Have you ever been in a dilemma and had difficulty making a decision about something or someone? The best advice I’ve gotten is to take out a sheet of paper and create two columns. Make a list on the right side of your paper of all of the positive qualities or perspectives about the decision or the person in question, and then on the left side, make a list of all the negatives. The list helps you to see your options more objectively. It helps you see your relationships more truthfully. It provides you some distance from the muddle you’re in, especially when the heart may be involved.

Lists can also be helpful when you are thinking about the kinds of qualities you would like to see in a partner or in a friend. Often you would make a list of the qualities you’d like someone to exhibit in the right side. On the left, you would write down the qualities of the person you are actually in relationship with. The process once again helps you to see more clearly or to voice more clearly your needs and desires to your partner or friend.

This morning we’re going to try a third exercise. In this one, we are going to make a list of qualities.

I’d like you to take out a sheet of paper. If you’re at home, you can find a scrap of paper nearby. If you’re in the sanctuary, you can use the back side of your bulletin. Now I want you to list all of the qualities you can think of that describe a true disciple or lover of Jesus. Or you can think of it this way, what words would describe a truly wonderful and admirable human being, the kind of person who astounds you with their kindness and grace. Just one-word descriptions. I’ll give you a hint, “loving” is probably one of them. See how many you can come up with.

[Give people time to write while you ponder the “ideal” disciple.]

Do you have your list?  Call them out!  One at a time. Let’s list them. If you’re at home, share them with each other! If you hear some you like and you hadn’t had them down, add them to your list!

[The list will most likely include words such as loving, affectionate, hopeful, approachable, open, compassionate, kind, gracious, non-judging, accepting, forgiving, obedient, trusting, faithful, serving, risk taking, full of initiative, creative, authentic, honest, dependent, relational, honorable, respectful of authority, innocent, sweet.]

Guess what? You’ve just described a child.

Think about it.  The most desirable qualities that we all admire and wish we had are the ones we were born with.

Every single human being is born and blessed by God with an innocent spirit. From there, our life experiences form us with attitudes, joys, sorrows, fears, and goals. For human beings, the older we get, the more our original sense of sense becomes colored by the world we live in. As we age, we unlearn what it means to be the original kind of human being God created us to be.

Oddly, adults most often think of themselves as the wiser and the greater. The older we get, the more we believe somehow that we know best.

But Jesus reminds us of something very important today. When it comes to discipleship, to knowing what it means to be authentically human, loving, relational, and faithful, our best role models are not ourselves, but our children.

They may sit at our feet to learn the things of the world like finance, manners, schoolwork, and family traditions. But when it comes to learning how to trust and how to love, we need to sit at theirs.

And here’s the question of a lifetime: do you have the humility and the patience to sit at the feet of your children and re-learn what it means to have “eyes to see” and “ears to hear”?

Jesus hopes you do, because God loves children!

That’s the message Jesus wants to make absolutely clear to his disciples, as we see him teaching them in our scripture for today from Mark’s gospel.

Jesus and his disciples are on two different wavelengths during this time. We just saw Jesus chastise Peter last week for refusing to accept God’s plan of action, as Peter instead is insisting on his own worldly vision of who the Messiah should be.

This trend continues. Jesus is trying to make them understand who he is, to explain important concepts about his death and resurrection. Meanwhile, the disciples are ignoring him. Yes, they are ignoring him completely, refusing to accept what he’s trying to teach them. Instead, they are entirely engaged in their own discussion and debate about who among them is the greatest and should be in a position of leadership and power during the “take-over” of Jerusalem that they are still imagining for them all. They still have a completely different take on Jesus’ goals and ministry. They still don’t get it.

So, when Jesus asks them what they are talking about, they don’t answer him. But of course, he knows exactly what they are up to. Ever notice that? You can’t hide anything from Jesus!

So Jesus does what he always does when he wants his message to get through. He teaches by example. I call this a Jesus Teachable Moment.

He makes them all sit down where they are, all twelve of his inner posse. Then he calls up a child from among them. Now I love this, because it’s clear that some children are traveling with Jesus and the disciples that day. Or they are playing nearby where they stop for a while. But we haven’t heard about them until now. Perhaps they are the children of the disciples themselves. Perhaps they are children from town, who happen to be paying attention to Jesus and the twelve. But Jesus reaches out and ….listen to this carefully…..places the child among the Twelve. And then he hugs the child.

And Jesus says, “Whoever welcomes one of these children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me isn’t actually welcoming me but rather the one who sent me.” And then Jesus adds, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea.”

Wow! That’s some example! That’s some statement!

First, I don’t want you to miss the significance of Jesus placing the child among the Twelve. That’s as though I gathered every one of your leadership, your heads of committees, those in charge, those who have discipled for years, and granted a young child equal status among you all –that includes discipleship, decision-making, and influence.

Jesus is clearly saying that this young child is on equal footing as a disciple, not just any disciple, but his inner twelve, his most trusted, his most valued.

Second, Jesus says, “Whoever wants to be first must be least of all and servant of all.” And he hugs the child. Now sometimes we scoff at those days in which children were “seen and not heard.” In fact, barely were they seen! But how often do we do the same thing in our homes and our churches. And yet, Jesus is describing the child as the greatest of his disciples, because his spirit behaves as the least.

The child is not looking for power, or greatness, or status, or wealth. The child’s heart has a purity that has not yet learned to value any of these kinds of goals. This in Jesus mind is what it means to be a “great” disciple: loving, pure, authentic, honest, unfettered by desire, unspoiled by hate. To be a disciple of Jesus, we must re-learn, re-member how to think and feel like a child.

Third, Jesus drives home the seriousness of his message. After all, maybe he can shock them into understanding that his mission of death and resurrection, and not their mission of power and prestige, is what will define God’s kingdom: He says,

“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea.”

That’s a heavy statement, no?

Can you picture Jesus looking right at all of the Twelve and saying that? “If any one of you with your talk of power and take-overs and killing and uprising destroy the faith and trust and purity and innocence and loving spirit of one of these little children, who DO believe in me and in my mission of healing and salvation through resurrection, you’d be better off drowning in the deep, dark sea.”

“Do you hear me now?” I can imagine Jesus saying. “Do you get it now?”

I imagine at that point that the disciples were speechless.

A millstone! A huge, heavy stone that could drag down anything beyond saving. If tied to someone’s foot, they would spend the rest of their days on the floor of the sea, as we might say, “swimming with the fishes.”

But hope rises –the kind of hope found in the heart of a child.

In 1998, Sandra Bullock starred in a lesser known movie called “Hope Floats.” In the story, she plays a woman whose husband has left her. As a new relationship offers her a new chance at happiness, she must let go of her anger and her pain and re-embrace love. She quotes from her past: “When you find yourself at a new beginning, just give hope a chance to float up. And it will, too…” Hence the title of the movie, “hope floats.”

Our lives as we reach adulthood and onward are filled with aspirations and challenges, experiences and pain that drags us downward and discourages us from believing in beauty, love, kindness, and forgiveness. Before you know it, we can become bitter and cautious about others and guarded about ourselves.

But in Jesus, we have hope for new beginnings, new life, new innocence, and always new resurrections. For Jesus is Lord of Resurrection.

Today, let’s take a moment to pray that God might come into your life and re-remind you what it feels like to be child-like –to trust, to believe, to love unconditionally, to cast aside our need for management and control, and to put our lives into Jesus’ hands. And allow him to resurrect our hearts, our bodies, and our spirits.

For the world weighs down, but hope rises.