At that time the disciples
came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Then
Jesus called a little child over to sit among the disciples, and said, “I
assure you that if you don’t turn your lives around and become like this little
child, you will definitely not enter the kingdom of heaven. Those who humble
themselves like this little child will be the greatest in the kingdom of
heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.
“As for whoever causes
the Children of God, you disciples, who believe in me to trip and fall into
sin, it would be better for them to have a huge stone hung around their necks
and be drowned in the bottom of the lake. How terrible it is for the world
because of the things that cause people to trip and fall into sin! Such things
have to happen, but how terrible it is for the person who causes the disciples
to sin!
If your hand or your foot
causes you to fall into sin, chop it off and throw it away. It’s better to
enter into life crippled or lame than to be thrown into the eternal fire with
two hands or two feet. If your eye causes you to fall into sin, tear it out and
throw it away. It’s better to enter into life with one eye than to be cast into
a burning hell with two eyes.
***
I knew I wasn’t supposed to
do it, and that I was only being encouraging, but the childishness of Dylan
Thomas, crawling through the truck’s front seat to get to the back was so
endearing I had to follow suit. So after his little, then, six-year-old body
easily obstacle-coursed from the passenger seat, to over the arm rest, and head
first into the backseat, I like a clown car, yet, with the awareness of dirty
shoes on upholstery, climbed on my knees and palms, follow-the-leader-style with
my extremities akimbo, to finally plop down in the middle seat in the back of
the truck. This was just as his sister Cadance, opened the truck’s back door,
stepped up and sat in, like the grown up among the kids. We were all giggling,
adults included, Dylan un-realizing how kiddish and funny his climbing had been
to those of us who do not normally amble through cars, and yet likewise, he was
laughing at me, an adult attempting to amble. His mother Megan, wisely teaching
good manners, reminded Dylan how we get in a car, but her compassionate
demeanor allowed for our playfulness not to be undercut. And so, this was how
Dylan and Cadance and I went about the day, finding all manner of silly things
to entertain the chore of moving homes, and it’s subsequent car trips back and
forth in the big Ford.
I wonder too how this little
child walked over to Jesus and the disciples, because no matter how transfixing
Jesus was or intimidating the disciples were, I bet there was a similarity.
Children always walk like children, little legs never quite under them, any
semblance of balance constantly being outgrown, the combination of skipping,
and hopping, and running, and walking, made one. It is why they are so cute no
matter how perfectly they carry the unreachable acolyte candle’s taper, it is
why you, the congregation, root for them to dominate the Children’s Sermon over
my lack of authority. It is that for which playgrounds, and parades, and pools
were created. Yet, it is, also why the death of a child breaks the heart of a
community. Because children are bearers of a fragile joy, fragile because there
is a danger in growing up, the danger of youth’s suitability to tragic death
and the danger too of growing up and out of that fleeting joy.
The death of a child, makes us
see the starkness of Jesus’ call to become like these little ones. We can feel
the romanticized - yet realistic images of childhood and their vulnerability is
tangible.
Yet, to this dangerous joy is
that which Jesus calls us, saying. “Those who humble themselves like this
little child will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” We are humble
ourselves to come to light the acolyte candle even if we can’t reach it, we are
to ring the church bell even if we need help, we are to yell out words like, “coconut,”
during the children’s sermon just because we like the way it sounds, and we are
to go the Jubilee parade, if simply to be reminded of how fun it is to wave
from a float and to run for thrown candy, because someday, whether it be that
day at the parade itself, or when as an adult we try to remember the last time
we ran for candy, there is a danger in growing up.
That danger is sin, that
danger is distance from God, that danger is the idolatry that allows other
things to creep in and steal that joy, that danger is the danger that exists in
life sheerly by our living it. But it is the danger to which Jesus calls us,
and the fragile joy in which he dares to live. The scripture says,
“As for whoever causes
the Children of God, you disciples, who believe in me to trip and fall into
sin, it would be better for them to have a huge stone hung around their necks
and be drowned in the bottom of the lake. How terrible it is for the
world because of the things that cause people to trip and fall into sin! Such
things have to happen, but how terrible it is for the person who causes the
disciples to sin!”
Adults, we are already
drowned when we no longer live in the precarious joy that can so easily cause
us to trip and fall. We are already at the bottom of the lake when we have
chosen to distance ourselves from the living of life, the celebrating, the
enjoying of God’s good day. We are missing the kingdom of God
when holding our children extra tight is something we do out of protection when
tragedy strikes, instead of daily, moment by moment, out of grateful joy. We
are missing the kingdom of heaven when life becomes a list of chores without
room to climb over passenger seats and arm rests. We are missing the kingdom of God when we wouldn't have enough time to
skip-hop-jump-walk over to Jesus.
Therefore, if your hand or
your foot causes you to fall into sin, chop it off and throw it away. If work
is always so busy that you lack the time to enjoy life’s little pleasures then
this is sin and distance from God, so cut it off. If you do things out of
drudgery and not because it is your calling then throw it into the fire. If the
friends you keep don’t welcome your humor or your so called mistakes, throw
them away. If your fear stops you from trying something new, or reconciling
something old, then cast it out with the dangerousness of childish joy. And if
you don’t know what these this kingdom can look like, spend more time with
little ones such as these.
Because adults, this is the
dangerous joy to which Jesus calls us. This precarious fragile kingdom is the
one to which he beckons us to come and stand among him and his disciples. Jesus
knew this dangerous joy as he rode on a donkey toward his death, a death too
soon, and tragic like a child, and too serious to be hand of God, and yet it
was they, the Children of God, who lined the road to the kingdom, their small
hands waving palms and singing, “Hosanna.” It is they who took their cloaks and
frivolously laid them on the road as a carpet upon which hooves trod, carrying
an unexpected king on a lonely donkey. It was the children who knew. It was the
the children at the parade, and their dangerous joy.
