Do we really care?

Matthew 18: 1-5; Mark 9: 33-37; Luke 9: 46-48

Matthew 18: 3

…  ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

We have been reflecting on how Jesus invites His disciples to participate in the Kingdom He has inaugurated and in the participating they are transformed through meeting their holistic needs the way the creating, sustaining and redeeming God always planned. There is one sure way to measure if the transformation is taking place in our lives and if we are living as Kingdom people. Have we become as vulnerable and dependent on each other (interdependent) as children are on their carers? Do we serve each other with the care and diligence we would use to care for a vulnerable child?  Care is primary; it comes first because people matter, places matter and nurturing human institutions matter. Jesus calls us as disciples not just to care in the form of an emotional attachment but to actively care for and serve each other. This is not a fashionable way of being in the world. We live in a very self-centred culture where individualism and pulling yourself up by the closest set of boot straps is applauded.  It’s as if we are trying to live out the fantasy ‘X Factor’ question from Mr C: ‘How badly do you want X Factor success?’ The depressing reply comes quickly:  ‘I’ll do anything it takes for success!’   But it’s the wrong objective and a therefore the wrong answer. Success is not defined by power, popularity and living out a celebrity lifestyle. The disciples of Jesus thought that’s what the inaugurated Kingdom of God was going to give them. They thought they were taking over from the religious leaders, the Romans and the puppet kings. Wrong objective!  The people who lead are no worse than the people who are led. They are both people with the wrong objective of meeting their needs their own way and they won’t let anybody get in the way. Jesus sets a new objective: Care. Care must come first and being carers must be the transformed identity of the member of Jesus Kingdom.   Will you do anything it takes to become a caring, interdependent member of a community of disciples? Ah thought so; the answer does not rip of the lips so easily! Serving others is not so glamourous and not so sought after. Peace-making is more difficult than war mongering. Showing mercy, grace and love more costly and often goes unseen; except in the lives of thriving children and families in all their rich diversity.  A nation at peace with God and itself chooses to say YES to becoming vulnerable, caring and having the care of people including the stranger the primary purpose for being in existence. There is an invitation to make ‘care and the service of others’ our primary way of being in the world. This is a vulnerable way of life of having children and their carers, you and me, the stranger who comes to live in a shared land and the institutions that nurture our common life together matter and be of first importance. It is the transformation Jesus is calling for.  Jesus said: ‘⁵Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.’  I think it was John McGee, one of the founders of the Gentle Teaching movement who wrote: ‘Caregiving is an act of social justice it is the entering of a journey towards home….’ As disciples of Jesus He calls on us to be practitioners of caregiving and invite other on that journey towards home, dignity and safety and security.