Back in the day, I did a lot of catering, particularly for doctor’s offices on behalf of pharmaceutical sales folks. They would sometimes buy coffees for the entire large doctors’ offices. And I tell you, it was tricky

For this reason, I was always grateful for the ADA (American’s with Disabilities Act) that was passed in 1990. Without that piece of legislation, my ability to deliver so many coffees or smoothies at a time would have been much harder. Because of the ADA, there are ramps, curb cuts, and automatic doors at all these places. That legislation helps caterers, moms with impossibly full arms, or delivery people, along with the people it was designed to help – folks with mobility limitations.

In the disability world, folks talk about universal design. This is an approach to designing products, public spaces, houses, etc., with the needs of people with disabilities at the center. It’s universal, because if you design stuff for folks with disabilities from the beginning, everyone’s needs are met and often better than otherwise would be the case, like me and the automatic doors.

Despite the obvious benefits of universal design, as a culture we do not immediately say yes to this idea. We don’t put people with disabilities in the center. We don’t put kids in the center. We don’t put the vulnerable in the center.

But Jesus does.

In our reading today, a child is at the center even if we’re not reading it here, because this text is a continuation of last week’s reading. It’s part of the same story. So, to refresh your memory, last week Jesus was teaching about his coming crucifixion and his path to the cross and the disciples respond by talking about who is going to be the greatest in Jesus’ coming reign. Jesus responds to them by inviting in a child into the center of that circle, gathering that child into his arms and perhaps on his knee while teaching the disciples that to be a leader in the Kingdom of God means to be a servant to all, to be the last so that the last can be first.

So, John’s comment today about “those people” who are doing acts of power in Jesus’ name and yet are not in their group is John’s response to Jesus’ teaching about being a servant leader. The child is still on Jesus’ lap as John complains about “those people”. John is still having that conversation about how much power is mine or in my group versus another’s group, while Jesus is having a different conversation about leadership.

 Bless John’s little heart, right? He’s not getting it. But frankly, neither do we in a lot of ways.

Afterall, our world is designed for the strong. We don’t put children in the center, like Jesus did. We don’t put people with disabilities in the center of our decision making, even though it would benefit everyone if we did.

It’s easy to be blind to this if you’re in that strong group … or I should say strong in the “right way” group.

If you have no mobility issues and are strong enough, you may not notice how heavy our front door is and how much we need our valley’s glass company to come fix the structural issues going on. And that we need an automatic door button.

And God help you if you have any cognitive decline, sensory issues, or are just tired in the morning trying to fly out of a teeming airport at 5 or 6am. It can be chaotic. Easy-ish for the seasoned traveler, but near impossible for others.

Or what about navigating healthcare these days if technology isn’t your strong suit, which it isn’t for the majority of the people accessing healthcare.  I still can’t figure out what’s wrong with my MyChart account and I’m fairly tech-y.

This list could go on and on with all the ways the world to designed for the strong, rich, well-connected, and educated.

There was a general and ancient Greek historian named Thucydides who wrote the history of Pelopponesian War, which took place in the 4^th century BC. In this he wrote a phrase that is used still today in power politics and international relations:

“The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

This was written in an account of war, but I think we’ve internalized this idea for our lives and how we structure society. Our norms are set for the strong and if you happen to not measure up to that, then you “suffer what you must.” Of course, our world has folks who work to make accommodations for those who need it, which is great. At the same time, I wouldn’t mind a little more universal design when I’m facing a jostling mass of stressed-out people at 6am at Minneapolis’ airport. That is not a good place to be at that time of day! And having ramps and automatic doors everywhere is a God send for all of us at different moments. A little grace in the world is a good thing!

In the gospel, Jesus says to John, if you cause one of these little ones to stumble, you basically deserve to be smacked down. Imagine Jesus with the child still on his lap saying this in a society that did not consider children to have any standing. This is again an inversion of the wisdom of the day, which is not so different than the wisdom of our day.

And the “wisdom” that guides a lot of our decision-making is, “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

When we hear Jesus’ strong condemnation here, consider who he is holding, who he is wanting to protect. In this gospel, it is a child, but Jesus advocates for all kinds of powerless people – the sick, unclean, and rejected. These are the folks who are the most hurt by our normal ways of doing life. Jesus is teaching us, if you cause one of these little ones, one of these powerless ones, to stumble and struggle, then you are living outside of God’s envisioned life for us. And what is that if not hell?

Imagine if we resolved conflicts in our world without the strong hurling bombs at one another’s population centers, which are full of children, their mothers, the elderly, and people with disabilities. What if we decided to fight our fights while holding the vulnerable of both sides as precious, without causing the little ones of either side to stumble, fall, suffer, or die? We would indeed fight our battles and resolve our conflicts in different ways. It would not look like it looks now, where the strong gather their bombs and soldiers and throw everything they have at one another and with a shrug of the shoulders when others get hurt, saying, “The ‘weak must suffer what they must.’”

Is this not hell on earth when we do this?

Why do we settle for our systems to work this way? That all of life should be something of a race or battlefield with those who can’t keep up or outrun the bombs just end up on the street or dead?

This isn’t a given or a law of nature. So why do we do this?

I don’t have a definitive answer, but my guess is that it has to do with shame. No one wants to be the one to fall and need help. No one wants to be in the “weak” group that needs accommodation, because our self-worth gets tied to how well we manage our lives and win in these unforgiving systems. As long as we’re the ones on the “good” side of the bell curve, then it’s OK. And if we’re not on the “good” side of the bell curve, then shame on us. We take it as our fault and so we stay silent, “suffering what we must.”

That is not the call of Jesus, the who places the vulnerable in the center and blesses them, heals them, loves them, and listens to them. He banishes that shame and claims them/us as children of God, as friends, as brothers and sisters. So, who are we to do any differently – with each other or with ourselves?

So, I wonder. Where would Jesus have us push back against usual power dynamics for the sake of the vulnerable? For the sake of the vulnerable parts of ourselves, even? Where are we challenged by the shame of not keeping up with a world that’s designed for super-humans who don’t get tired or sick? Do we really have to shrug our shoulders with sadness when we see yet more children caught under rubble or hiding under desks, believing there’s nothing we can do?

God loves the children, the weak, the lost, and the powerless. God loves us and in particular in all the ways we too fall short of super-human status. We can look beyond Thucydides and his tempting ethos that “the weak suffer what they must” for the sake of a new way of the Kingdom of God.

May God help us to lay down our tendencies towards grabbing power and help us to open the gates of our hearts to ourselves and all people. May God help us to put children and the vulnerable at the center of our decisions for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

AMEN