“The Good News Is Protection and Care for the Vulnerable”
Deuteronomy 24:17-22; Matthew 19:13-15
I remember discussing Mother's Day with my mom when I was a child. Dad and I had gone out and gotten cards for Mom, some flowers, and given them to her. At some point, I said, “Is there a children’s Day?” My mother’s response, which I am sure you can also say, “EVERY day is children’s day!” I was disappointed in her answer, hoping for another possible day of cards and presents.
Mom had a point, though. Children are, for the most part, revered in today’s society. In a lot of places in our world, every day IS Children’s Day. That was not the case in Jesus’ day. In modern contexts, it may seem sweet that Jesus welcomed children; however, spending time with children in Jesus’ setting would have seemed unsettling to those around him.
In the book True to Our Native Land, Michael Joseph Brown provides context for the realities of childhood in first-century Israel. He writes: “We should dismiss ideas of childhood bliss when we read this passage. Childhood in antiquity was difficult. 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.” In the first century, every day was NOT Children’s Day. So let us look at this morning’s passage from Matthew to see just how revolutionary Jesus’ teaching about children was to his first-century audience.
In blessing children, Jesus reorients socially constructed hierarchies to center on those who are vulnerable. I will be using the word “vulnerable” a lot this morning. What does it mean? Webster’s Online Dictionary defines “Vulnerable” as: “1) capable of being easily hurt or harmed physically, mentally, or emotionally. 2) open to attack, harm, or damage.”
Jesus emphasized the lost, the last, the least, building on the Hebrew scriptures to care for widows, immigrants, and orphans. If we are truly living out the Good News, then anyone vulnerable should be protected from harm and cared for so they can thrive in life.
The disciples mirrored the prevailing belief that children had no special place in the world. Jesus challenged that notion, calling for children to be treated the way the disciples would treat Jesus (Matthew 18:5). In fact, chapter 18 begins with the disciples seeking status, wanting to know who was the greatest among them. Jesus responds by telling them to humble themselves like a child, or they will not be great, nor enter the kindom of heaven.
Jesus rebukes the disciples for speaking sternly to children and parents who brought their children to him. The reign of God belongs to children and to everyone who is not granted polite society’s respect and acceptance. How might the church of today treat children as it would treat Jesus?
There’s a story in Presbyterian Outlook magazine about a small Presbyterian Church in Sterling, Kansas, with a population of 2,200, that received a large bequest. They had taken this passage in Matthew to heart and wondered how they, too, could welcome and uplift children in their community. The congregation looked at its community and identified a need for a full-time daycare licensed by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. After years of discernment, prayer, and planning, the church committed to opening a daycare in its building. It spent $500,000 to retrofit the building to become the home of Little Cubby Daycare. In addition to turning old Sunday-school rooms into daycare rooms, the renovations added sprinkler systems, new windows, and an elevator.
Lil Cub makes the town stronger, and has found a tangible way to “welcome the little children, for such as them belongs the kindom of heaven. Parents and grandparents can work full-time jobs without juggling daycare providers or worrying about their children’s safety. Sterling enjoys this assurance because the church saw a need and found a way to meet it.
We are in transition with our building space here and are trying to find another tenant, hopefully another preschool. Yet, in looking at our surrounding community, are there other ways we can welcome children, teens, and college students in Jesus’ name? How might we utilize our facility in new ways here?
Rev. Sara R. Speed writes about the care of children in her poem, “Unwritten Agreement.”
We have this unwritten agreement, we members of humanity. When the toddler at the coffee shop runs around the corner, when her mom, at the register, looks up in panic, we, the adults in the room, will pledge, with quick smiles and silent head nods, to keep watch.
We will lean out of our seats. We will put down our phones. We will stand at the ready to scoop up, to offer words of comfort, to make silly faces, to keep an eye on the door.
And we will do this, because we cannot ignore the instinct to care. We will do this because we cannot ignore the child right in front of us. We will do this because love always includes the least of these.
The Good News for us this morning is this- Jesus calls us to preferential care for the vulnerable in welcoming children. Each of us has been vulnerable at some point in our lives. Jesus cares for us when we are in that state of vulnerability, which is also good news.
Children in Matthew's gospel are a metaphor for all who lack societal status- the impoverished, the immigrant, the powerless, the undocumented. This leads to our second passage for this morning from Deuteronomy.
This passage begins in verse 17 and addresses justice for the vulnerable. Israel is commanded not to pervert God’s justice due to the most vulnerable in society, listing a resident alien first. What was a resident alien in Hebrew society? Many of them were refugees escaping war in nearby nations, or people escaping crop failure and famine.
