Let Them Come to Me

Have you ever been shooed away? Like shoo fly, don’t bother me. Told that you weren’t big enough, old enough, or that kids weren’t allowed? If you are an adult now, can you think of a time in which you weren’t welcome among the crowd.

But today we see a different story emerge from the crowd.

It is important to remember during this time, children weren’t seen as worth a whole lot. Until you could work, then you weren’t valued and appreciated. But what about Jesus?

In the crowd that day, there were some who were bringing their children to Jesus. The passage says these children were brought before Jesus with the hopes that he would lay hands on them and bless them and pray for them. We don’t have many accounts of Jesus interacting with children in Scripture, but the ones we do have matter a whole lot. We are told that the little children or little ones were brought to Jesus. How old were these kids? While we often translate it as children, the word actually means infant, so some scholars suggest that they were bringing even their babies to Jesus.

But before they make it to Jesus, the disciples start shooing them away. Can you make a shooing motion with me?

But Jesus says “Let them come to me.”

Admittedly, sometimes kids and adults can be noisy in worship. Maybe we talk when we are supposed to be quiet or laugh loudly or fidget. Maybe if it’s a baby they coo or babble or cry. Maybe we don’t always want to listen or sit still for too long. Think about the ways you welcome children in your life, whether it be your kids or grandkids. Are we saying “let them come to me” or “ you are really distracting me and need to learn to be quiet?” Think about how you are around babies and children in worship. One of my friends had a pastor who asked him to take his child to the nursery during the sermon because it was distracting. Another family was offended when everyone kept suggesting the nursery to them for their daughter as if she wasn’t welcome in the sanctuary. But rest assured, a silent sanctuary is not the sound you want. A sanctuary filled with the sounds of children is a sanctuary filled with the sound of the kingdom of God.

If children are welcome in the arms of Jesus, then they are welcome here among the body of Christ, with all their coos and cries and laughs and fidgets and litany of questions. And since all of us gathered here are children of God, we too are welcome with our questions and our wonder and our delight and even sometimes our sleep and our boredom.

Notice once again that while the disciples are shooing, Jesus is saying come to me. Jesus is always reversing the order of the value system, bringing in the least and the littlest and telling them that the kingdom of God is theirs. Come to me, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. Think about the goodness of the gospel found in those three words: “Come to me.” Let the last and the forgotten and the forsaken and the isolated and the rejected and the devalued and the forlorn come to me. Right here in my arms, this is where they belong.

At St. Luke each week while children are coming forward we sing “This, this is where children belong, welcome as part of the worshiping throng. Water, God’s Word, bread, cup, prayer, and song. This is where children belong.” While children come forward, we replace our shooing with a song of invitation.

But do you know what my favorite part of Children’s time is? It is when the children run forward. For all our talk of not running in church, it doesn’t seem to apply to children’s time. When is the last time your ran to meet God? That you were as excited as a child about the joy found in worship?

A couple of weeks ago at St. Luke we only had two kids come down at children’s time. And before I knew it my husband and another member both ran down the aisle and sat on the steps so the other children wouldn’t be by themselves. But I thought to myself, what if we as adults were that excited to worship, to come and sit at the feet of Jesus?

This is where children belong. You see, the kingdom of God is made of those who are like children before God. A child brings their whole self before God. They’re honesty. Their questions. Their giggles and joy. Even their frustrations. A few weeks ago my youngest laid down in front of the altar and wasn’t having it. We as adults have days like that too. Days where we are running to Jesus in joy and days where we have had it. And in and through all of it, this is where we belong.

And so Jesus took the children and he placed his hands on them. I don’t know the words he spoke, but I believe he blessed them. And so today, I want to bless each of you with me here.

May you find a joyful welcome

At the heart of this assembly,

So these adults never forget

They were once children themselves.

May your eyes and ears gather good stories

About what really matters to God,

So that love has the loudest word

Whenever the world tries to say otherwise.

May your whole sense of self know safety here,

Honored and loved beyond measure

According to the promises

We spoke over you in baptism and ever since.

May your life know value and purpose,

For you have been called and set free

To be hope and justice for those who do not know

They are already and always enough.

May you go boldly into the world,

But find your way home whenever

You need these sights and sounds

That know who and whose you are.

May this be the space you can bring your whole self before God.

May this be the space you belong.