# Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost September 24, 2024 - [ Blog ](/news-categories/blog) *By the Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Ph.D ’13 Plummer Professor of Christian Morals in the Faculty of Divinity Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church* *(The following is a transcript of the service audio, Sept. 22, 2024)* In the name of God who made us and redeems us and sanctifies us, amen. So the disciples, Jesus' disciples, are arguing with one another, arguing not just about anything but about who the greatest is, who's the greatest. And as a rejoinder, Jesus sets a child before them, presumably because children are innocent and good. I know some children and they're known to argue about greatness also. I don't want to name names, but certain children are even more preoccupied with greatness than others. So our youngest Danny, who is hiding right now, has been since he was a toddler fairly convinced of his own greatness. He was the kind of kid who would watch sports on TV and say, "Boy, that guy hit that ball far, but not as far as I can. Or That guy runs fast, not as fast as I can run though." It's not just these things though either. It's also the kind of values that Colette and I try to instill. There is a running joke among our children about which one is Colette's favorite. And I will confess that we have sometimes used that to get kids to clean their room or do their chores or whatever. When I was thinking about this, I was reminded of a time when Danny was four and he and Colette were taking a walk together. And Danny said to Colette, "I love you so much. I love you the most. I love you the best. My heart is the biggest in the whole universe, and all it's love is for you." Favorite kid stuff, right? And then he said to her, "But don't tell dad because I told him the same thing." The disciples are talking about greatness here. This greatness argument doesn't come out of nowhere. It's actually halfway through the lesson that this argument happens, and it's preceded by something that at first glance at least seems very different. Jesus is telling his disciples that he is going to die, that he's going to suffer. And in this, he's repeating the lesson we heard last week that Stephanie preached so beautifully upon. And if you were here last week or are familiar with this lesson, Peter got into a lot of trouble last week. Because Jesus comes to the disciples and says, "Who do you say that I am?" And Peter says, "You are the Messiah, the Christ." And Jesus says, "You're right." And then he tells them, "This is what's going to happen to me." What we again today, I am going to suffer and die. And Peter rebukes him, and then gets rebuked in turn by Jesus for standing in his way. And Peter's confused. This rebuke makes sense. We 21st century Christians, we're familiar with this title that we have given Jesus, so that Jesus has taken up the idea that Jesus is Messiah, is Christ. For us, that word Christ just means Jesus. That word Messiah just means Jesus. But for Peter and other people at this time, Jesus' people, the Messiah was not just a spiritual, but a political leader. A person who would restore Israel, restore these people who had lived in this land since before written history, restore them, throw off the occupying powers. And in the first eight chapters of the gospel, before Peter makes this declaration about Jesus, Jesus is giving all the signs that he is the one. He's walking on water. He's feeding thousands. He's talking about bringing his kingdom to these people. So of course, Peter says what he says. Of course, Peter thinks what he thinks. And I have to tell you, since that moment, since last week's lesson and what we hear today, Jesus has only helped Peter's case in between Jesus talking today about how he will suffer and die and Jesus talking last week about how he will suffer and die. Jesus takes a few of the disciples and goes up a mountain, and at the top of this mountain who shows up? But Moses of all people. Moses who defied an empire and freed Jesus' people, stands up and stands next to Jesus. And who else shows up with Jesus at the top of this mountain? But Elijah. Jesus has told his disciples that Elijah will come when the Messiah comes, and here's Elijah who condemned kings. Here he is standing next to Jesus. So of course, these disciples are thinking he's the one. –– Embed [Harvard Memorial Church](https://soundcloud.com/memorial-church "Harvard Memorial Church") · [The Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts Ph.D. - Sept. 22, 2024 | Sunday Sermon](https://soundcloud.com/memorial-church/the-rev-matthew-ichihashi-potts-phd-sept-22-2024-first-sunday-of-fall-term-sermon "The Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts Ph.D. - Sept. 22, 2024 | Sunday Sermon") –– And they're confused because they don't know what this dying and suffering business means, and they're afraid to ask him about it. We're told today, I think they're afraid to ask him about it because they don't want to get in trouble like Peter did. But their idea of what this means as this group of disciples moves together towards Jerusalem is fairly straightforward, and the question of greatness therefore naturally comes up. And so in response, Jesus presents a child. Now, children were regarded differently in the ancient world than they are now. Some of you may have seen the Surgeon General's article in The New York Times, I think it was last week or this week, talking about parenting and the stresses of parenting. And one of the things that I read, its subtext to that was the place of children and families in contemporary culture. Not in every family, not in every culture, but the place of children is important. We care for our children. We