Some disciples “had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest.” In reply, Jesus, “taking a child, placed the child in their midst, and putting his arms around it, he said to them, ‘Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me.’”
However great we imagine we are, most of us humble ourselves when a child is placed in our midst. As parents, any greatness felt about ourselves hopefully transitions to humble care for our child, for all children. We want to do what is best for them. In all humility, we may as parents question practices once taken for granted as beneficial for children. Questioned by parents in recent decades are children’s vaccinations. Extremely rare examples of bacterial contamination, mercury, and live viruses sent out instead of inactivated cells have been discovered. The vast majority of parents though know millions upon millions of lives have been saved by vaccines and thus vaccinate their children against chickenpox, diphtheria, and a dozen other diseases. Some parents, with due cause, question Big Pharma’s value of plunder over people willing to use any opportunity, including Covid, to make money. But other parents, with no due cause, are inventing vaccine content, specifically Covid vaccine content; it is microchipped, causes the Covid variants, and makes recipients a human Bluetooth connection. They are instead ingesting such things as bleach, animal ivermectin, and camel urine at the same time they are refusing the Covid vaccine. That refusal is resulting in outbreaks of the Covid disease. Outbreaks of the disease and misinformation around it are being spread by parents across the country, for example, at county hearings and school board meetings. These parents are themselves a Covid variant – always changing, always causing new strains of misinformation to form. They claim the vaccine causes death, but in their refusals and misinformation it is they who are causing death, of children. In late spring of 2020, children under 10 were 1-3% of COVID cases. Now, over a year later due to loosening restrictions on school activities and Covid protocols, an increase in the Delta variant and of adults refusing vaccination, children under 12 have increased to being over 15% of Covid cases nationally. While children still represent a small proportion of Covid’s worst cases, will that too increase? The harm being done to others, to children especially, is bewildering. A death cult is gripping the U.S. culture. It is not however a suicide cult, as some are calling it. Those refusing Covid protocols or vaccinations are not the only ones affected – and, when affected, go for medical care. The U.S. is more specifically in the grip of a homicide cult, in some cases a cult of familicide (killing one’s family), or of filicide (killing one’s child). These parents are no different than the pro-abortionists many of them protest – they are bringing death upon children, whom Jesus asks them to receive. They are proudly rejecting Jesus’ invitation to be humble with children. Instead, like the foolish followers in the Gospel, they are proudly accepting militarism’s fantasy of greatness or sovereignty, even over children. Sovereignty is an important value to Militarists, certainly white supremacists. Sovereignty means control or rank and is derived from unequalled kingship. The sovereign, in this case the parent, believes themselves unparalleled in deciding all matters. No one greater than them shall decide anything for them. But of course, persons greater than them have been deciding things for them all their lives. For example, white presidents and white bosses and white Fox News commentators who rule over them, to their peril. These parents are being told what to do, what to ingest. Is it because those telling them are members of their same tribe? Is that the problem now? Once a black president or a liberal one or a gay customer or a diverse culture started having a voice, they felt their faux sovereignty in peril. They are losing their grip on their imagined rule and the vaccine oddly represents that loss. In their refusal to vaccinate they prove they are done with ‘discussing among themselves who is the greatest’ and have decided – they are the greatest. Like every sovereign they put all others in peril. They will not receive even the children in their midst. Let us be sure we receive the children.
“Entirely made of us… we feel tied to you, as if they’d never cut the cord… you grew and kicked inside my body, and besotted, we have poured all hope into those perfect, tiny hands, for reasons only love can ever say…. You are so much more than we can know or see… You are perfect sense, yet total mystery. (Mysterious Child – John Hamilton)
Prayer: Spirit of Life, we open our hearts and minds to receive the children in our midst.
Question: How do I invite sovereigns to receive a child?
September 19, 2021 Gospel Mark 9:30- 37 Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time