Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven

Jesus talks quite a bit about children. The Scripture passages are familiar to us, and for that reason, perhaps we take them for granted. In this morning’s gospel, Jesus is with the twelve in Capernaum. As he speaks to the disciples he lifts up a child. A child was there. "Then they came to Capernaum; and when Jesus was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’" If we stopped the reading there, and I asked you to picture the scene in your mind, Jesus with the twelve… would you imagine any children in the picture? No?  But a child was there.

In the feeding of the five thousand, Scripture says that Jesus fed 5000 men and—in addition—women and children. Children were there. There is the famous passage that begins (in the King James’ version), "Suffer the little children to come unto me." We certainly picture children in that scene, and it is a sentimental favorite, even if we haven’t used the word "suffer" in that sense for hundreds of years! But, in general, I think we forget that children were undoubtedly with Jesus throughout much of his teaching and ministry.

In fact, the more I think about it, I am struck by how often Jesus refers to children, incorporates children into his teaching… how often the gospels refer to children as being present with Jesus. Children were socially insignificant and could certainly have been overlooked. But, not only were they evidently present, the gospels mention their presence. It really is quite remarkable. Jesus’ adult life, Jesus’ adult ministry, Jesus’ adult "Christian education" seems to include an awful lot of children. And Jesus includes the children in a very interesting way. We try so hard in the church today, as adults, to be good Christian examples for children. We agonize and feel guilty. We know we should offer quality Christian education and other opportunities for children’s participation in the life of the church. We know that it is wrong to overlook or exclude children from "our" church. And, don’t misunderstand me, we should agonize and strive to offer the Gospel to children in every way that we can. But let’s pause and note that Jesus offers a different model. In Jesus’ teaching, it is not the adults who offer the gospel to children; it is children who offer the gospel to adults. It is not the adults who are Christian examples for the children. It is children who model and bring the kingdom of heaven to adults.

That is a powerful role for children to fulfill in the life of the church. And a radical one for Jesus to present. I have not done a thorough academic study, but I don’t see evidence for this perspective in the earlier writings in the Hebrew Scriptures. Children were valued in ancient Israel, but primarily as descendents. Descendents were and are a blessing for all sorts of reasons, but the very word "descendent" indicates their secondary status with respect to adults. So Jesus’ words are startling, culturally new, meant to grab people’s attention, leave them with an idea they cannot forget. Except that it seems the church very quickly did forget. In John’s gospel, written later than the others, these stories of Jesus with the children don’t appear. And in Paul’s writing, written very early in the life of the church, but after Jesus’ life and ministry, childhood clearly connotes a time of weakness and immaturity, to be outgrown in the journey towards God. "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways." (1 Corinthians 13:11) It obviously doesn’t come easily to us adults, including Paul, to view children as a model for us. We cherish them as children, but that is all. But Jesus, radically and significantly, gives children a much more important role.

In this morning’s gospel, and in parallel passages in Matthew and Luke, Jesus says, "whoever welcomes such a child, welcomes me and welcomes the one who sent me." The child brings the presence of Jesus into the midst of the community. And a chapter or so later in Mark is the passage I alluded to earlier, translated in the NRSV, "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." Children are bearers of God’s presence and models to us "grown-ups" of how to enter into God’s presence.

There are several messages for us here. One is the obvious one. A reminder of the value of having children in our midst. Of cherishing their presence in every facet of the church’s life. They bear the presence of Christ. They are model citizens of Christ’s realm and therefore powerful examples to us. So just think what is lost when they are absent.

For those times when we aren’t blessed by a child in our midst, we might ask what qualities Jesus saw in a child that exemplified the kingdom of heaven. Our first assumption might be simplicity or innocence. But that is an unrealistic, "rose-colored" view of childhood, isn’t it? One commentator I read said, more or less, anyone who believes in the pure innocence of childhood hasn’t raised a child! Or has totally rewritten the memories of her own childhood, quite a few of which are not innocent.

Children, little children especially, are dependent, of course. Powerless to acquire and achieve on their own. And it never hurts those of us who aspire to independence and self-sufficiency to be reminded of our ultimate dependence upon God and our total powerlessness to acquire God’s grace through our own efforts. A child’s trusting dependence is a quality we would do well to imitate.

But the quality of childhood that seems most to resonate with Jesus’ message throughout the gospels as a whole is spontaneity. Spontaneity… both a spontaneous openness to receiving the new and unexpected and the spontaneous, impulsive or unguarded response to new experiences and understandings. Spontaneous receptivity and spontaneous response. Those are qualities of a child, and they are qualities that Jesus commends to adults.

Consider. Over and over in the Gospels Jesus struggles with the Pharisees, who seem to have been about as un-spontaneous as it is possible to be. Their identifying characteristic was a lack of openness and spontaneity. They had the religious life codified and planned. They knew the rules and were not open to unexpected disruptions of the rules. They seemed to have no childlike receptivity or wonder. They saw only what they were prepared to see. And as a result they pretty much missed Jesus.

To discover the presence of Jesus in our own lives, we must emulate the open receptivity of a child, the spontaneous acceptance of new understandings and new experiences. It is only adults who are cautious and skeptical. Someone once cynically said, "Distrust first impulses. They are nearly always right." As adults we do distrust. Children, on the other hand, model for us a way of spontaneously accepting whatever God tosses our way and then spontaneously responding.

Consider the woman who, near the end of Jesus' life, impulsively took rich and costly perfume and anointed Jesus feet using her hair. It was a childlike, spontaneous act of love. Jesus defends her and commends her action.

Spontaneous openness and spontaneous response. These are qualities of childhood. Imagine a young child trying a new food for the first time. The response to that first taste will be spontaneous and unguarded, one way or the other. A child who has discovered a wonderful new taste will not consider the cost of the food or whether or not it is dinnertime or whether the table is correctly set. He will spontaneously relish and savor the experience. Or imagine a young girl opening a present.  A young girl’s wonderful new gift will not be put aside until it can be tested for age-appropriateness or authenticity or anything else. For a child, wonderful is wonder full. The presence of Christ is a wonderful gift to us. What if our acceptance and response to that gift were as spontaneous as a child’s? Our joy would be infectious, our desire for God pure and unbridled, our passion for ministry immediate and unqualified.

Jesus’ teaching booms back and forth across the centuries. Let us not put an end to childish ways. Rather let us pray that we may know a childish spontaneity in our lives—open and impulsive as Jesus seeks to break upon us. Children are our model. Jesus could hardly have made it clearer: It is to such as these that the Kingdom of heaven belongs.

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