A Parable in Action.

When they are alone together “in the house,” Jesus questions the Twelve—who “on the way” of increasingly obtuse discipleship have miraculously found their tongues in order to argue with one another about which of them is the greatest! The silence thickens. It is as though the disciples have been deaf to everything Jesus has said about his own vulnerability and powerlessness. So Jesus sits down, taking up the position of a rabbinical teacher, and calls the Twelve to himself just as he had done initially (Mark 3:13). They need to be shocked out of their competitiveness and power-seeking, not by reprimand but by reversal, by action that will proclaim that, in the reign of God, to be first is to be last of all and servant of all.

Gloomy silence gives way to astonishment when Jesus does what would be almost inconceivable in first-century Palestinian culture, where children, along with women and slaves, had almost no social status. In front of his twelve adult male disciples, Jesus wraps his arms around a disregarded child.

Here “in the house,” a symbol of the domestic church, is a parable in action: inclusion and equality, not exclusion and superiority, are what should characterize the ecclesial household.

In Jesus’ day to extend hospitality to such little ones would be considered ridiculous because, although hospitality was such a significant Middle Eastern virtue, so was the return of hospitality. What could a child offer in return? But these are the very “little ones” who are to be welcomed down through the ages: the ones who have no social status, no vote value, those whose human dignity is ignored or violated. To welcome them is to forge a link in the chain that binds together those who offer such hospitality with Jesus and his Father.

Sr. Verna Holyhead, adapted from Welcoming the Word. Taken from Give Us This Day.

Sr. Verna A. Holyhead, SGS (d. 2011), was an Australian Sister of the Good Samaritan of the Order of St. Benedict.