Who is your parent's favorite child?

This sermon is based on the Mark 9:30-37

I think it is safe to say that I am my parents’ favorite. I am the favorite because I was the smart one growing up and my parents never had to worry about how I was doing in school or if I was getting into trouble. Plus as the youngest I was the one who was always babied and given many opportunities my siblings never were. And I am able to say that I am their favorite not just because my parents are here today visiting for my ordination but more importantly I feel it is safe to say this because my siblings are NOT here.

For if I said this with my siblings present, Melissa, my sister and the oldest, might say that yeah I was always the smart one growing up, but she is the oldest and therefore their first child and she is the only one that has given them a grandchild so therefore she must be the favorite. And my brother, Bill, the middle child, might argue that he is the favorite since he is the only boy, also has completely kept the family name and not done some crazy hyphenated thing to distort the it. Plus he also lives the closest to my parents and therefore sees them the most, hence why he is the favorite.

Anyone with siblings have at times wondered who was their parents’ favorite and often times it even turns into an argument. And sometimes that argument isn’t about who is the favorite, as much as parents try to hide their preferences or even do not really have favorites, children always perceive that there is a favorite child. Therefore the argument sometimes is not about who is the favorite child but why one should be the preferred child.

Siblings bicker and quarrel. They bicker and quarrel over who is the favorite, who has to do what chores and who always causing the trouble which gets everyone else into trouble. We do this not only to compete for attention from our parents but also to prove to ourselves what we are worth. We are trying to prove our own self-worth by measuring it against the people who are closest to us.

And sometimes we become so focus on competing against each other that we loose sight of the bigger picture. We loose sight of the fact that we are blessed to have parents who love us enough to fight over, or that we have the gifts and talents available to us to make us able to compete, regardless if those gifts and talents are our intelligence, athletic, mechanical or artistic abilities, personality or other traits that we have inherited from our parents. We loose sight of how immensely loved we are already and instead try to become even more loved. We become like the disciples.

We become like the disciples, who right after Jesus tells them that he is going to be betrayed, killed and then rise again from the dead, are too scared to admit that they do not understand what Jesus means. So instead of raising their hand and asking a question, instead of possibly making a fool of themselves in front of their friends, instead of admitting that they do not get it, they decide instead to focus on human things. They begin to argue about who is the greatest. Only the disciples are not just arguing about who is Jesus’ favorite disciples, who is his best friend, and the one who he loves the most, instead the argument has a deeper meaning. They are also arguing about who will take over for Jesus once he dies.

Apparently they get something that Jesus had to say about his death and resurrection. They understand that he is going to die some day, but probably not anytime soon, probably not for awhile. But they argue just the same. They argue about who is the favorite, who is the one who has been blessed the most by God, who is the greatest and who will take over for Jesus. They want to ignore the negative prediction of Jesus’ death and instead focus on what Jesus’ death will mean for them personally. They discuss and argue over who will benefit and who will be hindered, who will receive greater glory and name recognition and who will fade to the background. They are so focused on these things, on what it means for them, that the disciples are not able to understand what Jesus’ death and resurrection means for Jesus and his ministry.

But Jesus, like most loving parents, did not yell at them, and condemn them for arguing amongst themselves. Instead, he takes the opportunity as a teaching moment, a moment to point out what it truly means to be great. To truly be great, to truly be a leader in the way Jesus wants us to be, means to be a servant to all people even the least among us, even the ones considered the most disposable in our society.

For Jesus uses a child as an example of who the disciples should serve and who should be welcomed in Christ’s name. But in order to truly understand Jesus’ example, you first, have to understand the status that children had in Jesus’ time. Children were not honored and coddled like they are today. Nobody bought swings and cribs and bottles and bags and outfits that total thousands of dollars like they do today. No children were more like disposable commodities. There was no guarantee that they would live to adulthood, more often than not they died before they reached the age of 13.

So therefore children were not consider something that should be seriously invested into. They were not considered an investment because of the knowledge that most of the time children did not live long enough to be considered useful.

But it is by welcoming this little child, by being a servant to the least in this world, that we have been welcomed by Christ. It is not glory, greatness, being our parents’ or God’s favorite that we should strive for but servant-hood. For as Christ predicted his death, he also predicted his resurrection. He predicted the glory that would come through his servant-hood to all of humankind. For Christ died for us. We have been welcomed by Christ into a life like his and into a death like his. And it through us serving other, through welcoming the little ones in our society, the children, the homeless, the handicapped, the sick, the illiterate, the immigrants, and the prisoners, it is by welcoming these people in Christ name that God is glorified. It is only when Christ is glorified that we are great.

It is because of and through Christ’s example that we are able to serve and love these people and others in our world. It is only because of Christ that we can become great, because it is Christ who first came to serve us, it is Christ who came to die for us. It is Christ who came and saved us from our sins and it is Christ who overcame death and the devil. It is Christ who rose again from the grave. It is Christ who became our Heavenly Father. It is Christ who has marked us with the cross of Christ. And it is Christ who has claimed us as his children. For we are all Christ’s favorite.