This coming Sunday is the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, lectionary cycle B. As noted regarding the gospel last Sunday, the time of miracles, healings, and casting out demons seems to have passed. Moving forward, Mark’s gospel continues to primarily focus on the teaching and preparation of the disciples for the coming times when they will be without Jesus in his familiar presence. In our passage it seems clear that Jesus is pointing out some of the problems that the apostolic community will face – and many of them can be understood as problems of the human condition. The concerns of this passage are: (1) ambition among themselves (vv. 33–37); (2) envy and intolerance of others (vv. 38–41); and (3) scandalizing others (vv. 42–48).

From last week, it is good to remember that Jesus told the Twelve: “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the one who sent me.” (Mark 9:37) The radicalness of this simple verse can be lost on us because in our time we have a different view of children. We hold children to be innocent and precious. This does not seem to have been the view of the 1st century. In ancient culture, children had no status. They were subject to the authority of their fathers, viewed as little more than property. Perkins [p. 637] writes:

“… the child in antiquity was a non-person…Children should have been with the women, not hanging around the teacher and his students (cf. 10:13-16). To say that those who receive Jesus receive God does not constitute a problem. A person’s emissary was commonly understood to be like the one who sent him. But to insist that receiving a child might have some value for male disciples is almost inconceivable.”

Perkins is pointing out that Jesus is telling the disciples that while there are times they will indeed be Jesus’ emissaries, but this is not the problem at hand. The problem is that the Twelve cannot conceive of welcoming the least important people in society, those ranked lowest in human convention. Yet Jesus is saying, “you’ll need to work your way down to the most marginal and lowest (by human convention) in order to find me. I am last of all.” The Kingdom of God involves giving status to those who have none. The disciples are not to be like children, but to be like Jesus who embraces the child, the one thought to be least of all in human convention.

Image credit: The Exhortation to the Apostles | James Tissot | Brooklyn Museum | US-PD