Here's the sermon I recorded as this Sunday's weekly sermon for the Diocese of Chelmsford (Mark 9:30-37):
The disciples had been arguing among themselves – nothing changes there, then, we might be tempted to think! They had been arguing about which of them was the greatest and thinking of what they could get out of the movement that Jesus began. What they wanted was prestige and power by being elevated over all the other disciples to what they thought of as the position of influence at the right hand of Christ. Jesus turned their thinking about what is important and about prestige and power on its head. In the kingdom of God, service; thinking of and care for others is what counts, not personal advancement, position or power. What can I do for you, not what can I do for me!
At a training weekend for new curates the then Bishop of Barking, David Hawkins, performed a handstand to demonstrate the way in which Jesus, through his teaching in the beatitudes, turns our understanding of life upside down. He was thinking of the way in which Jesus startles us as paradox, irony and surprise permeate his teachings flipping our expectations upside down: the least are the greatest; adults become like children; the religious miss the heavenly banquet; the immoral receive forgiveness and blessing. Bishop David's action turned our expectations, as curates, of Bishops and their behaviour upside-down at the same time that it perfectly illustrated his point.
Years before Jesus was born, the prophet Isaiah had promised a child born for us who would establish endless peace upheld with justice and righteousness. Isaiah described a time when the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard would lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, with a little child leading them (Isaiah 11.1-9).
Isaiah's vision of the peaceable kingdom was centred on a child born to be the Prince of Peace. When that promised child came among us at Jesus, he said: ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs’; ‘Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven’; ‘Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven’ and ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.’ The child born for us calls us to welcome children and become like children. The most radical reversal in a culture where elders were revered is that “the greatest among you must become like the youngest.”
In 2022, several of Nicola Ravenscroft’s EarthAngel sculptures were exhibited at St Andrew’s in Wickford. These bronze sculptures are of children, simply dressed in soft silk tulle, who hesitate in time, leaning forward, hopeful, poised to dive into life, eyes closed, dreaming into their future, anticipating things unseen. Nicola says that her EarthAngels are youngling messengers of peace and healing, guardians of our future.
One reason why the promised child calls us to become like children is that children see the peaceable kingdom, until adults teach them otherwise. Children don’t argue amongst themselves for prestige and position until adults have taught them to do so. That is why the children are our future and can lead the way into a better future. We need, as Thomas Traherne wrote, to unlearn the dirty devices of this world in order to become, as it were, a little child again that we may enter into the Kingdom of God.
By telling his disciples that “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all”, Jesus turns the meaning of greatness and leadership upside down. No longer are they to be understood in terms of garnering wealth and power for oneself. Now they are understood to be about service; giving your life that others might live. Jesus, as the servant King, says to us, ‘I, your Lord and Teacher, have just washed your feet. You, then, should wash one another’s feet. I have set an example for you, so that you will do just what I have done for you.’
Michael Curry, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, in his statement on the coronavirus outbreak reminded us that: ‘Jesus came among us in the first place, to show us … how to live not simply as collections of individual self-interest, but how to live as the human family of God. That’s why he said love the Lord your God, love your neighbor as yourself. Because in that is hope for all of us to be the human family of God.’
Through her EarthAngels, Nicola Ravenscroft extends this call and example to include our care for the earth and the creatures it supports. Her sculptures are “earth’s messenger-angels: silently calling us all to live in peace with nature”: “Earth’s children are life’s heartbeat: they are her hope, her future ... they are breath of Earth herself. Creative, inquisitive and trusting, children are Earth’s possibility thinkers. They seek out, and flourish in fellowship, in ‘oneness’, and being naturally open-hearted, and wide-eyed hungry for mystery, delight and wonder, they embrace diversity with the dignity of difference.”
These are the children we are called to welcome, the children we are to become, the children to whom the peaceable kingdom belongs. Nicola’s EarthAngels stand together, peacefully, as friends, vulnerable and strong, silently singing out their call to change. These little children lead with trusting feet, plump and bare. The Prince of Peace is with them and calls us to let them lead the way. Will you be among those who follow?
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Raphael Ravenscroft - "... and a little child shall lead ..." Isaiah 11:6.
