Christ and the Vulnerable

The greatest may not be who you think they are.

[This was shared during the Southwest Ohio Mission District, North American Lutheran Church ‘Lutheran Family Reunion’ on Saturday, August 10, 2024. The text for the sermon was Matthew 18:1-5.]

One of the stories we often tell in our family revolves around something that happened when our kids were about ten and seven. We’d visited family in Columbus and stopped at a Columbus shopping center before heading back to Cincinnati, where we lived. After we’d finished our errand, we got into the car and were pulling out, when we heard a kind of whimpering yell from behind us. It was Philip, who wasn’t yet in the car. We stopped and Phil jumped in.

Now, why did we stop to get him? I mean, we’d successfully collected 50% of our kids and, with Phil, being ten years old, was costing us a lot of money without generating any income. Besides, it was a hassle taking him to this event and that activity. He hadn’t attained any great achievements, led any governments or armies, or made his first billion dollars. He was completely dependent on us. So, why did we bother bringing him back into the car?

We stopped, of course, because every member of a family, from the child awaiting birth in its mother’s womb to the infirm parent no longer able to take care of themselves, matters. 

In Matthew 18:1-5, Jesus talks about how the people in His family, that is, His Church, are to regard one another. It all begins with the disciples asking Jesus a question: “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (Matthew 18:1)

This kind of question is very important for people trying to get ahead in the world…or, if they’re of a religious inclination, to impress God. We human beings complain about rules, but we really like rules, mostly because we think if we can master rules, including the rules of the universe–or at least appear to have mastered them, we’ll be top dogs.

When Jesus is asked who is most important in His kingdom, Matthew says: “He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.’” (Matthew 18:2-4)

Don’t miss Jesus’ point here. Jesus is not saying that children are innocent and therefore, we should imitate them. Children may be gullible or credulous; but children are not innocent. Like King David, writing in Psalm 51, Jesus knows and we know that every child conceived by human parents is born in sin. That means we’re all born wanting to be in charge. Part of the job of those God puts in authority over children–parents, grandparents, teachers, governments–is to keep them and the rest of us from running roughshod over others who are just as loved by God as we are.

Nor is Jesus giving us a new law. He’s not telling adults to become childish. (There’s a world of difference between being childish and being childlike.) 

What Jesus is pointing to in this child is their status. No one is needier than a child. All children need someone to take care of them.

Think of what Jesus is saying to the question posed by the disciples then. To anyone trying to be the greatest in HIs Kingdom, a stupid, childish question, Jesus says, “You won’t even enter My kingdom if you can’t see that there is nothing you can do to make yourself acceptable for life with God!”

Only Christ, the crucified and risen One, Who completed the business of making us acceptable for life with God when He cried from a Judean hill, “It is finished!”

When it comes to life with God, the number one requirement is our neediness, our complete inability to be good enough or righteous enough for life with God!...when we see, through the Word of God given to us at the font, from the pulpit, and at the table, that we are sinners in need of forgiveness and when, by the grace of God we trust in Jesus as the One Who has paid the price to give us the forgiveness we don’t deserve, we are in the Kingdom of heaven!

When I was growing up, I was filled with all sorts of ambition. I had delusions of grandeur. I think that’s part of why I became an atheist: I was sure I was better than anyone who might get in my way and I didn’t want any God pretending He was more important than me or telling me I needed Him. When I began going to worship with Ann just to get her off my back, I encountered the truth that, despite my egotism and selfishness, God wanted even me for all eternity. I encountered Jesus Who to this day tells me (and you), “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)

It has been hard for me to receive such incredible grace so freely given with anything like trusting faith, which is why I pray quite regularly, “Father, in Jesus’ name, make war on my ego.”

In the New Testament, you’ll remember that the apostle Paul says he was afflicted with “a thorn in the flesh.” We don’t know what Paul’s thorn was. But we know what it felt like. Paul says that he asked God to remove his thorn three times and each time, the God Who loved him, just as He loves you and me, told Paul, “No.” “No,” God sometimes says, “I won’t remove your thorns, I won’t remove your suffering. I won’t remove your failure.” God explained to Paul why He was telling Paul, “No” to His prayer request: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” God was telling Paul, “Your faith in Me and in My grace grows when, in your weakness, in your childlikeness, you learn to depend on Me.” Paul writes in response to God’s refusal to remove the thorn from his flesh: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

All of this, of course, has implications for each of us as disciples of Jesus. When we walk with Jesus, even in the darkest valley, we find that when all the other things we might put our hope in–our goodness, efforts, hard work, power, money, even our families–give way or can’t give us peace, hope, or forgiveness, Jesus Christ is still there, assuring us with His presence and giving us the power to believe that through Him, we have life with God, now and always, that in Him, all will be well. All will be eternally well.

It means too, that the greatest in the Kingdom of God are those who haven’t completely acquiesced to the false wisdom of the world that tells us we can or should pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. The Kingdom of God is and always will be populated by those who live under Jesus Who says in John’s Gospel: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

I have come to believe that children’s and youth ministry–or any other kind of ministry–is little more than one vulnerable needy person saved by grace through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus coming alongside other vulnerable, needy people and inviting them to follow Jesus with us. Friends, Jesus Christ forgives you all your sins and sets you free to live with God now and eternally. That’s an accomplished truth for you right now. The hymn has it right: “The strife is o’er, the battle done / Now is the Victor’s triumph won!” Our call now is to tell and show others–churched, unchurched, young disciples, old disciples–that this truth, THIS GOOD NEWS, THIS GOSPEL, is for them too. Amen