Remembering Who We Were

Second Sunday after Pentecost

On Matthew 18:1-7

• Last week I attended my 21^st reunion from graduating Grinnell College (Iowa). It was like having my feet in two different worlds. Remembering and also looking at the present. It’s edifying & important to look back, yet necessary to live in present.

There’s a care-free feeling of remembering, like there was no script “back then,” it seems. Grown-up life often feels very scripted.
Do you ever wish you could just be?

• Jesus says you must become like a child.

What that means depends on view of children.

Children are priority in our day. Shamefully, we consider it somehow an offense if a person doesn’t have children. We ask when they are going to, and if they don’t, we wonder why.

And we don’t often confess that kids
are a massive drain on resources.

• In ancient days, children were regarded as inferior.
Property. No rights, no status.

Become like child: release status. About face. Be humble.

Become like child: trusting. In the care of others.
Not making the decisions.

Become like child: simple. Not complex.
Adults split hairs & go to war. Children: Jesus loves me, this I know.

Become like child: innocent. Children are taught to hate or distrust other races or homosexuals or people who are different.

Jesus says unless you 'about face' and become like child,
you can not enter the kingdom.

• I’m reading a book with my friend, Christ of the Celts, by J. Philip Newell. About theology in the medieval church in the region of Ireland & Scotland. Different theology than mainstream 21^st. We have been fixated on original sin and the blood sacrifice of Christ, and “accepting Jesus Christ as personal Lord and savior,” but J. Philip Newell contends it hasn’t always been that way and that’s not necessarily the best way to consider Christ and salvation…

Medieval Celtic theology emphasizes how we’re created in the image of God and how we’ve forgotten our roots, and Christ comes to teach us to remember, to redeem us from the lies we tell ourselves.

• Let us live as Christ, not using power or status over (becoming like child) or to harm but to lift up (get under! Humble, low to the ground) and help.

• And to remember that in Christ there is belonging, and rest, and power, and reunion.

And we remember our roots and we remember how Jesus Christ redeemed us. Redeems us still, as we participate in the sacrament of Holy Communion.

• Anthem In Remembrance of Me, and then into Holy Communion (p. 12-15)

Matthew 18:1-7       (CEB)            2^nd Sunday after Pentecost   06/7/15

18 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked,
“Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

² Then he called a little child over to sit among the disciples, ³ and said, “I assure you that if you don’t turn your lives around and become like this little child, you will definitely not enter the kingdom of heaven. ⁴ Those who humble themselves like this little child will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. ⁵ Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

⁶ “As for whoever causes these little ones who believe in me to trip and fall into sin, it would be better for them to have a huge stone hung around their necks and be drowned in the bottom of the lake. ⁷ How terrible it is for the world because of the things that cause people to trip and fall into sin! Such things have to happen, but how terrible it is for the person who causes those things to happen!