In Deuteronomy, the term "resident alien" is often referred to as "ger" (גֵּר), which denotes a non-Israelite living among the Israelites. These residents are typically temporary or semi-permanent, and they are subject to specific laws and regulations that ensure their fair treatment and integration into society. The treatment of these resident aliens reflected God’s concern for justice and compassion, emphasizing the importance of fair treatment and inclusion in a community.
Also mentioned at the beginning of this section are the orphans, who have no parents, no home, no protection; and the widows- generally without any safety net, property, or income, one of the most vulnerable positions to have in the first century.
The passage illustrates injustice by an awful crime, taking a widow’s garment ( likely the only one she had) due to a pledge about a default on a loan. Such protectiveness for the vulnerable was based on the remembrance that Israel was once a slave in Egypt, as God redeemed and rescued Israel during this vulnerable time, so Israel must redeem her poor.
In verses 19-22, God establishes a system so that those in need do not have to beg. It involves sharing, known as “Gleanings for the impoverished.” When a field of grain, a grove of olive trees, or a vineyard was harvested, some produce was to be left behind for the vulnerable, allowing the hungry to find food. The owner of the farm is not to claim that produce in a grasping spirit, and not to treat the vulnerable with injustice or hard-heartedness. I am reminded of one of our guiding principles here at the church, of having open hands and open hearts. The idea of sharing with others, especially the vulnerable- the resident alien, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, is commanded by God to the Hebrew people.
How might a church follow God’s command here to the vulnerable of our nation today? Welcome and hospitality to the vulnerable is one answer.
Hammonton Presbyterian church has responded to God’s command in the following way. Amid the blueberry fields of Hammonton, New Jersey, the self-proclaimed blueberry capital of the world, is where Hammonton PC is living out its faith through concrete acts of welcome. Already known locally for its year-round Monday-Wednesday clothing and home goods ministry, the church has deepened its outreach to the migrant workers who sustain the region’s farms. Amidst cuts to non-profit funding, ICE raids, and the re-opening of the nearby Delaney Hall Detention Center, a lot in Hammonton changed quickly. The church wondered about how they could respond and prayed for God’s wisdom.
The answers came quickly when they began to look at the challenges their own community was facing. Farmers who relied heavily on migrant workers experienced a delay in their arrival, which negatively affected their crops. And the migrant workers who did come – many with legal paperwork – faced threats of deportation regardless of their immigration status. Hammonton Presbyterian Church decided to expand its mission by creating and distributing welcome toiletry bags to migrants. In addition to the welcome bags, the church now offers ESL and citizenship classes, interpretation services, and hopes to open a preschool that would serve migrant workers’ children.
Pastor Rachel Sutphin strongly believes that the church has a responsibility to welcome the outsider. One of the Bible’s most consistent and repeated commands is to look after the widow, orphan, and stranger. “The Bible is very clear with this emphasis on welcome and hospitality, especially for those who are typically the outsiders,” Sutphin said. “That was really unique at the time, unique to the Jewish faith, unique to the Christ-following faith. There’s this interest in crossing boundaries and being able to support one another.”
What about our call to welcome resident aliens in our land? According to many newspapers, ICE arrests climbed in the Pacific Northwest under the current administration to a high of nearly 2,250 arrests during the last three months of 2025. The Oregonian says these arrests are the most since the height of enforcement at the end of the first Obama administration, according to Phil Neff, research coordinator at the University of Washington Center for Human Rights. In Oregon, the data shows 1,655 immigration arrests overall last year – more than the three previous years combined. The new figures indicate that the majority of the people arrested last year in Oregon – 1,265 – had no pending criminal charges or convictions. Some were asylum seekers who had applied and been granted asylum, yet were still arrested and deported.
What might we consider doing in light of God’s command to open our hands and hearts to the resident aliens among us?
Paula and I were watching the latest episode of Outlander last night. Scene- Amid the Revolutionary War, a white man is being married to a free black slave by a Quaker minister- forbidden by law at the time. The minister says, “The laws of man are no match for the omnipotence of God,” believing love was more important than the human laws in place at that time. In my mind, I see the same thing today. Current immigration laws are no match for the omnipotence of God, nor of God’s command this morning. Being led by love today, especially in such times, is incredibly important.
May God bless us with wisdom and understanding as we care for the most vulnerable around us. May God keep our hands open, rather than in a grasping spirit. May God keep our hearts open and away from hard-heartedness. May we work in this world, in our nation, in our state, and in our neighborhood to make every day be “All Humans Day!” Amen.
