Embrace and welcome.

He sat down, called the twelve and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then He took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in His arms, He said to them, “Whosoever welcomes one such child in My name welcomes Me, and whoever welcomes Me, welcomes not Me but the One who sent Me. Mark 9:36-37

So this morning I paused and thought about what does it really mean to embrace and welcome this little child.  Because the context is not that of a little curly headed spunky one who puts on her own bike helmet and her momma’s glasses and her daddy’s big black boots and then smiles for the camera and the adventure of the day. Rather the context is that of the demon-possessed boy who foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid, and who needs prayer in order to cast out the evil spirit.

And the context is that the Son of Man is going to be delivered unto death. And on the third day he will be raised. And the disciples couldn’t think of anything to say.

And the immediate context is “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”

All. Every single last one of them.

Embrace and welcome.

And every single day offers up opportunities for prayer. And for death. And for embracing. From the very moment that my foot first hits the pedal and I head out the gate, I am going to find His children, sweaty and smelly and grinding their collective teeth.

And my friend Cameron has a song about Here is the Church, here is the steeple, open the door and we are the people. I think. Something like that, and my heart rejoices as the Church opens her doors. Because I am pretty good at getting that sometimes the one is a fifth-grader on the sidewalk around the corner from school who I don’t know her name and it is way late after school and I am tired and she missed her ride and I can’t understand anything that she is saying except that she is weeping and she lives “West.”

But it goes deeper than that. And broader. And that is the reason I am at Southside. And the reason I became a deacon. To learn how to see and to walk and to embrace and welcome because you do it so well.

Because this is the Southside legacy, to see the child hidden deeply behind the scruffy beards and stinky clothes and rejected anger and desperate weariness. The child of God. Each and every one an image bearer. And to embrace and welcome.

To embrace and welcome Jesus as you push his wheelchair up and over the bumpy sidewalk into the waiting TransBus. To embrace and welcome Jesus as you kneel by her bed and share the last pew communion. To embrace and welcome Jesus as you restack the folding chairs yet one more time after serving crackers and cheese and veggies and juice and coffee to them.

Exactly the same way I embrace that little Simone singing, “Twinkle, twinkle little star” at the top of her lungs. Exactly.

O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our heart; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.