love our children. And people in the ancient world love their children too, but there wasn't a sense that children were the center of family life. The men who were heads of households, the pater familias. This was the center of social life and political life. And in fact, in Greek thought in particular, there was this idea, the way people thought, the presumptions they had was that perfection and completion go together. And since, as they would've thought, children are just adults who had not yet become completed, children were necessarily imperfect. That's the way they thought about what children were and who they meant, and that's why they reason children are vulnerable to sickness and disease and to death, why they're weaker. And so the disciples are arguing about greatness, and Jesus takes a child into his arms. The physical description here is really intimate. He takes a child into his arms, right in their midst, and he's challenging their notions in the same way that he's trying to turn the idea of what it means to be a Messiah upside down. He's trying to upend their notions of what power is, what greatness is. If you accept the imperfect, Jesus is saying, then you accept God. If you accept the weak, then you accept God. If you accept the vulnerable, then you accept God. This is what Jesus is demonstrating in the wake of their argument about greatness by taking a child and saying, "If you receive this one, then you receive me. If you receive this one, then you receive God." Jesus is saying much as he's trying to tell them about his Messianic mission, he's saying, "You have it upside down." But again, we know this. We had this notion of what it means for Jesus to be Christ. We've had this for 2,000 years, we Christians in this 21st century church. Presumably, we also think about children differently. Of course, we would welcome them. Nearly half of the world's 120 million forcibly displaced people, refugees, nearly half of them are children. It's the most in history. The suffering that this entails is most terrifyingly obvious in places like Gaza when we see images and stories in our social media. But this number, the number of refugee children, this number doubles and triples in places like Syria or Venezuela or Ukraine or Afghanistan or indeed, in the Sudan, where genocide has killed most of the adults and left mostly children and where there is famine. In a different New York Times article this week, I read that the United Nations estimates in the next year, 13 million people will die of starvation. The margin of error on the estimate is 2 million people. The margin of error on starving children is a population three times the population of the city of Boston. It's hard to conceive these numbers. They stymie understanding. But here is the truth, there's a Danny behind every one of those children, a child in Gaza or Aleppo or Kyiv or Darfur, whose heart is as big as the universe and who deserves to fill that heart with love and pride and hopefulness rather than fear and grief and pain. We have a global refugee crisis spurred by war and poverty, and climate change. Children are suffering and dying. And meanwhile, we have major presidential and vice presidential candidates who gleefully demonize immigrants and cause bomb threats to be sent to elementary schools. And we have a current administration that has restricted asylum and closed our southern border. And I know this is not uncomplicated. I know we are directly implicated here in Massachusetts, and we in the Commonwealth are out of shelters, and folks are sleeping in the terminals at Logan Airport. And I realized that the practical and the political questions are far more complex than a preacher like me could imagine. But I am a preacher and the moral question is clear. Not whether we welcome children and families fleeing war and poverty and disaster, not whether we welcome them, but how well we welcome them, how eagerly and how generously and how kindly and how much in Jesus' name. We like to think these disciples didn't know, but things haven't changed much since the ancient world, and we haven't changed that much since the ancient world. Jesus isn't talking to anybody else this morning besides us, because it is. We are in the middle of an election and it's an important election. An election that matters. And while we all outdo one another, pursuing power and might and majesty just like these disciples, while we run around striving for personal and national, and political greatness, the weakest and most vulnerable among us suffer. When Jesus takes this child up into his arms, what he's announcing to his disciples, what he's announcing to us is that he is not interested in greatness, not interested in making anybody or anything great, let alone making it great again. What he wants is to make us just. What he wants is to make us merciful. What he wants is to make us good and loving and holy like Him and like God and like all these children we sacrifice to our idea of greatness. It is because we will not embrace the most vulnerable and neglected among us, neither then nor now, that Jesus himself takes them up into his arms and embraces them. Jesus takes up into his own arms all those we ignore and all those we malign, and all those we persecute. Jesus takes up into his own arms all those we refuse and all those we turn away. We disciples should not be surprised that he will suffer their same fate. #### **Full Service Video** See also:- [ Pusey Minister ](/blog-categories/pusey-minister) - [ Sunday Service ](/blog-categories/sunday-service) - [ Sunday Service ](/archive/sunday-service) - [ Sermon ](/archive/sermons) - [ Matthew Ichihashi Potts ](/media-archive/matthew-ichihashi-potts) Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#)