Sermon “Let the Children Come to Me“ Luke 18:15-17

Sermon “Let the Children Come to Me“ Luke 18:15-17 audio link http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23575548/120212Luke18.mp3

Lord, grant that we may be eager to hear your word and to believe you, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Today we are having a celebration of life. Often a life Sunday is scheduled to coincide with the 1973 Supreme Court decision which effectively allowed for legal abortion. This year we ended up missing that date and having this date instead. Yet there's a sense, and it's an important sense, in which it is always life Sunday for the Christian.

If we are able, let us rise for the reading of another passage of the Gospel, this found in Luke's Gospel, the 18th chapter, beginning at verse 15.

15 People were also bringing babies to Jesus to have him touch them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. 16 But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 17 I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

This is the Gospel of the Lord. Praise be to You, oh Christ.
Please be seated.

This passage, familiar as part of the reading this week in our Bible reading challenge, and probably familiar to everyone who has ever been in a Sunday school class for more than a year, says more than we often realize it does. I'd like to point out three of the many lessons we can learn as we look to these verses today. First, Jesus invites little children to himself. Second, the kingdom of God is just the right place for children. Finally, we come to our Lord as children.

Jesus invites little children to himself. The word Luke uses for “little children” is the Greek word which would indicate either an unborn baby or a newly born baby. It is probably used better for someone who is still in the womb than it is for someone who has been born, and will stop being used within about a year after birth. It's the term for a very small child. These are people whom Jesus loves. They are people who are created in the image of God. They are entirely people. And Jesus invites them to himself. He invites them to hear of his saving love. He invites them to receive his blessing. He considers them important. In the words of Lutheran theologian and popular author Theodore Geisel, “A person's a person, no matter how small.”

Yet our culture at large has rejected that idea, and has been rejecting this value of human life now for more than forty years. We've seen it in the movement to kill living human beings who have not yet been born. We have seen it in many other developed countries, and in attitudes increasingly common in this country aimed at older people. We like to use the politically friendly terms such as “euthanasia” and “assisted suicide” while people who are elderly, infirm, or deemed unproductive by our society are put to death or encouraged to put themselves to death. At the beginning and end of life we look less and less at human life as a blessing from God and more and more as something to be endured, at least for a while, in hopes that someone useful and productive can emerge.

What happens when we reject the idea that human life is a gift from God? You may have noticed that we broke with some tradition and have changed the paraments to red. I thought about changing them to white, since we often think of the beauty and purity of those created in God's image. But we use red as the color for martyrdom, for those who have died. Since 1973 in this country alone we have had approximately 54 million “safe, legal” abortions. But those abortions are not safe, not safe at all. Not only does one of every two humans involved in an act of abortion die, we also see increased rates of depression, anxiety, drug addiction, and suicide among women who have had abortions. It's not safe at all. And more importantly, it deprives human children from any opportunity to come to Jesus for forgiveness of the sin in which they were conceived. It separates those children eternally from the loving and forgiving work of Christ on the cross. If all have sinned, that includes all those people we haven't met yet. That includes my granddaughter, whose picture is on my office door, whom we hope to meet sometime in June. She needs the forgiveness of Jesus who died for her as well.

People involved in this culture of death have told me, and they may have told you as well, “If you don't like abortion, don't have one.” But the Bible tells us to care for those who cannot help themselves. We are to protect the helpless. We are not just anti abortion, but we are pro life. So our desire is to defend life.

That desire to defend life, though, becomes more complicated when we start looking at medical research. There's a wide-ranging debate in this country right now about stem cell research, a promising field of research which has been finding cures for previously incurable illnesses. What does not show up so clearly in our news media is that the stem cell research industry is separated into two branches. One branch, which refers to adult stem cells, finds ways of taking cells from an ill patient, for instance, blood cells, which that patient can make more of. They have found out how to persuade the cells to adapt themselves into other, healthy bodily tissues which can be used to treat or even replace unhealthy tissues. This branch of research has worked remarkably well and has saved many many lives.

The other branch of stem cell research doesn't like to tell us how they go about their research. It's called embryonic stem cell research. They take fertilized eggs, possibly “left-overs” from other medical treatments, and clone the embryos, the humans at the very earliest stage of their lives. These cloned embryos are used for research to see if they can generate bodily tissues which can be implanted into sick people and overcome their illnesses, much like the adult stem cell tissues do. There are a couple of drawbacks, though. The first is not so important to me, but it might be to others. No cure for any known disease has ever been found through this method. It has had a zero percent success rate so far, while adult stem cell research has had a fairly good success rate. Yet the low success rate doesn't bother me so much. Inventors are very often finding out that what they tried didn't work. Edison found hundreds of ways not to make a light bulb. It's all right to try and fail. But what is the cost in embryonic stem cell research? To do an experiment the researchers start a human life and then destroy it. Each time we experiment, somebody dies. Does it matter that this is somebody for whom there were no parents on the scene, who was never “intended” to be living in our world? “A person's a person no matter how small.” “Let the little children come to Me.”

