John Bussell, one of the founders of this church, was the eldest of nine children.  John Wollaston, who built the little church at Picton, had five children.  We all know of big families from the 1800s and early 1900s.  My father was one of eight.

We know the reasons for the big families.  Before the days of immunisation, many children died before they reached two or three years.  Before penicillin, mortality rates for adults were also higher than today.  TB killed my Auntie Violet when she was 28.

There was no aged pension, so parents had lots of children in the hope that one or two would look after them in old age.  We have all heard of unmarried women caring for their parents, and sacrificing their own chances of a family.

Up until the 1800s, big families were simply an economic necessity.  In England at that time, things were beginning to change.  Historians claim that the 1800s were the time when childhood was invented.  It was then that parents started to have fewer children and to cherish each one more.

We can see the same thing happening in India now. The middle-class is growing and it has aspirations greater than simply surviving in poverty, so they are having fewer children and more ambitions for each.

Going back much further than Victorian England, back to the time of Jesus, we discover that children were the least valued of human beings.  Children had no rights: babies were exposed, and nobody was prosecuted.  Children had no property and no current economic value.  They were lower on the scale even than slaves, who at least could earn their living or be sold for cash.

In fact, children had negative value.  Each child was just an extra mouth to feed. 

So imagine the surprise of the disciples when Jesus told them that to enter the kingdom of heaven they had to be like a child.

The disciples didn't get it.

To enter the kingdom of heaven, you’re supposed to take notice of someone who has no rights, no voice in the community, no property, no experience of life. You are to be like someone who is simply a victim of other people's decisions.

St Mark describes the disciples as dumb; he says they always miss the point.  Three times Jesus tells them that he is going to Jerusalem to be handed over to others and to be killed.  Three times the disciples don't get it.

And I’m with the disciples. How could this possibly be the Messiah they had expected? Instead of someone taking charge, this Messiah is letting others take charge of him.  This Messiah is giving up his rights, his voice and his standing in the community. This Messiah is handing himself over to others. This Messiah is behaving like the least of human beings; he is behaving as a child.

It's no wonder that the disciples don't get it.  And it is this aspect of Christianity that many people today don't get. Why would you surrender your power of action, your ability to initiate things?  Why would you give up your sense of identity?  Why would you? Yet this seems to be exactly what Jesus is predicting for himself, and not only for himself, he is inviting his disciples, including maybe you and me, to do the same.

Jesus comes at this advice to be as a child from two directions:

Firstly, he says, we are to receive this child, take notice of it, submit to it.  We are to take what a babe says as guidance for our lives.

Secondly, we are to be like this child, to put ourselves into the situation of the child, to give up all the advantages of being a complete person in society.  We are to open ourselves to being the victim of other people’s decisions for us. And this, we are told, is the way to the kingdom of heaven; this is the way to find God's fullness.

It seems like madness.

This week I was surprised to discover that I have some things in common with John Bussell.  He’s not really one of my heroes. I studied theology. So did Bussell, although he wasn't ordained.  Bussell struggled to make a living on his farm "Cattle Chosen". That was very different from me. I left our farm when I was 12. But when his farm didn't work out, Bussell went to teach classics at Bishop Hale's School. So did I. But when I taught there, it was called Hale School, and it was no longer in the Cloisters in St George's Terrace, but it had moved to its present site in Wembley Downs.

I was Acting Chaplain at Hale for a year and then senior Chaplain at Christ Church Grammar for eight years.  I loved both jobs. They are both good schools. They emphasised the value of excellence and taught the boys to strive to be the best they could.  They instilled ambition in the students, and I must say that part of that ambition was to do well, both financially and in standing in the community.  Money and power.

When I told students that Jesus said not to be ambitious for property and power, some of the teachers got angry.

Those schools are caught up in our materialistic world. Materialism is ambition for money and power. We are caught up in it too, even though we can see the damage it does; the damage to ourselves and our relationships, the damage to the environment. Materialism distorts everything. But even a year after the fall of Wall Street, it’s really hard to see a better way of doing things.

So we listen to this morning’s readings, and we remember that you and I do know a constructive way to challenge the damage materialism causes. It’s called the Way of the Cross.

Want nothing for yourself, give up your power over yourself, hand over your right to make decisions about yourself, these are the heart of the Way of the Cross. As I said, there are many times when, like the disciples, I don’t get it.

But the deep question Jesus wants his disciples to ask is, “Who is God for us really?” Most of us assume that we run our lives. We set our goals. We get what we work for. Jesus challenges all that and invites us to change our hearts and minds; Jesus wants us to convert to his way of thinking.

The challenge he gives us today is to learn how to let God be God in our lives. That will look different for each one of us, and I know, for me at least, it is taking a lifetime to respond to that challenge.

But for all of us, it means firstly working out what God wants us to be and do. To take time and space to ponder those questions, and to continue to make time and space to listen for God’s direction.

It means also finding ways to serve God in other people. Jesus knew that handing ourselves over in service will be one of the steps along the Way for every one his followers, because serving others is the only way we can learn to stop our self-serving.

It means also undoing our grasp on things and people. So often, fists like this are the way we are before God, grubbing for ourselves and holding on tight to what we grab. But if we uncurl our fingers and hold out our hands, then we find that we don’t need to grab and seize. We can hold our palms upward and receive.

I’d like to ask you to do an experiment this morning when we say the Lord’s Prayer together. You know it off by heart. Instead of holding on tight to your prayer book, I invite you to uncurl your hands and hold them out with your palms like this as you pray:

“Your kingdom come ....

“Give us today our daily bread....

“Forgive us our sins ...”

Focus on your hands and the words of the prayer, and see how the prayer comes alive for you in a new way.

Then bring that openness, that sense of receptivity, to the altar rail as you hold hands open for the bread, the living symbol of all that God gives back to us.

Jesus gave us the model of how to find the kingdom of God; he predicted it three times. He handed himself over, he gave up everything he had, everything he was, even his life. Then, after Jesus had completely dispossessed himself, God the Father was waiting in love to pour upon him more gifts than he could ever have imagined.

The more we undo our grasp on our own ambitions, the more we become like a no-value child, the more we will know the overwhelming generosity of God.