The Upside Down Kin-Dom - October 4, 2015

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Mark 10:2-16

A priest, a pastor, and an imam were discussing the best postures for prayer, while a telephone repair person worked nearby. "Kneeling is definitely the best posture for prayer," said the priest. "No," said the pastor, "I get the best results standing with my arms raised." "You're both wrong," replied the imam, "the most effective posture for prayer is laying flat on the ground."
Finally the telephone repair person could not restrain herself any longer. "The best praying I ever did was when I was hanging upside down from a telephone pole."

God's reign is like the telephone repair person's prayer. Often it up ends us. It breaks into our lives at the most unexpected times and ways. To recognize God's reign we must move from our padded pews and comfortable lives to moments of dire need and crisis.
Our reading from Mark begins as the Pharisees continue to test Jesus by asking, "It is lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" The Pharisees had been challenging Jesus in a variety of ways. They hoped to push him into a corner where he would be left dangling. In this situation, they knew that the Jewish law allowed for a man to end a marriage simply by saying, "I divorce you," to his wife. Roman law allowed for a woman to do the same thing to her husband.
Jesus reframes the question by going back to creation itself. He looks to the original goal by which human beings were made to live in partnership with each other. "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." Rather than getting caught up in the fine points of the law, Jesus looks at the purpose of marriage. He turns the question upside down.
At the same time, Jesus recognizes human reality. Sometimes marriages are broken long before they end up in a divorce court: abuse, be it physical or emotional, breaks the covenant to love and to cherish; infidelity is not only sexual, but can happen when one partner is married to work, or golf, or even to the children more than to the other spouse. And sometimes couples really do have irreconcilable differences because they turn out to have very different values.
When a marriage goes sour, whatever the reason, people's lives are turned upside down. "I never expected to get divorced," "I did not plan on being a single parent," people have told me. And even if they somehow manage to hang on to the marriage, an unhappy relationship saps people of energy and focus and joy. Single mothers are far more likely to end up living in poverty than either single dads or married couples. Getting behind on one's bills, an inability to provide the extras like sports fees or music lessons, plunge people's self esteem to the bottom.
"The best praying I ever did was when I was hanging upside down from life," such people might say. Even as Jesus looks back to the original purpose of marriage, he allows for God's grace to extend to those who need it most.
Next comes the story of Jesus receiving and blessing the little children, despite the disciples attempt to keep them away. "Do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs," Jesus instructs the disciples. "Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it."
Children in the first century had no rights. There was no Child Protective Services to guard them from abuse, no child labor laws to keep them from being forced to work in unsafe conditions, no laws to dictate safety in toys – if children even had any toys. Children, while loved and cherished by their families, were on the lowest rung of society.
As God's reign is open to single mom's or people struggling in an unhappy marriage, so God's reign is open to children. However we define little ones, Jesus points out to us that we enter the reign of God when we recognize our need. Wealth, status, and privilege often keep us from realizing how much we need God. The little ones, be they children or poor people, single mom's or immigrants, come to God in humility and openness to what God can do for them.
It is fitting today that we come to celebrate the baptism of HFW. In baptism we acknowledge that God claims little H as God's beloved child. The old baptism ceremony for infants included the words from our reading from Mark, "Let the children come to me, for to such belongs the kingdom of God." It is fitting that we baptize H today.
Much as we love all our new babies, the truth is that right now they require a lot from us. We need more workers in the nursery. We need money to supply the nursery with diapers and wipes. We have set aside space for rocking chairs in the chapel. Sometimes the babies will be fussy. And the babies model for us how to receive God's reign. Like these babies who get passed around from one set of arms to another, who are loved even as they coo and fuss and distract us all, so God receives us into God's reign. It is an upside down kin-dom, in which we too are cradled and loved by the One who welcomes us even in the mist of diaper explosions and spit up.
Today is also World Communion Sunday. With Christians the world over we come to the table of mercy which God has prepared for us all. Communion too is an upside down meal, for God the Host is also the Guest. We come here hungry and thirsty for God's grace like children bursting in the door from school announcing, "I'm starving!" We come open handed to receive God's forgiveness. We come as the little ones to enter God's kin-dom, along with brothers and sisters we have never met. We come, hanging upside down from life, ready to receive God's very presence into our lives.