Mk 9:30-37
Childlike: Jesus explains power as powerlessness in two ways. First, by repeating for the second time his prediction regarding his forthcoming passion and death. Second, by telling the disciples that who anyone wishes to be first must be the last of all and the servant of all.
A child suddenly appears on the scene. In Jewish culture, there were two groups of people who had no power at all: women and children. So, Jesus chooses a child to represent the most important in the kingdom. This, of course, to the original hearers was a reversal of their cultural values.
By portraying the scene in this way, Mark is declaring that God is like a child—powerless. God is not powerful in the way one usually conceives of power. The reader learns from the child what God is like. Mark is not telling the reader to be childish, but to see in the powerlessness of the child something of a reflection of God’s nature.
With this understanding, it is easy to see why Jesus declares that whoever receives a child receives him and the Father. A child is a metaphor for or an image of God. In the kingdom of God, according to Mark, all earthly understandings are reversed.