13 People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14 When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.15 Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” 16 And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.(Mark 10: 13-16)
Okay, here’s a head-scratcher. Jesus has just told us that we must receive the kingdom of God like children, and that the kingdom of heaven belongs to “such as these:” children. And yet the Apostle Paul said, “When I became an adult I put away childish things.” That’s not the only time the Bible tells us to “grow up!” And yet Jesus wants us to be like children. What gives? How do we straighten out that apparent contradiction?
Well, you know the answer that I’ll get to by the end of this message if you were in our adult Sunday School class two weeks ago. Actually, Frank gave us the answer that his father, the preacher, gave to that question. So, take what I say on the authority of two preachers, not just one. If you know it, please don’t spill the beans yet.
But first, …..Anyone here currently ten years old? What things or activities get you amazed and excited?
Now for the rest of us, a little mental exercise: Think back to when you were about 10 years old. What were you like back then? What did you most like to do? What was it about the world that most interested you, or excited and enthused you back then? What most made you say, “Wow!” or “Awesome!” or “Ooooh, cool?” What sport, or subject, or activity, or aspect of God’s creation, like animals, or plants or rivers or whatever most flipped on the light switches of joy, wonder, enchantment and excitement for you?
The reason I ask is because I’ve heard it said that whoever we were at age 10 is still who we are all the rest of our lives, somewhere down deep. That’s the age when the level of our maturing knowledge and understanding and thinking skills start to match our childhood capacity for delight, wonder, innocence, amazement and enchantment. It’s a wonderful blend.
Later in life, as our experience grows and our innocence declines, the world becomes more complex, and we learn how complex we are, including our bodies. We go from seeing things and being enchanted, sometimes to seeing through things, and becoming disenchanted. The more knowing and sophisticated we think we have become, the less cool it is to say, “Ooooh, Wow, or Cool!”
So, does that mean that as we grow and age, every last bit of our childhood wonder, joy, enchantment and delight has to get wrung out of us, until finally there’s nothing left but disaffected, disappointed and disenchanted, deadly adult seriousness?
Let’s see. Was anyone here ever ten years old? Are any of your ten-year-old delights and interests still part of your life today?
When I was ten, I got enthused about—you guessed it– horses. I read everything I could about horses and drew tons of pictures of them. But having and riding a horse, I knew, was out of the question. We lived in the city. And my few times sitting on a horse going nose-to-tail with other Acme rental horses in a string of horses were not good experiences. The few horses I rode were old, worldly wise hacks who immediately knew, “Oh, this guy is easy; I’m going back to the barn where the hay is, and if he wants to stay on for the ride, I don’t care.” So, I mostly forgot about horses.
But Becky grew up with horses. And when she started riding again a few years back, I would go with her to the barn, and help her groom her horse, feed it and watch her ride. And I was suddenly ten years old again. Now I go several times a week to the stables, where my 10-year-old self gets to say, “Wow! Cool! And Oooooh!”
Could that wonder, awe and delight have something to do with what Jesus means when he says, “the kingdom of God belongs to such as these,” and “unless you become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven?” I think so. Partly, at least. If I were not a Christian, then by my age of nearly 62, I would be just a tired, despairing old cynic, totally disenchanted with life, the world and myself. But something about life with Christ gives the world and the universe a glow of hope, of promise, even of enchantment, like it does in childhood, despite all the dangers and disappointments life throws at us through the years. Growing in Christ, “till Christ be formed in you,” actually gives us the chance to grow up both in mature, adult, wisdom and character, as well as growing back toward childlike innocence, wonder and joy.
But there’s something else that Jesus is recommending that we keep from our ten-year-old self, and it has to do with one very important word in this passage: the word, “receive.” Jesus says, “Unless you receive the kingdom of God like a little child….” That is in contrast to another word that is not stated in this passage, but which is very strongly implied: “achieve.” Why would the disciples hinder the children from coming to Jesus and getting a blessing, unless they believed that a blessing from Jesus is something we achieve as adults, and in ways that children cannot? That a relationship with Jesus is something we achieve by developing the grown-up intellectual ability to understand it and definite it completely? Maybe after having gone through all the years of Sabbath School and their Bar Mitzvah? Or that we achieve a blessed relationship with Jesus by being adult enough in our comprehension, conduct and character? And the disciples get to determine when that is?
Yes, Jesus and the gospel enter this world with a call to “grow up.” But Jesus is not just for grownups. The gospel invites and empowers us to grow up in Christ, “till Christ be formed in us,” at any and every stage of life. But those who think of themselves as all grown up already will not hear the invitation, nor appreciate it.
And why would the disciples take it upon themselves to hinder anyone from bringing their children to Jesus for his blessing unless they felt so accomplished and self-entitled that they had achieved the status of gate-keepers to Jesus, to keep out the unworthy and the unready? When their job is actually to bring people to Jesus, wherever they’re at in life? How ironic is that?
