NOTE: With the beginning of the school year, the weekly Friday school masses may contain readings from the lectionary for children rather than the usual daily lectionary.
In the face of the argument amongst the apostles about who is the most important, Jesus proposes a child as being the important model of Christian life and service. In our current time and culture children are important, valued, protected by legal rights, and even cherished. So, Jesus’ action in today’s Gospel this is not too shocking to us. We tend to see this as a sweet or corny gesture by Jesus. But it must have been shocking or even disturbing to the apostles.
In Jesus’ times children were not valued nor treated as they are in our culture. There were no children protective agencies. They were always subject to do what they were told. In fact, they had little or no legal rights. They were often seen as little better than household property or objects.
When Jesus announces his imminent death and resurrection, the disciples begin to argue among themselves about who is the greatest. Once again, we can sugar-coat this event by saying the disciples were looking for the best leader among themselves and we can say they had good intentions.
The Gospel is very clear in saying that the disciples did not understand the announcement of Cross and resurrection. It seems the disciples continued to organize their lives based on personal ambitions and needs. To correct this, Jesus calls for a child and places that child in the center of the apostles as an example of how they should live out their lives as Christians. Jesus chose the person on the lowest possible end of the scale of importance: a child who has nothing, is nothing, and lives serving everyone else. This would have been shocking to the first disciples.
Today’s Gospel challenges us to live a new life in Christ through service just as a small child does. That is the only way to belong to God’s family.
‘If anyone wants to be first,
he must make himself last of all and servant of all’