"Whoever receives this child in my name receives me" (Luke 9:47).
To understand the unusual force to Jesus' words in today’s Gospel, we must know how little status children had in the ancient world. High infant mortality made reproduction and progeny important for the survival of the tribe and family, but an individual child had no particular significance, was just another mouth to feed until he could contribute as labor or she was marriageable or they served as security in old age. Our modern notion of children as persons with freedom, rights and dignity contrasts dramatically with the former view of children as property or servants.
So, when Jesus tells his disciples that anyone who receives a child was receiving him and the One who sent him, they could not have been more surprised. The paradox of greatness in weakness and leadership in service continues the theme of the Sermon on the Mount. The promised kingdom of God will turn the world upside down.
Blessed are those who are nothing in this world, for in God’s eyes they are the most valued and precious. We need only look at pay scales, privilege and power in our own world to realize how revolutionary the Gospel still is. And as our modern world shows even greater contempt by trafficking women and children for sex on a scale the ancient world could not imagine, how sobering this Gospel message really is for us who think we have come so far since Jesus' time. The Gospel is for everyone, from the greatest to the least, and in God’s eyes, the least are the greatest of all.
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