A Poem a Sunday

Pentecost 17 B

September 20, 2015

St. Mark 9:30-37 - New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Commentary:  Don’t romanticize the children. They were among the marginalized and the least of these at the time of Jesus.  Mark records another great reversal of the Kingdom of God which continues to turn the current culture upside down.

Jesus Again Foretells His Death and Resurrection

30 They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; 31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” 32 But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

Who Is the Greatest?

33 Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” 34 But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35 He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” 36 Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

A Poem a Sunday

Pentecost 17 B

September 20, 2015

Let the children come

        orphaned,

        dejected,

        gaunt,

        unprotected.

Let the children come

        beached bodies,

        no homes,

        refugees,

        immigrants,

        all alone.

Let the children come

to the open armed

Compassionate One.

Let the children come

and teach the Church

that God’s reign is now

right here on earth

where justice is done

and no child is left behind.

Where hunger will cease,

and sight to the blind.

Let the children come,

but will we ever learn,

that greatness means service

to the least and those spurned?

A Poem a Sunday – Kenn Storck – September 14, 2015