Mark 10: 13-16
People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them.But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘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.’ And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
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As promised, here are my reflections on the second part of the gospel reading from last Sunday.
One of the greatest joys of the ministry that God has entrusted me with is to be able to bless children at communion. Sometimes they are shy and hide behind their parents bad have to be coaxed into receiving a blessing. , sometimes they are up for it come running towards me. One even wants to give me a ‘high-five!’ every time. It’s just wonderful.
I confess, I used to not like children! I remember a time about 12-14 years ago when I used to work for the Co-op Foodstores (and before they, Netto, remember them!); I was often on the tills, and supermarkets would always put lots of sweets and chocolates next to them. So that when a poor stressed out parent comes with their children to pay, they start to beg mummy or daddy for whatever sweets they wanted and cry and whine when they didn’t get them. The supermarkets know what they are doing of course, they are trying to encourage impulse buys, either for themselves or to ‘keep their kids happy and quiet.’ It used to give me a huge headache. I am very happy to report that like children now though that I have my own, I get to see their cute side! But I can quite understand the reasons why the disciples were being annoyed by the children coming to him.
Historically, the impact of Christianity on children has been profound. Many of the reasons why we see children as we do is thanks them to the face that we have been a Christian nation continent for many hundreds of years. We take for granted the fact that children are of immense individual value, that they have their own rights and personhood personhood. We assume this, and can’t imagine it being any other way. But this is a novel idea of children in the context of history. In ancient Greece and ancient Rome children weren’t even considered to be persons at all! In Rome, a Father could kill their child before they came of age for any reason. Just imagine that!
Emotional attachment fo children was also discouraged because of a high mortality rate. Children were regularly abandoned (girls especially) and both were regularly sexually exploited. There were brothels in Rome that specialised in offering the ‘services’ of children
(check out https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/theweek.com/articles/551027/how-christianity-invented-children%3famp) for more details).
In the midst of these cultures, Jesus says these words;
“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.”
This is the topsy-turvy way of the gospel; those who in those times seemingly have no value at all, have the most value to Jesus. Jesus, speaks as if children have innate value in and of themselves and are of infinite value to God, and further on in the reading he blesses them. What a wonderful Lord we have! We can’t even imagine thinking about children in any other way these days.
Jesus changed the world for children and gave them a central place within it. Now granted, there have been issues with the way that children have been treated for the past two thousand years, even in Christian countries; and yet in the west at least, the idea that children have an inalienable right to exist is thanks to Jesus.
And so Jesus says ‘let the little children come to me’ what can we as adults learn from that? I think Jesus is encouraging us to think about things in a different way. He wants us to be child like (not childish of unintelligent!) when it comes is to things of the gospel. Can learn to have the heart of a child when it comes to our relationship with God?
When I look at my own children. I see that they trust me completely. They can’t imagine that I will lie to them or cause them harm. They are innocent (even though sometimes they really don’t behave!) and yet I believe that that is the way that God wants us to approach him, as innocent children, who will trust Him completely.
Now this is hard, especially given the knocks that we all take as we get older and the sometimes terrible things that can happen. We can become bitter, Sullen, grumpy, unloving, distrustful, resentful, angry etc. We can become all of those things. And yet God seems to call us to grow beyond that, to become child like once again. It is when we do that that we experience what it means to be in the kingdom of God. Perhaps this is part of what he meant when he said that we need to be ‘born again’. Perhaps we need to be continually ‘born again’ to see the world simply, a world full of joy and hope and wonder, rather than just full of pain and loss and darkness. It is my prayer they we can know this in our own hearts, to have the heart of a child, and know what it means to belong to the kingdom of God. Amen.