Growing up in Christ, growing toward Christ-like-ness, is not only about learning stuff. It’s about unlearning, and re-learning. Growing in Christ, “till Christ be formed in us,” means unlearning what we think is so adult about us, especially self-reliance, self-entitlement and self-justification, based on our own personal achievements. Or what we think are our own achievements.
But ten-year-old’s and younger don’t have the luxury of the illusions of self-reliance, self-entitlement and self-justification yet. They may try some self-justification, like whenever they say, “But Mom, he hit me first!” But that is child-ish. Up to then, ten-year-old’s have spent their young, lives mostly receiving. They depend upon parents or other adult guardians and care-takers for nearly everything, like a roof over their heads, food on the table, clothes to wear, a lap to crawl into, hugs to hold you, a shoulder to fall asleep on and carry you up to bed, loving, reliable, fair and consistent discipline, guidance and structure provided by adults, hopefully. Ten years of introducing you gradually to the complexities and responsibilities of life, but also of protecting you against things that you can’t deal with, nor understand, yet.
Hopefully, children have found the adults in their lives worthy of their trust. And so, we learn in these younger years our most important lesson in life: how to receive, in effect, how to trust, yes, but also, who and what to trust.
I think that’s what Jesus has most in mind when he says, “unless you become like children….” It has to do with receiving rather than achieving, the kingdom of God. And that requires trust in the faithfulness of our heavenly Father, rather than the childish and unholy trinity of self-reliance, self-justification and self-entitlement.
That’s not just a lesson for ten-year-old’s, by the way. In every age and stage of life, even through the losses and hard knocks of life, we’ll need to draw on our ten-year-old self, and our capacity to trust our Heavenly Parent, to receive what God wants to give us and to teach us. The same with our childlike capacity for wonder, delight and enchantment. When we first go into the work world with our education to find our place, that requires some trust in God and openness to enchantment and surprises. Should we be called to marriage and parenthood, we’ll need some childlike trust and openness to wonder and surprises, again. When it’s time to retire and let younger people have at our jobs, our communities, our careers or our churches, we’ll need to find that ten-year-old trust again and that capacity for childlike appreciation and wonder again.
The capacity to trust God, and openness to wonder, awe and delight, even while we grow in age, knowledge, and experience, those are the child-like aspects of our ten-year-old selves that I believe Jesus wants us to keep and to be.
That’s what makes recent revelations about child abuse and sexual exploitation by the powerful so heartbreaking and devastating, especially in the church. And not just the Roman Catholic Church. One thing we have learned from recent revelations is that reforms in practice and reporting over the last decade have made a difference, and that the rate of child abuse and exploitation in the church is still lower than in the general population at large.” So, child protection guidelines do work. Let’s keep ours ever before us, in practice, and up-to-date.
But that’s cold comfort. Especially because of all the cover-ups, the hush money and the silence agreements still in place. We cannot tolerate anything short of a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to exploitation and abuse, especially of children. And to any secrecy or hush-ups. The church of Jesus Christ should be known for transparency and humility, not secrecy and the protection of its image.
Because Jesus has only a zero-tolerance policy toward exploitation and abuse, especially of children. If Jesus was indignant about his disciples keeping children away from his blessing, what is his response to any abuse or neglect of children? Especially in the church that bears his name? “It would be better,” Jesus said, “to have a large millstone hung around one’s neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea, than to cause one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble.” Jesus knew there would be wolves who would enter his flock dressed in sheep’s clothing, and so warned us against them. Jesus knows what lies in the hearts of all, and how some would be tempted to turn the beautiful intimacy of mind and spirit that we enjoy in worship and prayer into a twisted parody of physical intimacy, especially with the most vulnerable and the most innocent.
Sure, it’s worse in the world. The “Me-too” movement and this week’s Senate subcommittee testimony remind us of that. But “Judgment begins in the household of God,” said the Apostle Peter. And the church’s house cleaning has only started. There’s more to come, not only around sexual abuse and exploitation, but also because of the church’s attachments to the idols of image, power, prestige, property and prosperity.
But think of this moral and spiritual house-cleaning as spring cleaning, so that all that is left among us are safety, transparency, security and innocence for the most needy and vulnerable, including the children among us and within each of us. That would make of us a safe community in which we can continue growing in childlike trust and wonder, throughout every stage of our lives.
That, by the way, is the answer to the question with which this message began: How can Jesus tell us to be like children, while the rest of the Bible calls us to grow up and be mature? It’s the difference between being childlike and childish.
Being childlike, as Jesus wants us to be, involves trust, and receiving, receiving God, receiving God’s kingdom, and receiving all his gifts. Being childlike also involves openness, especially, openness to wonder, delight and transformation. No matter how much our bodies have aged, I hope our spirits are always and ever like our ten-year-old self snuggling up to our Heavenly Parent in trust, for security and comfort. We’ll need such childlike trust every day of our lives until the day when we shall know as we are known, when we shall be most like Christ, for we shall see him as he is, and all our eternity will be one long, timeless, Ooooh! Wow! And Cool!”