JESUS, THE CRUCIFIED/RISEN WELCOME
Mark 9:30-37
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 25), Year B
Analysis by James Squire
30They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; 31for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” 32But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. 33Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” 34But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” 36Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
“Jesus now becomes the child to be welcomed by faith.”
Author’s note: In Mark’s narrative, this text immediately follows the transfiguration and an exorcism that required some nifty pinch-hitting by Jesus, because his disciples could not manage it. As if to emphasize the utter disconnect between Jesus and the disciples, his second prediction of his demise is followed by the distracted squabbling over who is the greatest disciple. The child in verse 36 symbolized subservience, which I would argue serves to further amplify Jesus’ point in verse 35. He’s not driving them toward sentimentality, he’s driving them toward humility.
DIAGNOSIS: Out of Sync
Step 1-Initial Diagnosis (External Problem): Easily distracted
Jesus is trying to teach his disciples about what lies ahead for him (and by association, for them), and tries to shut out the outside world with all its distractions (vs. 30-31), but his disciples are living in those distractions by jockeying for the gold medal in discipleship (v. 34). Fame – or in the age of social media, what we call “engagement” – is exactly what Jesus wants to discourage, but they/we are locked in. No wonder they are silent when he asks them what they were arguing about (v. 33). At least they sensed the disconnect and had the good sense to be silent. Imagine how Jesus would have reacted if they had responded brazenly by asking him to make the award. However, this does not earn them a pat on the back; it earns them a lecture that includes a somewhat humbling object lesson (vs. 35-37).
Step 2-Advanced Diagnosis (Internal Problem): Frustrated in isolation
Faced with the disconnect from whatever Jesus is trying to teach them, they can only believe they are the key to making things better. If Jesus would just pick one of them to be his second in command, the kingdom would begin to gain momentum again. They cannot center their thinking and listening around anything other than their own mindset for how to succeed. The result is a continuing sense of frustration. The harder they try to figure out how to make things better according to their own ideas, the further away they are from what Jesus is trying to impress upon them.
Step 3-Final Diagnosis (Eternal Problem): Absence of Divine welcome
The greater problem is that in pursuing a top-down authority over servanthood is that they/we leave not only so many others behind in the process (children, for example), but are distant from God’s welcoming plan for this world. That divine welcome is missing from our lives.
PROGNOSIS: Synced Up in Jesus
Step 4-Initial Prognosis (Eternal Solution): Jesus turns lack of welcome into divine welcome
Overpowering all the disconnectedness going on in this text is Jesus’ cruciform message: “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again” (v. 31). These human hands into which Jesus is betrayed certainly belong to the kind of top-down authority structure that often defines the greatness the disciples have ironically been craving and even seeking to implement. For Jesus, this irony is excruciating, mortifying. But Jesus is subservient and humble when that hand-over takes place… and for our good.
The good news becomes evident in the last words at the end of that message – “HE WILL RISE AGAIN.” The kingdom will be victorious precisely in a child-like subservient fashion, by Jesus submitting himself to betrayal and execution and then rising again. The top-down world is turned upside down, and so also are the gates of heaven opened to welcome us. Being last of all and subservient to all, Jesus emerges first of all from the empty tomb and firmly establishes his kingdom of welcome and service for all people and for all time.
Step 5-Advanced Prognosis (Internal Solution): Baptized into community by a little child
Jesus now becomes the child to be welcomed by faith. When they catch up to him post-resurrection, they will grasp that belonging to the kingdom means welcoming the child Jesus as Lord. Moreover, the good news is that this welcome of the child Jesus extends also as a welcome of the “one who sent me” (v. 37). Through faith, we are part of Jesus’ family.
Step 6-Final Prognosis (External Solution): New life as a welcome distraction
The promising good news is extended in humble, loving service. We get to welcome those with no status in society, thereby welcoming Jesus who completely identifies with such forgotten persons. In so doing, they are welcoming God who sent Jesus. They get to experience how the kingdom of God turns their world upside down by the simple act of saying, “welcome!” By the way, a part of them dies when Jesus dies. They didn’t get where he was coming from, but they still hung on every word and miracle and parable. Their worldly mindset has been upended by the resurrection. The fact that Jesus did not stick around outside the tomb for some sort of ticker-tape parade helps to drive this point home for them. The invitation to please God by a simple welcome is itself a kind of “welcome to the kingdom” for them.
This time around, they are free to see the nobodies as worthy of welcome, because the kingdom has been accomplished and the old-world hierarchy has been rendered obsolete. It is useless to fight over the top spot, when that top spot – as the world defines it – has lost all its allure. They probably dented their foreheads good naturedly a few times, wondering how they could have missed what the kingdom was all about, but there is no time for such nonsense. Moreover, the kingdom of God isn’t into “I-told-you-so’s.” The kingdom of God is all about serving the nobodies – who are only nobodies in the eyes of the world, of course. There are no lectures about past foibles – Jesus has already suffered them out of existence.
