Last Saturday, I had the great joy of joining with my family in celebrating my youngest great nephew’s fourth birthday – it was lots of fun!  There were 40 people at the party and more than a dozen of them were under the age of ten.  My nephew and his wife had rented a portable miniature golf and the kids, filled with laughter, took turns playing each hole as well as in the play house in the corner of their back yard and the jungle gym nearby – and just running around as we adults stood around chatting.  As I listened to the laughter of all the children, I was reminded of a statistic I had read just recently.  Did you know that children laugh an average of 400 times a day; we adults laugh only about 17 times a day.  As we see in today’s gospel account, where Jesus takes a child and places him in the midst of his disciples, we have a lot to learn from children, and one of the most important is the ability to laugh.  But, we can also learn something I really delighted in as I watched these children last Saturday.  Many of them had never met before the party and yet, they all got along with each other and the older ones helped the younger ones as they played together on the golf course or the play house or the jungle gym.  They acted so differently than the way we hear people acting in today’s readings.

In this evening’s first reading, we hear about the wicked, who say: “Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us. …Let us condemn him to a shameful death.”  In our second reading, we hear the author ask: “Where do wars and where do the conflicts among us come from?  Is it not from your passions that make war within your members?”  In today’s gospel, we hear our Lord predict that he will be killed.  We heard him make the same prediction last week with a little more elaboration.  As he was teaching his disciples, he explained that he would suffer greatly, be rejected by the Jewish leaders, and be killed.  And, we all know why this happened.  It was because these leaders found him obnoxious to them and conspired to put him to death. 

And why was Jesus so offensive to the Jewish leaders of his day?  It was, in part, because he was calling them – just as he was calling all of his followers – to care for everyone, and especially those who were most vulnerable.  You will remember that, in his day, children had absolutely no standing in society.  It wasn’t until they received their Bar Mitzvah that they counted.  Yet, Jesus took a child and instructed his followers: “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me.”  It seems that many of the religious leaders at that time had become accustomed to feeling self-important and, rather than caring for the most vulnerable – the poor, the sick, widows and orphans, little children – they were more concerned about filling their own coffers so they could live well themselves.  By contrast, we see Jesus reaching out to care for the poorest in society, healing them, feeding them, assuring them of God’s love for them.  That was clearly part of Jesus’ mission, as he proclaimed that the kingdom of God was in their midst.

The writer of Mark’s Gospel portrays Jesus’ disciples as faithful, but often clueless about Jesus’ true mission.  Today’s Scripture is a good example.  As Jesus talks to the disciples about his impending death and resurrection, they don’t appear to show concern or ask their teacher about his mysterious, disturbing words.  Rather, they quietly begin to debate who among them is the greatest.  They sound like the religious leaders of their time, don’t they?  So, Jesus teaches them – and us – that “if anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”

God sent his son – as a child, born of Mary to bring about his kingdom, not a kingdom of power and might, where jealousy and selfish ambition prevail, but a kingdom where, like the children at my great nephew’s birthday party, we take care of one another, where, like our Lord was portrayed in this evening’s second reading, gentleness and patience will prevail.  Even when he faced his own suffering and death at the hands of his enemies, Sacred Scripture records that Jesus was silent and submissive, humbly accepting the very painful, humiliating path his heavenly Father had laid out for him.  God though he was, Jesus was willing to be the “servant of all,” as we hear in today’s Gospel.  Let us reflect on the great love that God has shown us through the example of his son and bring about God’s kingdom in our midst by caring for everyone we meet, especially those with the greatest needs.