(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on July 9, 2017, Proper 9)
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Greatness Looks like a Little Child
Greatness is as much a topic today as it was two thousand years ago. Unless you live under a rock, you probably know that greatness was the slogan of our president’s campaign last year. “Make America great again.”
Two thousand years ago, the disciples were hoping Jesus would make ancient Israel great again. And last week we heard them speculating about who would be the greatest in the new kingdom (Matt 18:1-5). Jesus, remember, had a rather surprising response. You want to know what greatness looks like in the eyes of God, he asks? Greatness looks like a little child. Greatness looks like someone who is low in the world, someone who must trust others, someone who must rely on others, someone who is weak and vulnerable, someone for whom the world is not a foregone conclusion but rather full of possibility.
How Many Different Ways Can Jesus Say it?
You have to wonder, though, how well the disciples were listening.
Because just one chapter later (cf. Mark 9-10; Matt 18-19), when people start bringing little children to Jesus, the disciples stop them, as though to say, “Jesus has more important things to do, can’t you see? He has wise lessons to teach. These little children will just get in the way.”
When Jesus sees what the disciples are doing, he becomes “indignant.” I have to imagine that he allows himself a roll of the eyes and a deep sigh. What had he just been telling them about greatness? What could be more important than these little children? They weren’t getting in the way. Quite the contrary: they were the way. And Jesus says so, for a second time. “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” (10:14-15). And I have to imagine, again, that Jesus allows himself a little shake of the head, wondering how many different ways he can say this before the disciples will understand.
Defenseless and Defense-Defying
Not long ago I read a story about a Catholic chaplain who worked in a maximum-security prison. He and his wife had recently had a child, and they wanted him to be baptized in the prison. Perhaps they wanted to share their joy with folks who had little other reason to celebrate. The prisoners who attended the baptism gathered round in a circle to watch. The baby was sprinkled with water and words of blessing and then returned to his mother’s arms.
Then one of the prisoners asked the mother if he could hold the child. She nodded yes and placed the baby in his arms. He received the infant with “great tenderness and looked directly into his eyes. As he smiled, the baby smiled back at him. The prisoner broke down in tears.”
A creature so fragile and powerless had done what little else could. Having slipped through the prison walls, the baby then infiltrated the sturdy defenses of the prisoner’s heart. Little children hold a miraculous power. They are defenseless, yet they defy our strongest defenses. Small and helpless, they do what no army or ruler or law can. They somehow break through the fortification of our hearts, the barriers of pride and power, the walls of wealth and independence. The way that a little child can look into our eyes, full of trust, smiling without fear—somehow this defeats our need to win, to be strong, to prove ourselves. The little child disarms us of our self-seeking ways and invites us to love.[1]
It is as Jesus says. The kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
The Little Child’s Secret:
The Need for Touch and Communion
What is the secret of the little child? How is it that this little, defenseless human disarms us of our pride and our competitive spirit, effectively opening the door to God’s kingdom and inviting us in?
Today’s scripture, I think, shows us the little child’s secret. But it’s so simple that we’re liable to miss it. The story begins with people bringing little children to Jesus “in order that he might touch them.” The story ends with Jesus taking them up in his arms and blessing them with the touch of his hands.
In other words, the story begins and ends with touch.
That, I think, is the simple secret of a little child: the need for touch and communion. A little child is “not helped by ideas, no matter how deep or beautiful they may be; she does not need money or power or a job; she does not want to prove herself; all she wants is loving touch and communion.”[2]
Judy once shared with me the story of her brother, Dale, and his first grade teacher Mr. Murgatroy. In a parent-teacher conference with their mother, Mr. Murgatroy revealed that Dale had a peculiar habit. Every now and then, he would stop what he was doing, get up from his seat, and come to the teacher’s desk. Without saying a word, he would stand close to Mr. Murgatroy, and sometimes he would reach out and gently pat the teacher’s arm. When he was done, he would return to his seat satisfied.
Judy shared that her father showed very little affection for his kids. Little Dale did not receive at home the touch and the communion that he desired, needed. And so he reached out for it at school.
God’s Hands Reaching Out to Us
The stories that we’ve read the last couple weeks are not very different from our own experience. In our world as in Jesus’, children are often treated as an inconvenience or a disruption. Like the disciples, we might want to push them to the side and say, “Jesus has more important things to do right now.” But for Jesus, these little ones are the most important ones in the world, the pioneers of the kingdom. Left to its own devices, our world walks a self-destructive path of independence and loneliness, ego and conflict, fear and competition. What our world needs is to be defeated.
And according to Jesus, our conquerors are not far off. The kingdom of God is not off in the distance. On the contrary: it is within touching distance. The kingdom, according to Jesus, lives right underneath our nose.
The baby who smiled at the prisoner’s touch, little Dale who gently patted Mr. Murgatroy’s arm—according to Jesus, the kingdom belongs to such as these. And I believe it! For little children usher us away from the world where what matters is being right or being strong or being popular, and they invite us into the kingdom of God where what matters most is that we bless one another, sometimes even without words. The little hands of children reaching out for touch, for communion—are none other than God’s hands reaching out to us. The kingdom visits us in these blessed moments when we let down our defenses, forget our ambition, drop our competitive pose.
The Kingdom: Of Tables and Children
In a few minutes, we’ll gather at the Lord’s table. Jesus regularly compared the kingdom to a table, a feast. He also regularly compares kingdom-dwellers to children. I wonder if it’s not more than a coincidence that many of my greatest memories involve both children and tables: birthday parties, board games, family reunions, jokes told at the dinner table and milk spewing out of noses.
At the table, or in the presence of a little child, we are called beyond ourselves. We are called into the lives of others. We are brought into touch with a holy communion.
May God bless our gathering always with tables and children. Both disarm us of our selfish ways and invite us into what matters most. They invite us into the kingdom of God.
Prayer
Who received little children
Not with impatience
Or out of obligation
But with loving embrace:
Lead us into the kingdom
By the way of our little ones;
And by their need,
Teach us
What matters most. Amen.
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[1] This reflection comes by way of a story told in a letter written by Jean Vanier in January 2011: http://www.faithandlight.org/rubriques/haut/publications/jean-vanier-january-2011.pdf, accessed July 4, 2017.
[2] Jean Vanier, Community and Growth (Rev. ed.; New York: Paulist Press, 1989), 97. In this passage, Vanier is actually describing a grown woman with “a severe mental handicap” who “remains in many ways like a child only a few months old.”
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