"The Good News Is...Protection and Care for the Vulnerable" (March 15, 2026 Sermon)
/Protection and Care for the Vulnerable
March 15, 2026
4th Sunday in Lent (Year A)
Scripture
Deuteronomy 24:17-22
“You shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice; you shall not take a widow’s garment in pledge. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this.
“When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be left for the alien, the orphan, and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all your undertakings. When you beat your olive trees, do not strip what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow.
“When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am commanding you to do this.
Matthew 19:13-15
Then children were being brought to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples spoke sternly to those who brought them, but Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” And he laid his hands on them and went on his way.
“You were a child once, too.”
You were a child once, too. That's what Mister Rogers said, that's what he wrote down, once upon a time, for the doctors. The doctors were ophthalmologists. An ophthalmologist is a doctor who takes care of the eyes. Sometimes, ophthalmologists have to take care of the eyes of children, and some children get very scared, because children know that their world disappears when their eyes close, and they can be afraid that the ophthalmologists will make their eyes close forever. The ophthalmologists did not want to scare children, so they asked Mister Rogers for help, and Mister Rogers agreed to write a chapter for a book the ophthalmologists were putting together—a chapter about what other ophthalmologists could do to calm the children who came to their offices. Because Mister Rogers is such a busy man, however, he could not write the chapter himself, and he asked a woman who worked for him to write it instead. She worked very hard at writing the chapter, until one day she showed what she had written to Mister Rogers, who read it and crossed it all out and wrote a sentence addressed directly to the doctors who would be reading it: "You were a child once, too.” And that's how the chapter began.[1]
My friend Tom wrote those words about his friend Fred back in 1998 for Esquire Magazine. You see, Tom made a mistake, a mistake he would later regret. He wrote an article about a very famous person, and in that article, he insinuated something very hurtful, something that wasn’t his story to tell. And it got him into trouble. Tom had developed a reputation for being a ruthless journalist. Ruthlessness is something someone does when they care more about themselves than others.
And so, as he feared that his career had stalled because of his ruthlessness, his editor gave him a new assignment. He called him into his office and told him he wanted him to interview Fred Rogers. “You mean, Mister Rogers? The kid’s show guy?” Tom scoffed. “Yes,” his editor replied, “We’re doing an issue on heroes, and I want you to write a profile on him.” And so, the invulnerable journalist called up the cardigan-wearing Presbyterian minister. “Invulnerable” is a word that means you feel like nothing can touch you, challenge you, or change you. Magical things happen when the invulnerable meet a person like Fred Rogers.
I wonder if the disciples felt invulnerable. “Disciples” is a word for people who want to follow Jesus. If I were his disciple, I would be tempted to feel invulnerable. How does one not feel that way when your teacher is a man who feeds thousands with table scraps, or resists Satan’s seduction, or calms a tempest, or summons the very dead from their slumber? Hang around with stuff like that long enough, and it goes to your head. Which is why, of course, when the children came to Jesus, they shooed them away. “This is grown-up business,” they tell them with the sort of condescension little ones are all too familiar with. “Condescension” is a word for when grown-ups think they always know better.
But Jesus bristles. He bristles because the disciples haven’t been listening. Just a few days earlier, he had placed a child on his knee and reminded them that whoever welcomes such a child in his name welcomes him. Now they are telling children that this is “grown-up business.” This is, of course, a silly notion, because the Kingdom of Heaven is neither “for” grown-ups nor a business.
“The Kingdom of Heaven is, first and foremost, for the vulnerable.”
The Kingdom of Heaven is, first and foremost, for the vulnerable. The kingdom is open to all, of course, but again and again Jesus insists that it is the vulnerable, the overlooked, the little ones, who are nearest its center. And this is good news for kids, especially for those whom Jesus welcomed in today’s passage. Being a kid back then was no easy thing. According to Michael Joseph Brown in his book True to Our Native Land, “Fifty percent of children died before the age of five. They were the weakest members of society. They were fed last and received the smallest and least desirable portions of food. They were the first to suffer from famine, war, disease, and natural disasters. Many, some say more than 70 percent, would have lost one or more parents before reaching puberty. A minor had the same status as an enslaved person, and it was not until adulthood that they would be considered a free person.”[2]
And being a child here and now, for many, is a similar kind of struggle. My work with A Simple Gesture has made me more aware of the scandal of child hunger right here in Guilford County. Close to one in four children here is food-insecure. In many parts of our county, families live in food deserts, far from a grocery store, dependent on public transportation just to buy food. And if you ride the bus in Greensboro, you are allowed only two bags. If you carry a purse, that counts as one. It should not be this hard to feed a child.
“Let the children come to me,” Jesus said. “You were a child once, too,” Fred Rogers said. Too often, our nation’s policies and priorities tell children and their families: your hunger is not urgent enough.
I began this sermon with an anecdote from Mr. Rogers for several reasons. First of all, this upcoming Friday would have been Mr. Rogers' 98th birthday, and as such, our denomination has designated that day in his honor, celebrating his memory and his message of neighborliness. Second, Fred Rogers was someone who had an innate gift for seeing the world through children’s eyes, to remember what it was like to be a little kid navigating a very big world. And that’s a spiritual gift that we all could do more with these days.
Last night, Tricia and I went to the Tanger Center to see The Sound of Music. It had been quite a while since I last saw the show, so I had forgotten several parts. One of those was how funny “Uncle Max” is. He is Captain von Trapp’s friend and a music agent and producer trying to get the von Trapp Family to perform at an upcoming festival. But beneath Uncle Max’s comic relief is a much more dangerous motive. Time and again, he tries to convince Captain von Trapp to adopt a stance of neutrality (at best) or tacit support (at worst) of the German annexation of Austria. “What’s going to happen is going to happen,” he tells Georg von Trapp at one point, “just make sure it doesn’t happen…to you.” In other words, he implies that von Trapp has the power and privilege to stay out of the mess and let the worst happen to others.
However, I trust you know how the story goes. His heart is hardened for good reason. He is devastated by the death of his wife, the children’s mother, and the sound of music has been verboten from his home. Maria and the children soften the Captain’s hardened heart. Together, they bring melody and joy back to his life, and he learns to see the world as his children do. And, indeed, see himself as his children see him. It is this softening that leads the “invulnerable” Captain to open his eyes to how the fascists are preying on the vulnerability of those around him. And he refuses to be complicit. With the help of the nuns, he defies Berlin’s “invitation” (i.e., command) to join the Navy of the Third Reich.
“Remember that you were once a slave in Egypt. Remember that you were once a child, too.”
“You were once a slave in Egypt, too,” God says to the Israelites. “You were once a child, too,” Fred Rogers says to each of us (not just the ophthalmologists).
You see, the gospel is asking us to remember:
Remember that you were once a slave in Egypt. Remember that you were once a child, too. Remember what fear feels like. Remember what hunger feels like. Remember what it is to need gentleness from a world that can be so hard.
And then let that remembering soften you:
Soften you enough to leave grain in the field. Soften you enough to make room for children. Soften you enough to resist every voice that says, “What’s going to happen is going to happen—just make sure it doesn’t happen to you.” No. Not for those who follow Jesus. For those who follow Jesus, the vulnerable are not interruptions. They are where the kingdom shows up first.
So let the children come. Let the stranger come. Let the hungry come. And may they find, in us, not a closed hand or a hardened heart, but the welcome of Christ himself.
In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God’s children, say: Amen.
Notes
[1] Junod, Tom. “Can You Say...Hero?” Esquire, November, 1998.
[2] True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary, edited by Brian K. Blount, Gay L. Byron, and Emerson B. Powery, (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2024). 120.