Ironically, a story of spiritual exaltation is followed by a story of the disciples failing to heal and this story is immediately followed in Luke by an account of the disciples arguing amongst themselves about who was the greatest among them.
The disciples who messed up are arguing over status? (How do you define irony?)
Apparently, this discussion didn’t take place in the presence of Jesus, but he knew what they were talking about anyway. His response was to take a child and set the child next to them. He said that whoever received the child in his name received Jesus, and whoever receives Jesus receives the one who sent him. “…for he who is least among you all is the one who is great.”
This wouldn’t be the only time children figure in the actions and teaching of Jesus. On another occasion, the parents brought their children to Jesus to be blessed and the disciples apparently thought their work was too important to be disturbed by anything or anyone with such low status.
(Children had low status in society, yet obviously were important to their parents who wanted them blessed. Another irony to consider is how children are still sometimes treated under the law in modern society. A parent’s right to have the child often takes precedence over what may be best for the child. Also, there were animals abuse laws in the United States before there were laws to protect children from abuse. The lawyer who first went before a judge to help a child who’d been abused had to argue that the child was an animal and thereby could be protected.)
The original disciples weren’t the last followers of Jesus to make this mistake. In the late 1970s, an evangelist at a Christian Rock concert in California was speaking while a child was fussing a bit in the audience. The evangelist stopped and ordered the mother to “take that child out of here. We’re trying to do something important.”
What is the “important” thing the disciples of Jesus are called to do? Attain status? Garner admiration? Jesus continually modeled servanthood. Here he spoke of being among the least.
The early church dealt with these issues. Christians were an eclectic group of people coming from all parts of society, from slave to wealthy, from powerless to some Roman officials. In I Corinthians, Paul sought to address the concerns of people who thought their spiritual gifts might be of more importance to the community than those of other people. He used the analogy of the body, all parts needed and the least regarded being of special importance.
The disciples of Jesus had been arguing over who was most important amongst themselves, and Jesus set them straight with a few words. But they clearly didn’t fully understand, because they at least wanted to feel more important than other people. John (possibly the youngest disciples) tells Jesus that they’d seen a man casting out a demon in the name of Jesus and they told him to stop because he wasn’t among the select group of themselves. Jesus must have rolled his eyes when he answered that anyone who wasn’t against them was for them, and shouldn’t be stopped.
How do we balance between self-respect and the call of Jesus to be among the least?
How did Jesus model what he called his disciples to live?
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