“He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’”

This relatively familiar episode takes place just after Jesus was transfigured on a Galilee mountaintop; shown in all his Christly glory and flanked by glowing apparitions of Moses and Elijah. All of this was witnessed by disciples Peter, James and John. They then came down the mountain and encountered a waiting crowd, including the other nine disciples, who had been unable to accomplish even a simple healing. Disgusted by their incompetence, Jesus cast an unclean spirit out of a small boy and returned him to his grateful father.

In today’s story which immediately follows these events, there is finally enough of a lull in the demanding routine of crowds and healings that Jesus is able to gather his disciples for a walking lecture as they make their way from Galilee to Capernaum. It’s heavy material; Jesus reveals, for the second of three times in this Gospel, that his identity as Messiah will necessitate his betrayal, death, and resurrection. And for the second of three times in this Gospel, this news does not sink in with the disciples. Their state of denial is so complete that they finally just change the subject and talk among themselves about something they can apparently wrap their heads around; their own egos.

Jesus said, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.”

In as many times as you may have heard this story, have you ever asked yourself, “Greatest at what?” Scripture knowledge? Fishing?  Or have Peter, James and John, in spite of having been ordered not to speak of their mountaintop experience, let it slip and bragged about how they were ‘humbled, honored, and privileged’ to have been present at Jesus’ Transfiguration while the rest of the disciples were bumbling around unsuccessfully at the bottom of the mountain?

Ultimately, does it matter exactly what the disciples claimed to be great at? Nope.

But the storyteller has accomplished their purpose—we are now thinking about greatness.

We hear a lot about greatness these days. We usually think of it in terms of comparative scale of one—one person, one event, one country—against another. Generally the idea of greatness is linked to the understanding of self and of one’s place in the world. Anyone who possesses a measure of greatness has, by extension, a degree of power and influence—and who doesn’t want that? High achievement of any kind is a mark of greatness in our competitive culture. We hear about GOATs—athletes who are Greatest Of All Time. And certainly who doesn’t think of greatness without picturing political rallies rife with little red ballcaps bearing those four ubiquitous initials that I needn’t mention… But those letters tout an America of false greatness, rooted in maleness, whiteness, and straightness. This is nothing new; it isn’t so different from other populist movements throughout the world now and throughout history. It is a greatness based on fear and deep-seated insecurity, dependent upon domination systems that have given rise to the sins of militarism, racism, economic inequality, and climate disaster.

Moving from the mere mention of the concept of greatness to an image of a world on the brink, all in one paragraph–that escalated quickly. But it’s a cognitive leap that reflects Jesus’ urgent response to his disciples’ confession. Jesus didn’t see in their whispered arguments a simple episode of inattention or of denial of his challenging teaching. He saw it as symptomatic of their lack of comprehension of what his teachings implied for their own identity and ministry as his followers. It was a misunderstanding with serious negative implications for the unfolding of God’s Dream, which rests on a foundation of greatness rooted in servanthood, not earthly power. Without that understanding, the foundation will crumble.

So, realizing this, Jesus responded by doing what he did best: He looked around for something that would help the disciples grasp the radical nature of his message.

“Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’”

Why a child? Theologian Walter Wink observes that

“Jesus uses the example of children not as an invitation to innocence and naivete but a challenge to relinquish all claims of power and domination over others.”

In other words, by shifting the disciples’ perspective of greatness away from that of competition and domination, Jesus turns their entire worldview on its head. He directly connects them to what he has been saying about his fate as Messiah; that like a vulnerable child, he will be at the mercy of the powerful in order that God’s Dream of new life and reconciliation of all Creation can unfold.

Last week Kaley spoke to us of a “Wild God,” “…who startles us into a life of justice, mercy, and love[, and] does so through surprising tactics: by accepting suffering, death, and confrontation with imperial power and all its instruments of torture.”

Today Jesus offers us a yes/and image, not just of a Wild God, but also of a Child God, who challenges and invites us through another surprising tactic; of not only showing himself in a child, but also showing us the child in himself.

To see the face of Jesus in a child is to view the little one that he takes in his arms as one of the most vulnerable in our society; to see, for example, one of the 11.6 million children in this country living in poverty. To see one of the thousands of American children who have had to hide from bullets in their classrooms. It is to see the face of Jesus in a hungry child in Sudan, an orphaned child in Ukraine, a bloodied traumatized child in Israel/Palestine, or a child fleeing the violence and poverty of their home country. To see Jesus’ face in the face of a suffering child is to see the him in each and every one of the victims of how earthly powers and principalities define greatness.

Jesus takes those children in his loving arms and challenges us to see them—the ones our society, through complacency, complicity, or collusion, deems to be the least—to see them instead as a priority–our greatest priority.

This is the challenge of the world-upending teaching of the One who came to us as an infant in a manger.

This is the challenge, but there is also invitation, to see in Jesus the gifts of childhood. If you spend any kind of time with children, you’ll observe their imagination, their creativity, their curiosity, and oh, my, their boundless energy. With little ones, anything is possible. When I was a few years old someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I said, “A horse.” Anything is possible. And my parents told of when my sister wanted a pony (I guess we both went through an equine phase of some kind.) The pony was at some distance from our home, and my parents asked her how she would get it back to our house. She said, “Bricks and boards and wheels.”

Anything is possible for a child.

As we grow into adulthood, reality sets in, and our sense of limitless possibility diminishes. We begin to see the world as it is, which in itself isn’t a bad thing, but if we don’t nourish our inborn gifts of creativity, curiosity, and imagination—all of which can help us navigate a complex reality—these gifts can languish. In taking a child in his arms Jesus calls us to see our childlike selves reflected in him, and invites us into the boundless possibility of the Dream of a Child God, for whom anything is possible.

Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

Like a child, Jesus enters our world and turns it upside-down, showing us that greatness isn’t about ego gratification and how we measure up against others. He has revealed that true greatness is rooted deeply, not in how we see ourselves, but in how God sees us; as Beloved.