Childlike
“Taking a child, he placed it 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; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.” Mark 9:37
A little three year old boy had been naughty all day, so his parents sent him to bed an hour early as punishment. He marched off without a word, but five minutes later he was back, carrying his favorite stuffed toy, a piggy bank, and some clothes. “I’m running away from home,” he announced. “What will you do when you get hungry?” his father asked calmly. “I’ll come home to eat.” “And when you run out of money?” “I’ll come home for some more.” Then his father looked at the bundle of clothes and gave it one last try. “Well, what about when your clothes get dirty?” “I’ll bring them home and let Mommy wash them.” The father turned to the mother and said, “This kid isn’t running away from home. He’s going off to college.”
Children today, like the naughty three-year-old, enjoy a special and legally protected status in most countries, but that wasn’t true 130 years ago in the United States. Consider, for example, the case of Mary Ellen in New York City. Mary Ellen was a nine-year-old girl whose father died during the Civil War. Her widowed mother, forced to work long hours for paltry wages, couldn’t afford to care for her, so the little girl wound up on the caseload of the New York City Department of Charities. The Department soon turned her over to a couple who claimed falsely to be family members.
Over the next six years, from 1868 to 1874, life became a living hell for Mary Ellen. Neighbors and a landlady expressed grave concern for her, as she was never allowed outside to play, never had proper clothing to keep her warm in winter, and never had enough food to eat or a proper bed to sleep in. Forced to do manual labor beyond her strength or age, her tiny body was covered with marks and bruises. So malnourished at age nine, she had only attained the size of a five-year old. The landlady, after trying unsuccessfully to intervene, in desperation turned to a Methodist social worker, Etta Wheeler, who began the long fight to save Mary Ellen.
The police maintained they could do nothing. Why? Because at the time there were no laws on the books to protect children, only laws to protect animals. Wheeler in frustration turned to Henry Bergh, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. She reasoned that since children were members of the animal kingdom, they should be protected under laws governing the mistreatment of animals.
A petition on that theory was presented to the New York State Supreme Court. Witnesses testified about the cruel mistreatment and the leather whip that was kept near Mary Ellen at all times. As she stood and spoke in court, everyone could see the terrible scar across her face as she calmly related how her stepmother had slashed her face with scissors. Burn scars from an iron were visible on her arms. Following the jury’s deliberation, stepmother was convicted of assault and sentenced to a year in prison.
Mary Ellen’s story had a happy ending. She was placed upstate on farm near Rochester to be raised with other children in a safe and loving home. She later married, had two children of her own and adopted a third little girl. Two of the children became schoolteachers and Mary Ellen lived to be 92. News of her case sent shock waves across the country and resulted in the founding of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and enactment of child welfare laws in every state. (As an aside, because of her local connection, Rochester has the second oldest Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in the nation and located in the Town of Chili is an elementary school named after one of her daughters – Florence Brasser.)
Children in Jesus’ time didn’t fare much better than their counterparts in 18th century America. Childhood back then, you see, wasn’t something to be savored, but something to be grown out of as quickly as possible. People in the ancient world lived under the shadow of too many mouths to feed. Children and the elderly, therefore, were viewed as burdens of little value to the community. A daughter was considered an economic liability since a dowry had to be supplied at her marriage. Children could be mistreated with impunity because under existing law they, like women, were categorized as property without rights. In Greece and Rome abandoning unwanted children along the roadside to die was accepted practice. Sometimes slave traders would take these castaways to be reared in slavery or for lives of prostitution
The familiar New Testament picture of Jesus taking into his arms and receiving a child with love is actually quite radical for the time, portraying an attitude of caring found nowhere else in the ancient world. Jesus sheds a whole new light – the light of the Gospel – on the plight of society’s victims – whether victimized because of age, gender, sexual orientation, social, religious, national or other considerations. In today’s gospel from Mark, when Jesus says, “Whoever receives one child… in my name, receives me;…” he is once again identifying himself with the most vulnerable and most defenseless members of the community, urging his disciples, you and me, to do the same.
Jesus, as we well know, turns conventional sensibilities and practices upside down. His kingdom, firmly rooted in biblical justice, excludes no one, particularly not those who cry out for help. His mission, after all, isn’t intended for the comfortable and well off, nor is it intended to legitimize the status quo that tolerates injustice. Clearly, he wants to take care of the Mary Ellens of the world. And, to do that, then as now, he relies on disciples, people like the ones who championed Mary Ellen’s cause 130 years ago.
To be his disciple requires taking an uncompromising stance against non-gospel values. It requires loving every brother and sister in Christ not merely as much or as little as we love ourselves, but as if we were standing in their shoes. It requires childlike simplicity, receptivity and single-mindedness in living our faith, in doing the right thing – additional reasons he gives us “the child” as a model. In short, to be first and greatest in his kingdom means to care about and to care for children, especially the ones whose monsters are real.
In the next 15 years, 22,500 children in the United States won’t be as lucky as Mary Ellen. Why? That’s the number of children who will die from severe abuse at he hands of their caretakers. Are you shocked? Outraged? Enough to do something about it?
Anthony J. Sciolino
Wisdom 2:12, 17-20/134
James 3:16-4:3
Mark 9:30-37
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time
September 24, 2006. (Cycle B)