This month, our lectionary readings have detailed Jesus’ leadership lessons for his often “hard-headed” disciples. Why hard-headed? Because they are deeply entrenched in the laws, traditions, cultural assumptions, and mores of their current society –Jewish and Greek/Roman.
It’s significant to note that throughout these lessons, Jesus has a child on his lap or by his side. Now in today’s passage, people (most likely especially women), obviously hearing his defense of children and his counter-cultural views on valuing them as equal members among his followers, not to mention his defense of women in his pronouncement on divorce (as in that patriarchal society, only men had that power), crowds of them, have begun bringing their children to him to be blessed.
Jesus’ disciples view this as a huge breach of decorum and begin not only to protest but to speak sternly to them. The word in Greek means to rebuke, to reprimand, to reprove, to instruct with a harsh disciplinary tone. In response, Jesus is “indignant.” He is angry, incensed. He’s just spent all afternoon trying to teach his disciples lessons about the treatment of others and their role as kind and uplifting leaders, and now this! Have they learned nothing? No wonder Jesus becomes exasperated frequently with his errant disciples. They continually act not out of their learning but out of their embedded traditions, their learned instincts, their cultural habits.
Once again, Jesus corrects them, saying, “Let the 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 then….he takes them into his arms, lays his hands on them, and blesses them. Jesus is a huge lover of children!
He is the most counter-cultural leader they had ever experienced.
Unlearning traditions and social mores that we have grown up with, have been surrounded with our entire lives perhaps, is hard. We behave out of our beliefs and assumptions, and these have been formed for most of us long ago by our parents, the people who have raised us up, the people who have made an impact on our lives, by our experiences, and from watching and learning from those who came before us.
You’ve probably heard the expression that children learn more from what you do than what you say. This is true for you and for everyone. And it’s the reason that Jesus needs to break some of the “generational” assumptions that are driving his current culture. Otherwise, they will continue to pass on their cultural assumptions to the next generations of children. That is something Jesus wants to nip in the bud. It’s harder than it might seem!
As Jewish men, Jesus’ inner leadership group has entered into their learning time with Jesus, bringing along with them the lessons they’ve learned from their fathers and mothers, from their synagogue leaders, from their pious religious training, from the priests and Pharisees of the Temple, and from their colleagues and families. The Jewish community tended to be a tight-knit group. One of the reasons for this over time was due to their adherence to all of the laws that they fiercely upheld in order to maintain their sense of coherence, identity, community, and faith. One of those lessons involved a hierarchical understanding of family and community: Jew vs gentile, servant vs free, children and women vs men, and so forth. Despite Jesus’ attempts to give them example after example, as we’ve seen in our last few portions of this scriptural story, they still don’t get it. They continue acting out of their “bias,” as we might put it today, rather than acting out of the new paradigm he is trying to teach them. They may learn and listen with interest to him, but their actions continually default to their “old settings.”
Finally, Jesus loses patience. When his disciples begin reprimanding the children for coming up to him to be blessed, he lashes out angrily at them, pushes them aside, and invites the children forward.
This lesson is vitally important for us still today. This “care don’t scare” attitude is paramount not only for children but for their parents in today’s culture. And yet, I’m betting that all of you have experienced a church setting at one time or another in which someone has given the “side eye” at minimum or a reprimand or more to children who are behaving like children in the midst of the sanctuary or in the midst of [gasp] worship!
How many have experienced this in a church of your past ….or even your present? These responses are learned behaviors that come from the way people were raised to “behave” in church, especially in some denominational protestant churches, in which sitting, folding your hands, immovable during worship was the sanctioned behavior of the time in years past.
Where does this come from?
Well, I can tell you…it doesn’t come from Jesus! Quite the opposite.
In fact, I am absolutely positive that if Jesus were present today he would say the exact same thing in that circumstance that he said to his disciples a couple thousand of years earlier! “Let the children come to me! Let them be. Do not reprimand them. Do not trip them up and cause them to lose faith. Do not infuse into them your biases, your rigidness, your human-made rules, and your exclusive traditions. Do not let these kinds of bad behaviors by the adults and leaders within my church go on one more generation!
Let the children be children! For to these belongs the kingdom of God!
In fact….. let’s take it a step further.
Unless each one of you adults starts letting go of all of your rigid rules, your false masks of self-righteousness, your reprimanding and judgmental tone and tongue, and your scare tactics toward those who are innocent, faith-filled, authentic, and real –you will never enter the Kingdom of God!
People, these are harsh words from Jesus! And vitally important ones for us to understand and accept still in today’s world.
Jesus is not just merely making a statement about children. He’s making a statement about how we treat people in general. He’s making a statement about what the “kingdom of God” needs to look like on this earth right now –in our communities and in our churches.
And we resist listening to Jesus’ words in these important passages to our detriment.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen this happen myself.
Every pastor, every leader, every disciple of Jesus has an inherent and serious responsibility to defend children, women, those who are labeled “different” in any way who live in our communities or come into our churches. We are called to cherish them, call them, bless them, and protect their faith not only in Jesus but in humankind. For Jesus has harsh words indeed for those who do not.
We are not simply called to compassion, a loving nature, and a caring spirit. But we are called as disciples to take up the cross! To bear responsibility and accountability for our congregations, our community members, and our neighbors and to defend the weak, protect the innocent, give voice to the voiceless.
We are called to a responsibility, to accountability, to take discipleship seriously. To not only listen to these words that Jesus tells us and teaches us, but to take them to heart, to struggle with them, to allow Jesus to come into our hearts and lives and to change us, mold us, and make us into people who create new and alternative forms of community, in which all people are valued –in all circumstances and in all places –even in the church.
Today on this World Communion Sunday, this lesson is especially important. For every person must be invited to be blessed –blessed, loved, and celebrated. Especially those most vulnerable. For they NEED to believe that God is good. It’s our job to show them that it’s true!
The Bible is no fairytale. God is no myth. Hope resides in Jesus! And people can change!