What are you arguing about?
The parental version of this has the word "two" inserted: What are you two arguing about? But the force of the question as posed by parents to their children is much the same as the question posed by Jesus to his disciples in this Sunday's gospel passage. They'd been travelling through Galilee, had arrived at Capernaum and were now inside the house. Here, able to be discreet with his friends, not wanting to 'call them out' in public, but no longer able to contain his .. well, was it curiosity or irritation ... here Jesus puts the question: what were you arguing about on the way?
Often our thoughts about the passage turns to the next episode when Jesus takes a child and brings her into the midst of the group and chastises the grown ups with their arguments about power and authority and greatness. Often our thoughts are taken towards Jesus' words about being a servant, about welcoming all, and about those who welcome the last and the least are welcoming the one in whose image they are made.
And all this is well and good, right and proper for our learning and discipleship. But it strikes me that, by doing that, we have turned our attention towards the object (grammatically speaking) of Jesus' tutorial and thus turned our back on the subject (grammatically speaking) of the lesson: argumentative adults!
The attraction of the little child, no doubt looking rather bewildered, can so easily distract us from the reason the little child was needed. Some might suggest that the point of the arguing adults was to enable Jesus to provide this lesson: some might even go so far as to suggest that argumentative grown ups were divinely inspired to have that particular quarrel at that particular time. I find that unlikely and, if I'm honest, I would rather God felt that there were enough arguments that needed resolving without generating more.
So, yes, let's learn the lesson that Jesus puts before us; let's ensure that we seek not to be first but to be last, to be of service to others and to be welcoming of all those who cross the threshold. And let's remember as well that all this happened because of an argument between adults!
