Mark 10.13-16 8 June 2008
“HOW TO BECOME SMALL BEFORE GOD”
We are constantly asked to remember and notice children. One declares this as “the year of the child”, another that as “the century of the child”. That is because for centuries childhood was unrecognized. A child was considered a miniature adult. It was only during the movement known as the Enlightenment that children were discovered as having childhood and placed in a class all their own. All of that was good, well-enough, and true. But then this shift created a new problem.
Having suddenly recognized the existence of children as unique, different than adults, suddenly it became easier to exclude them from the adult world. So it makes for an odd and confusing era for our young. First, they are celebrated. We project upon them a state of happiness and freedom from care that wasn’t anything like what I felt getting my tonsils out or moving into a new home and school or getting into fights on the playground. In a word, we celebrate children by sentimentalizing childhood. And that does neither them nor us any living good.
But at the same time, we take it upon ourselves to make children feel responsible and serious. We treat them as incomplete human beings in need of being shaped into adults. I mean, whatever happened to treating any person as of infinite value in God’s eyes for who they are here and right now? Or let’s put it like this.
We might never suspect this to be true, living as we do in a youth worshipping society. But it is as painful to children and youth to be treated as OK now but potentially something special in years ahead as it is for you and me to be treated as OK now but probably something special back when we were back in our prime
I know this first hand. I still remember my first year of ministry. When I was 25 and newly ordained I looked very young. I mean, people would come and knock on the door of the parsonage and ask me if my father was home. They wanted to speak with the pastor. My comeback was that my father lived in
Dorris Baumann, thinking she was paying me a compliment, once told me, “You are pretty good now but I’ll bet someday you will be something special.” I re-ceived her words in the spirit she intended them. I said nothing back to her. But they were hurtful words. I mean, all I wanted when I was 25, on a steep learning curve and giving it my all, was to be respected as a pastor worthy of the name. Even then I dared to believe that my efforts on God’s behalf were truly special.
Children today go through something similar wanting respect as human beings. When children were finally recognized as children 300 years ago, it was a mixed gain. For we now people can get away with saying, they are only children. What are we saying as we utter the words, they are only children? We are saying they don’t yet know enough and can’t think well enough. Like we adults are so bright, blundering into long wars with no valid reason to fight. We are saying that children do not feel deeply enough, as though only adults know sorrow or joy. My little Greta had mind-numbing earaches for 2 ½ years, a deep and piercing pain. We’re saying children don’t act maturely enough to be treated as equal to adults.
And then children magically reach a birthday that we designate as adulthood, and they are abruptly considered adults. Because of a certain age, suddenly their reasoning, their feelings, and their maturity no longer matter. They have attained all of the rights and privileges of adulthood, with all benefits attached thereto.
Anyway, you see the problem, we value children not for who they are now, but for what they might become. So then the less potential a child has, the less he or she is valued. Children pegged early with “limited potential” are at best pitied and patronized. Those of us piling on some years should be especially protective of the young as they get diminished like this. For what is discrimination against the elderly but a mirror image of this?--valued only as long as we are deemed pro-ductive in a job with a some status, earning and contributing a certain rate of pay. All God’s children, whatever age, long to be valued for who we are here and now.
So at both ends of the age spectrum, we can do better. We heard from the pro-phet Isaiah that our Jewish ancestors saw the coming of God’s reign as led by a little child. (Isaiah 11.6) In the biblical understanding of God’s covenant, children were included as full equals in the people and family of God. They were seen as a sign of divine favor on God’s own. His promise and blessing was their heritage.
In Mark we heard Jesus’ evaluate children in glowing terms (9.36). “Then he took a child, set him in front of them, and put his arm around him, ‘Whoever receives one of these children in my name,’ he said, ‘receives me.’ Not only is Jesus saying that children are no mere means to greater adult potential and that being a child is an end in itself. He also used childhood to define the entrance require-ment for the kingdom. “I tell you, whoever does not accept the
I want be careful with these familiar verses because, for example, the one about Jesus placing a child at their center has been so prone to sentimentalizing. Jesus is not saying, aren’t children cute? He is not saying, isn’t it charming how they say the darnedest things? He is not saying, notice from a distance how endearing children are, but give thanks to God we don’t have to take them home.
No, as Jesus takes them from the periphery, rescues them from the shooing of his disciples, and says in effect, “Love this child with my love and you love me,” he says something much more profound. To have a relationship with God, we must become as children. Trusting. Dependent. Aware of our deep neediness.
In proclaiming this, Jesus is not idealizing childhood, nor is he sentimentalizing it.
He is only pointing out that children are naturals at this and the rest of us are not. My girls instinctively cried, “Abba! Father!”. I have to learn how to do it with God. What unites children and mature adults, John Westerhoff insists, is young or old, we are all dependent creatures whose life is founded on trusting God. Sages and seers can lose track of that, but for children it is an inescapable fact of life. Because they’re at the front of that line, Isaiah insisted, a little child shall lead us.
This is worth pausing over, isn’t it? Ironically, we spend most of our childhood wanting to be big. Big enough to go on the roller coaster. Big enough to ride a pony. Big enough to drive a car. But as we become adults we lose track that it is hard to become big without also becoming full of ourselves. Without also hiding the centrality of trusting others, mutual dependence and honesty about our need.
Children are experts at this because they’ve no other choice to live and survive.
Someone help me remember, was it Harry Truman, who used to take his dinner guests outside after lavish state dinner parties in white tie and gown? They would silently stare at the stars for a while before turning in for the night. “There,” the politician would declare after. “I feel small enough now. We can go to sleep now.”
Children can help us like that. Children can help those of us who are big and too full of ourselves to become small and to make room for the greatness of God. If we don’t make that room for God in our souls and in our days, God cannot fill it.
Jesus put children at our center because we need them. And do you know what? They need us. To close, I give you three charges for the children of this church.
First, accept them for who they are rather than see them through our own childhoods. Yes, they may wear Ipods and in their own world. Yes, they speak a technical language of computers with fluency we’ll never master. No, they didn’t have to walk three miles uphill through snowdrifts to get to school every morning. But they still have hearts of children. Tender. Vulnerable. Malleable. Eager. As you see them, see that common core, and not what makes a generation different.
Second, as you love children, don’t do it in the abstract but in concrete situations. Anyone can profess to love children from a distance. Love them when it matters most. If I am preaching in here, and we have a visiting family with a child who starts to scream, and you can’t hear, I’m going to say, “Hey, a budding preacher!” And I invite you to welcome them similarly because of and despite who they are.
Third, give them the power of your smiles and blessings. The weight of your unconditional approval, born of your wisdom and experience, means more to them than they would ever let on to you. But I still remember from my childhood elders in church who made the time and took an interest, who met me at my level, and saw the world through my small eyes, and blessed me along my way.
Let the children come unto me, said Jesus, for such belongs to God’s reign. Hear the good news, people of God, young and old. We’re God’s beloved children. Amen.
