Imagine that

Jesus talks quite a bit about children. The Scripture passages are familiar to us, and maybe for that reason, we often take them for granted. In this morning’s gospel, Jesus is with the twelve in Capernaum. As he speaks to the disciples he lifts up a child. A child was there. Remember the passage: "Then they came to Capernaum; and when Jesus was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’" If we stopped the reading right there, and I asked you to picture the scene in your mind… Jesus with the twelve… journeying on the way… gathered in the house… would you imagine any children in the picture? No? But a child was there.

In the feeding of the five thousand, Scripture says that Jesus fed 5000 men and—in addition—women and children. Children were there. There is the famous passage that begins (in the King James’ version), "Suffer the children to come unto me." It’s inscribed in the stained glass window back in the Mary corner, which of course was built as a baptistry. That Scripture passage is a sentimental favorite, even if we haven’t used the word "suffer" in that sense for hundreds of years. Despite these Scripture passages, in general I think we forget that children were undoubtedly with Jesus throughout much of his teaching and ministry.

In fact, the more I have thought about it, I am struck by how often Jesus refers to children, incorporates children into his teaching… how often the gospels refer to children as being present with Jesus. Children were socially insignificant in that time and would normally not have been noteworthy. They were invisible. But, not only were they evidently present with Jesus, the gospels mention their presence. It really is quite remarkable. Jesus’ adult life, Jesus’ adult ministry, Jesus’ adult "Christian education" of the people seems to include quite a lot of children. And Jesus includes the children in a very interesting way. Today, in society and in the church, most of us try as adults to be good examples for children. We also know that it is our responsibility as adults to be good examples, to offer quality Christian education for children and to provide opportunities for them to participate in the church. We earnestly want them to grow up into faith-ful adults, for their sake and the church’s. We really do hope that, when they grow up into adults, they will know they have a place and they will take their place in the life, the adult life, of the church.

Jesus offers a very different model. In Jesus’ teaching as it is presented in the gospels it is not the adults who offer the gospel to children; it is children who offer the gospel to adults. It is not the adults who are Christian examples for the children. It is the children who model and bring the kingdom to adults.

That is a powerful role for children to fulfill in the life of the church. And a radical one for Jesus to present. I haven’t done any real academic research, but I don’t see evidence for this sort of perspective in the earlier writings in the Hebrew Scriptures before Jesus’ day. Children were valued in ancient Israel, but primarily as descendents. Descendents were and are a blessing for all sorts of reasons, but the very word "descendent" indicates their secondary status with respect to adults. So Jesus’ words are startling, culturally new, meant to grab peoples’ attention, leave them with an idea they cannot forget. Children as bearers and teachers of the gospel. Except that it seems that the church very quickly did forget. In John’s gospel, written just a couple of generations later than the others, the stories of Jesus with the children don’t appear. And in Paul’s writings, written very early in Christian history, but after Jesus’ life and ministry, childhood clearly connotes a time of weakness and immaturity, to be outgrown in the journey towards God. "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways." Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13:11. It obviously doesn’t come easily to Paul or us adults to view children as a Christian model for us. We cherish them as children and as potential Christians to be. But Jesus, radically and significantly, gives children a much more important role.

In this morning’s gospel, and in parallel passages in Matthew and Luke, Jesus says, "whoever welcomes such a child, welcomes me and welcomes the one who sent me." Whoever welcomes a child welcomes me. The child brings the presence of Jesus into the midst of the community. And a chapter or so later in Mark is the familiar "suffer" passage, translated in the NRSV "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs." Children are bearers of God’s presence and models to us adults of how to enter into God’s kingdom.

The message here is an obvious one. A reminder of the value of having children in our midst in the church. Of cherishing their presence in every facet of the church’s life. Of the need to seek children out and bring them here. Not just for their sake, but for ours. They bear the presence of Christ. The bring Christ to us, to the church. They are model citizens of Christ’s realm and therefore powerful examples, powerful teachers for us.

What are the qualities of childhood that are exemplary for Christians? Especially for those times when we are not blessed to have a child or children in our midst, or those times when they may seem to be more a distraction than a model, we might ask what characteristics of childhood did Jesus see that exemplified the kingdom of heaven? What is it about childhood that we should seek as our model for Christian faith?

"Christian" qualities of childhood. The first answer that comes to mind might be simplicity or innocence, that these characteristics of simplicity and innocence are a part of childhood that exemplify Christian faith. But this is an unrealistic, "rose-colored" view of childhood, isn’t it? And Jesus lived, and knows that we live, in the real world, not some idealized one. One commentator has said, more or less, that anyone who believes in the pure innocence of childhood hasn’t raised a child! Or has totally rewritten the memories of her own childhood. So maybe purity or innocence are not the qualities of childhood we should model.

Another quality of childhood is dependence. Children are powerless to acquire and achieve on their own. And it never hurts those of us adults who aspire to independence and self-sufficiency to be reminded of our ultimate dependence upon God and our total powerlessness to acquire God’s grace through our own efforts. So a child’s trusting dependence is a quality we would do well to imitate.

But the quality of childhood that seems to most resonate with Jesus’ message throughout the gospels as a whole is imagination. Imagination.

I read recently—and I wish I could remember where—that the greatest impediment to the spread of the gospel, the greatest barrier to the flourishing of faith, is a lack of imagination. The kingdom of God that Jesus brings, that Jesus continues to offer, is a world transformed. It is souls transformed; it is life transformed. Jesus brings transformation. People are deaf to Jesus’ words because they cannot imagine such a transformation; we are blind to the presence of the kingdom because we cannot imagine that such a glorious sight could be real.

Children offer us imagination unstifled. Imagination unstifled by experience. Imagination unfettered by memory. It is not so much the vivid creative fantasies that some children imagine that should form the model for our Christian faith. It is a simpler imagination, accessible to us all. An openness. An openness to possibilities beyond our experience, beyond our expectations. An openness, a willingness to imagine a better world, a world transformed. Our adult experience, our adult expectations, are not the limit of what is possible in the kingdom of God. Imagine that!

Imagination is one of childhood’s greatest gifts. An openness to imagine almost anything, to imagine a world where, by God’s grace, anything is possible. Children keep that imagination alive for all of us. They bring that imagination into our midst. Children are citizens of God’s kingdom; they know how to get there; and they can lead us on the way. Imagine that…