we need to consider ways to mentor, tutor, and perhaps even feed local children? At one point, we talked about partnering with a local school. Is that idea dead? What other needs do local children have? And if we ask ourselves why we might do any of these things, rest assured it is not so that we can play Lady Bountiful and feel good about ourselves. We undertake any of these ministries, because we see the face of Christ, in the faces of those to whom we minister. We undertake these ministries, because we have pledged ourselves to be the Body of Christ in the world, and we try as best we can to do what he did in the flesh, including welcoming children of all communities, and all those on the margins of society.

Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me ….”

“C’mon in, Maryam. Jesus is winding up. He’s just about done with talking about your son.” Maryam tentatively stood in the doorway of the front room. She saw the rabbi’s friends seated at his feet. She saw her son Ya’acov nestled in Jesus’ arms and Jesus looking down at him lovingly. Then Jesus gently lifted the boy up and placed him back in her arms. He looked at her and smiled. She saw the love in his eyes. And she knew, that from that moment on, her life would never be the same.

1. Albert Nolan, Jesus Today (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2008), 50.
2. Holy Women, Holy Men (New York: Church Publishing, 2010), 558