The picture becomes even more muddled, though. Do you want to avoid supporting the abortion industry and embryonic stem cell research? Fine. But what do we do to encourage those people who are looking for cures for diseases? Groups which are dedicated to fighting diseases such as cancer often strongly support embryonic stem cell research, which always results in the death of human embryos. Recently, for instance, the Susan G. Komen for the cure foundation withdrew support for Planned Parenthood, apparently partly in response to pro-life groups which have pointed out a link between women receiving abortions and development of breast cancer, partly because they wished to avoid ties with organizations which were under criminal investigation or organizations which simply pass donations through to other cancer-diagnosis and treatment providers. The Komen foundation then reversed their decision when they were bombarded by criticism from government officials and liberal-leaning groups. This is a prominent group, doing a good deal for a cause that is important to millions of people. Yet we have to question what else they may be supporting. And we get to question all sorts of organizations. For instance, the American Cancer Society, sponsor of the Relay for Life, is supportive of embryonic stem cell research and also provides links to and support for abortion providers. Yet those abortion providers have virtually no involvement in cancer prevention. They are committed to ending human lives. We want to encourage researchers who are trying to find a cure for a deadly disease. But we don't want to be encouraging the killing of those little children. Jesus says they should be allowed to come to him. How do we do this? I wish I could answer it for you. Yet I can't and I realize it's time for me to step down off my soapbox without mentioning genocide or anything that would have me imprisoned if we were in a church in some countries.

Two more points, then, quickly, this time. What did I say at first? First, Jesus invites little children to himself. Second, the kingdom of God is just the right place for children. Finally, we come to our Lord as children.

So the kingdom of God is just the right place for children. As people who need to receive the blessing and forgiveness of Jesus, this is where our children need to be. One prominent Christian philosopher pointed out in my presence once that children are sinners like the rest of us. They are simply cute sinners. When we think about it, we all are condemned. Regardless of age, we have not loved God with all our hearts. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. And in some ways small children are worse about this than adults. They are less conscious of their neighbors and the needs those neighbors have. Yet where sin abounds, grace abounds more. God's merciful presence in Word and Sacrament is exactly what people of every age, including small children, need. We don't simply treat the family as a holding tank for children who will have to decide later whether they will believe on Christ or not. we treat the family as a place where the work of the ministry goes on, where the Word of God is read and treasured, where we pray for one another, and where we nurture one another in the love of Christ. That is why I am encouraged to see families with children coming to church. Parents and children alike need the grace of God. That is why I'm encouraged when young fathers and old fathers look to our Lord to teach them how to live as the heads of their families, leading them in all righteousness. That's why I'm encouraged when young mothers and old mothers look to the Lord to teach them how to live as godly women, nurturing their families, supporting their husbands in leadership. That's why I'm encouraged when children look to our Lord for grace to grow in him and to mature in the context of their families.

Did I leave someone out, though? I did, and that's someone we need to value. How about the person who has no family? How about the person who has been tossed aside, the one who is abandoned, the one who is weak and hurt? How about the unwed mother who has been abandoned by her boyfriend? How about the father who has his children but the children's mother is not around? How about the orphans and widows of this world? We may be anti-abortion, but how pro-life are we? Are we ready to receive some of these people, no, not some of them, all of these people, as those people whom the Lord would have come to him? Or do we treat them as outsiders and hope they go away soon? “Let the little children come to me.” Jesus also wants the not-so-little children to come to him.

That brings me to the last point. First, Jesus invites little children to himself. Second, the kingdom of God is just the right place for children. Finally, we come to our Lord as children.

How do we approach our God? Like children, we realize that we can't bring anything he needs. We can't do anything that will earn his favor. We can't bring our righteousness because we don't have any of that. All we bring is the fact that our Lord has called us to himself, that he has given himself for us and for our salvation. All we bring is the fact that we are weak and helpless and that he is strong, merciful, and calls us to himself. How did these babies come to Jesus? They were little bitty babies. They didn't walk, they didn't even crawl. They were brought to Jesus. And someone has brought each one of us to Jesus as well. The Holy Spirit has used others to bring us to Jesus.

When we look at our culture, the people all around us, the people who are not valued enough, the people who don't value other people enough, those people are really not that different from us. We all need to be brought to Jesus. We all need his care. We all need his forgiveness. The question is whether we who have been brought to Jesus are ready to receive his kingdom, and whether we who have received his kingdom are ready to be his instruments to bring others to him. Will we defend life? Will we protect and nurture those people, bringing them up in the nurture of the Gospel? Will we guard the elderly and people who seem otherwise not very useful from harm, knowing that they are dear to our Lord? Will we welcome our friends and neighbors, as well as our enemies and strangers, with open arms, to a life of repentance, faith, and the love of Christ?

Jesus calls us to himself as little children. He lays his hand of blessing on us. Let us receive all his blessing, in the Name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.