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The Fourth Sunday after Trinity – 27 June 2010
A few moments ago, we witnessed the Baptism of Fletcher Murray Kemp. Baptisms offer a time to reflect upon the theology and meaning of Baptism, but I would like to do something different today, I would like to reflect upon children. I suppose this reflection is not surprising because Emily and I have had four children in four years and four months and I also work at an elementary school, thus I cannot escape children, they are ever present in my life. Yet, I think it is necessary for us as a church to ponder what the Scripture teaches about children, especially since we live in California, a place where many people think children are a waste of space, money, and resource. If you do not believe me, accompany Emily at any grocery store in Santa Barbara, where you can see and feel the glares, spite, and contempt poured upon someone who dares to have four young children.
It is always wise to begin theological reflections with Jesus’ words and in Matthew 18, Jesus said: “He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would have been better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Matthew 18:2-5)
Throughout our lives, we will be tempted to water-down Scriptures clear and intended meaning. We will be tempted to explain away portions of Scripture we do not like and unfortunately, people often ignore this portion of Matthew 18. Possibly, because people prefer Francis’ Bacons statement, “He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.”[1] It is easier for us to think that children are impediments to our spiritual growth than to believe they are, in the words of Jesus, models of humility. It is easier for us to think that children are impediments to our financial success than to believe they are God’s blessing and reward as Solomon said in Psalm 127, “Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.” It is easier for us to think that children can be ignored or forgotten on Sunday morning than to take seriously Jesus’ command to “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Finally, it is easier for us to think that children our impediments to worship rather than take seriously Psalm 8, as Psalm quoted by Jesus, which says, “From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise.” God the Father has ordained his praise not through the lips of kings and priest, not through the lips of theologians and teachers, but through lips of children. It is easier to ignore children, it is easier to belittle their intelligence, and it is easier to think worship would be better without them, but it is wrong. Where the children are silenced so is the worship, where the children are prohibited so is the Spirit and where the children are barred, so is the presence of Jesus.
However, trying to include and encourage children to join our worship is a difficult task, as a father of four loud and energetic children, that. If children were always perfect and never little miscreants, always quite and never loud, always submissive and never questioning, always content and never curious, we would have no problems welcoming them into our church and inviting them into our worship. However, children are not perfect, they are loud and disruptive, they are demanding and questioning and they are impatient and ceaselessly curious. Children are just like us who never cease to question impatiently the benevolence of God the Father. They are just like us who brazenly question the kingly authority of Jesus. They are just like us who never stop complaining and criticizing the work of the Holy Spirit. In fact, maybe children learn discontentment, impatience, thanklessness, and rebellion by watching our relationship with God the Father, Son, and Spirit for our relationship with God is characterized with these very traits we dislike in children. Maybe our desire to push children to the peripheries of the church, to silence their voices and prohibit them from worship is because we see in children our own faults, trespasses and mistakes and we do not like what we see.
Here is the good news, what we are – thankless, rebellious, ungrateful, whining, and discontent children of God – is not who we have to be or who we will become. While we still sinners, Christ died for us. While we were still dead in our trespasses, Christ gave us life. While we were insolent, disobedient, impatient, thankless, and rebellious run-a-way children, Jesus willingly became our propitiation so that God our Father could run after us with open arms. Just as children grow, mature, and are transformed from infants into adults, so we through God’s grace are justified, sanctified and transformed from sinners into saints. Children are essential to the life, health and worship of a church, because in the hands of God, children reveal our own desperate dependency, our own heart felt longings and our own incredible needs for security found only in the grace of God our heavenly Father. We are all children, therefore let us pray that as we grow in age, we will grow in grace and be merciful, kind and loving unto all children, just as God our Father has been merciful unto us.
[1] Francis Bacon, Apothegms, On Marriage and Single Life, 1624
