Mark 9:30-37: The Child and the Argument

It’s a scene we’re very familiar with from the gospels – Jesus travelling across the Galilean countryside with his disciples. He’s trying to teach them something about how he’s going to be betrayed, die and then rise again, and they can’t seem to understand. It’s probably got something to do with the argument that’s been rumbling on for miles. Not in front of Jesus, of course, but behind his back, when they think he’s not looking, while he’s going on about the Son of Man doing this that and the other. The argument. Who’s the greatest? It was a good one, could go round and round for days, because of course only Jesus could say for sure. But it seems to have taken up a lot of the disciple’s time and energy. Who’s the greatest? There are some obvious front-runners. Peter, ‘the rock’, Jesus told him he’d build his church on him. But, well, he’s not the sharpest tool in the box is he? Big on enthusiasm, short on common sense. John, ‘the disciple Jesus loved’, Jesus’ best friend, but never shown particular favouritism, or given extra responsibility. Then there’s the others. Levi the tax collector – probably the best educated of the lot of them, great conversion story, sinner turned to saint that sort of thing. Simon the zealot – formerly member of a radical revolutionary sect, never compromised, never wavered in his convictions, always given his all for God, not like half of them, who’ve spent more time being fishermen than being disciples. And that’s not even considering the women. Because, chances are, the twelve didn’t – stands to reason that the greatest would be a man, would be one of the twelve.

On and on it went, with every incident providing evidence to bolster the case for one disciple or another. It must have driven Jesus round the bend. Or would have done if he hadn’t been so patient. So when they get to Capernaum, he decides enough is enough. This rivalry, the constant comparisons, the pride, the insecurities, everyone trying to figure out a pecking order, all of it was making it impossible for the disciples to hear what he was saying. So he does something about it. He pulls a child into the centre of the room.

The story doesn’t tell us who they were. It doesn’t tell us if they were a boy or a girl. It doesn’t tell us how old they were.  Maybe they were the child of whoever’s house they were staying in that night. We aren’t told. And I suspect we aren’t told for a very important reason – the disciples didn’t know. Until Jesus pulled them into the centre of things none of these self-important men had even noticed the child was there. Children had little status in the ancient world. To men wrapped up in an argument about who was the greatest, they would have barely registered. Jesus pulls this child, who they had thought beneath their notice, into the centre of things and says “Whoever wants to be first must be last and servant of all.”

The disciples are the ones wanting to be first. The child is the one who is last in the room. “You must be like this.” Jesus is saying. Instead of being obsessed with their own status, forever competing with those around them, seeing them as rivals, they are to act as if they know they are less important, as if competition were pointless.

But that isn’t all that Jesus is trying to teach them. “When you welcome this child, you welcome me and the one who sent me.” He says. Not only should the disciples be like a child, Jesus himself is like them, and so is God. Jesus has come as a servant, as one completely outside of the games of status that consume those they serve. He has set aside his own interests and put those of others first. And until the disciples understand  this is the character to his mission – the first who is last and servant of all – they will not understand what he has been trying to teach them about where his mission will lead. Jesus, the servant of all, will be betrayed and killed, because he is putting the needs of others first.

We’ve all got our bugbears, our little quirks, the things we like and don’t like, and there’s nothing wrong with that – as long as we put the needs of others first. Because that’s what children have to do. It’s not much fun being a child – however much we might tell them it is. Your life, your priorities, are dictated to you by someone else. And you can’t do much about it. Jesus wants us to be children. By choice. To choose to allow our priorities to be dictated by others. It doesn’t mean we can’t have our little quirks – whether that’s a liking for Thomas the Tank Engine or for having others admire our knowledge of gardening. As long as we realise that there will be times when the needs of others must come first, when we must allow our priorities to be set by God, not us.