Family service with Baptism, 4th October 2026,

18th Sunday after Trinity; Season of creation 5 

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By Peter Evans

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Reading - Mark 10: 13 - 16

 

Jesus Blesses Little Children

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13 Some people brought children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples scolded the people. 14 When Jesus noticed this, he was angry and said to his disciples, “Let the children come to me, and do not stop them, because the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 I assure you that whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” 16 Then he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on each of them, and blessed them.

 

Talk

There’s an awful lot of ways to start a sermon. Sometimes with a joke, or an anecdote, but you’ll have noticed that we almost always start with prayer. It’s good to bring our minds before God as we approach this part of the service.

 

But there is a second best way to start a sermon and that’s with chocolate. Chocolate is one of God’s three best inventions. And in case you’re wondering. This isn’t straight forward bribery and corruption. Chocolate always has a serious point.

 

The chocolate in question is a Cadburys Freddo. Some of you will be aware, Freddos have a special place in our family. I once got into very serious trouble for eating my wife’s last Freddo. There were special, extenuating circumstances, but so much so, as news of my misdemeanour leaked out, kind people from church started posting Freddos through our door. Usually in sealed envelopes. Marked for Jayne only. Hands off, Peter, or words to that effect.

 

So, in our house, a Freddo is a big deal.

 

And my invitation to you is this. If you would like a Freddo, then do please come and get one. I’m happy for there to be a little bit of chaos, in fact a bit of chaos would be a good thing. And as far as I’m concerned. You can eat it right now. Subject to any necessary parental approvals.

 

And I know it might be tempting to take one back for others, but in this case, I’d really like you to come and get your own.

 

Now, I do understand that some of you would love to come, but are doing things like counting calories, or counting sugar or such like. Which is fine.

 

And just to reassure you, this isn’t just about indulging my chocolate habit, as I mentioned earlier, this does have a serious point, which we’ll come to later.

 

What an amazing passage it is that we had read to us earlier. Well known in many ways, and almost a little but of a cliché, it contains so much stuff that is directly relevant to this morning.

 

Jesus says many things throughout His ministry about what it takes to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The danger of riches, for example – passing a camel through the eye of a needle and all that.

 

And here we have another one. We need to become as a little child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

 

Now, for anyone who is or has been involved in the parenting of young children, then we all know it’s not a walk in the park. There are challenges. The terrible twos. The troublesome threes. The wilful disobedience. The arguments. And all that before lunchtime. On a good day.

 

Lots of us have been there and got the T shirt – both as children and as parents.

 

And I’m pretty confident that this is not what Jesus is talking about when He says we need to be as little children to enter His Kingdom.

 

To help us dig around in this, I’d like us all to cast our minds back. Those of us who are still children will have a head start in this.

 

I want us to think back to something that made us happy as a child. That affirmed us in some way. And try and remember what you were feeling like. Why you were happy or affirmed. Why it’s a good memory.

 

If you are still a child, then that could be something from last week or last year, or whenever. But for the rest of us who are a bit older, let’s aim for something from when we were in between 5 and 10 years old.

 

I’m not going to ask you to share your memory, so don’t worry about that, but I am going to shut up for a minute or so to give us time to think back. And if it helps to close your eyes while we think back, then please do so.

 

I’m hoping that between us, we have a lot of good memories, and for those of us that are a bit older, that it reminds us a little of what being a child is like.

 

All being well, we’ll have been thinking of things along the following lines.

 

Feeling loved and cared for. Feeling special. Starting to feel independent. Becoming self-reliant. Having a view of the world that is very near at hand. – horizons that are right here and now. The importance of discovery and novelty. Of working things out. Of a more innocent view of the world. Open hearted, perhaps.

 

And on the flip side, the absence of baggage. The absence of self-importance. The absence of pride.

 

These are the qualities that Jesus is looking for in people who come to the Kingdom. Jesus calls us to Him. He wants us to come with open hearts. To put behind ourselves the baggage that we carry through life, the pride that runs through us, the “me first” attitude that is often part of us.

 

When Jesus calls us to repent, the word that is used in the gospels is metanoia – to change one’s mind, or to have a new mind. To leave behind the old things of life that get in the way of our relationship with God. To be renewed. To become new.

 

Jesus does call us to follow Him and to come to Him as a little child. Without baggage.

 

The chocolate activity earlier on shows us this. As a child, it’s very easy to go and get some chocolate. “I want some chocolate”. “It’s over there”. “I’ll go and get some”.

 

Adults on the other hand will think “well, this is for the children”. “I’d love some, but I don’t want to be seen to be too keen.” And all sorts of stuff along those lines.

 

I know it’s not easy weighing up the options, whether to go out and get some chocolate. Or not. And I’ll let you into a little secret. You all know how much I love chocolate. But if I’d been sitting in the pew and someone else was leading, I would have probably stayed put. Too much adult in me and not enough child.

 

And it’s kind of ironic that the disciples were trying to keep the children away from Jesus. Children were greatly valued and seen as a blessing from God, but their society was adults first. Especially when it came to teaching. And Jesus was seen as a teacher.

 

And so the disciples were behaving like Victorian family patriarchs. Children should be seen and not heard.

 

But not in Jesus’ Kingdom. Children have qualities that Jesus values, qualities that we all had once and some still have.

 

Jesus wants us to come to Him and be made anew. And this is what baptism is all about.

 

Baptism means washing, making clean by dipping or immersion. It symbolises being made anew.

 

And that’s what’s going to happen this morning for Matilda and Tabitha. The beginning of or a confirmation of a journey of faith. Baptism is an outward sign of inward grace. And as the gospel reading tells us, children coming to Jesus is a time of blessing.

 

Many of you will know that some churches only do what is known as believers baptism. Baptism for people who have found faith, and then the baptism becomes that believer’s public declaration of faith. If you’re not yet baptised, this could be something for you to think about.

 

And other churches, like ours, are happy to baptise young children and babies as well as those who have come to faith. Both approaches have their place. And in particular, with the baptism of babies and young children, promises are made by parents, godparents and the congregation on behalf of those being baptised.

 

My guess is that for most of us here, someone will have made promises for us when we were baptised as babies or children. Promises made for us to claim when we were older.

 

And just like the chocolate earlier, this is something that we have to do for ourselves. It might have seemed a bit mean saying that you could only collect a Freddo for yourself, but it illustrates the point. There are some things that only we can do.

 

And my question is this: have we claimed those promises?

 

Or are we sitting here with some unfinished business between us and God? It’s often said that God has no grandchildren – ie, that we cannot inherit our faith. It is something that we have to discover for ourselves. Something that only we can do.

 

So, if someone made these promises for us, on our behalf, when we were young, and they remained unclaimed, then Jesus still calls.

 

Calls us in that open and uncomplicated way that little children can easily understand.

 

Calls us with that promise of life made new, to be a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven.

 

To a life lived for God, in His love, mercy and forgiveness. Washed clean and made whole for His glory.

 

Amen.