The joy of being human? (Proper 22)
Reading: Mark 10:2-16 Jesus placed a child in the middle of them and said “unless you become like a child you will not enter the kingdom of Heaven”. What is it that a child has which makes them more able to accept and understand the love of God? There could be lots of things, I’m sure – but at least one thing a child has that we should all try to find for ourselves is a capacity for joy – and especially joy in the telling of a story. Those who were at Kate’s ordination here a couple of weeks ago might have heard that as I started to tell the story of creation from the first chapter of Genesis, and held up a card showing the light that God creates on the first day, one young lad in the congregation just said ‘Wow’. I think Jesus is reminding his disciples that when they stop to think about what God has done and is doing in the world it should make them go ‘wow!’. Can we bring that sense of wow with us when we listen to our next reading. It’s the second story of creation –