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<DIV><FONT size=4>Jesus returns to some fundamental sense of communication, be
it human or divine, in this instance through the concept of welcoming. The
content of the teaching is humility, but the vehicle for its expression is
receiving children, being in communicative relationship with the small or
marginalized.<BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><A
href="http://jointhefeast.blogspot.com/2009/08/september-20-2009-mark-930-37-grant.html">http://jointhefeast.blogspot.com/2009/08/september-20-2009-mark-930-37-grant.html</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Grant Holbrook, 2009</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>- - - - -</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><FONT size=4></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Edwards (<I>The Gospel according to Mark</I>) concludes about
Jesus having the child in his arms:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=justify><FONT size=4>The child is not used, as is often supposed, as
an example of humility, but as an example of the "little" and insignificant ones
whom followers of Jesus are to receive. ... Disciples are thus not to be like
children, but to be like Jesus who embraces them. It is Jesus, not the child,
who here demonstrates what it means to be "the servant of all." It is in the
small and powerless that God appears to the world, as Jesus so trenchantly
described in the parable of the nations (Matthew 25:31-46). (p.
288)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><FONT size=4><></FONT></FONT></DIV><FONT size=4><FONT
size=4>
<DIV align=justify>I have recently been quoting from John and Sylvia Ronsvalle's
book, <I>Behind the Stained Glass Windows: Money Dynamics in the Church</I>. The
following statistical quote involves children, so I though it an appropriate for
this text.</DIV>
<DIV align=justify>We live in a world where it is estimated that thirty-five
thousand children under the age of five die daily around the globe, most from
preventable poverty conditions and many in areas where no church has been
planted to tell them of Jesus' love. We can be confident that such conditions
are not God's will: Perhaps one idea that would not be debatable in any part of
the church is that Jesus loves the little children of the world. The financial
cost to end most of these child deaths, it has been proposed, is about $2.5
billion a year, which is the amount Americans spend on chewing gum.
</DIV></FONT></FONT>
<DIV><FONT size=4><FONT size=4><FONT size=4></FONT></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><A href="http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/mark9x30.htm"><FONT
size=4>http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/mark9x30.htm</FONT></A></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Brian Stoffregen<BR>- - - - -</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><EM> </EM>To<EM> welcome </EM>a child is to
extend the simplest of acts to an individual that society normally dismisses as
perhaps cute but ultimately insignificant, someone who entirely lacks any
accomplishments, greatness, status, or pretensions. By extension, Jesus invites
us to welcome every person in the same manner, without regard for external
measures of their worldly importance, status, success or failure. Lately I have
tried the following experiment. Whenever I am repulsed by a homeless bum who
loiters near our home, or nurse a grudge against a friend who spurned me, or
envy someone more successful than I am, I try to picture that person as a little
baby or child. I then find it far easier to welcome or receive them only as a
precious human being, rather than someone who can help or harm me, as someone I
might ignore, fear or flatter. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><A
href="http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20060918JJ.shtml">http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20060918JJ.shtml</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Dan Clendenin, 2006 </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>- - - - -</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><STRONG>-And he/Jesus took a child and put him in the midst/by
his side.</STRONG> Jesus’ teaching about the spirit and humility of a child fits
naturally into this gospel story. It appears that Peter, James and John, who
experienced a miraculous mountaintop event, used that event to elevate
themselves above the other disciples. The other nine disciples did the opposite.
They other nine perhaps blamed themselves for not being able to heal the lunatic
boy. The other nine may have begun to doubt the quality of their own faith. The
other nine may have begun to compare themselves to the “big three” who
experienced the Transfiguration and saw themselves as having lesser faith than
the “big three” disciples. Both sets of disciples were wrong. Both sets of
disciples were into the “mind games” of “superiority” and “inferiority.”
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><A
href="http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/series_b_first_shall_be_last_GA.htm">http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/series_b_first_shall_be_last_GA.htm</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Edward F. Markquart</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>- - - - -</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><STRONG>True greatness<BR></STRONG>
Following the death of Diana, princess of Wales, Kate Legge in the Australian
newspaper made this comparison between Diana and Mother Teresa. "One was young
and beautiful and did good works. The other was old and ugly and did good works.
One had a First World eating disorder called bulimia. The other lived in the
Third World where people starve to death. One wore designer clothes and once
sold her dresses for $7.8 million. The other left behind two saris and a bucket.
One made headlines with simple gestures such as touching a person with AIDS. The
other lived her life among lepers and the diseased." "In one sense there is no
comparison between the two women and yet the expiry of the elder missionary, as
a postscript to the dislocation over Diana's death, seems to taunt our godless
worship of glamour and style."<BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><A
href="http://www.lectionarystudies.com/studyg/sunday25bg.html">http://www.lectionarystudies.com/studyg/sunday25bg.html</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Bryan Findlayson</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>- - - - -</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
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