Become Like Children?

The Gospel reading for the Memorial of the Guardian Angels is one that is familiar to all of us, but also one of the most misunderstood passages of the Christian Scriptures:

Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me.  (Matthew 18:3-4)

One often hears speak of the innocence of children and their simple nature as attributes that we should emulate. However, Jesus had something much more radical in mind, an attitude that was a part of the culture of the Middle East.

Children in the Middle East at the time of Jesus were regarded as the ones who sat at the very bottom of the pecking order. Because at least 50% of the children at Jesus' time would perish before reaching puberty, parents usually did not get very close to their children until they had successfully endured the perils of childhood disease and malnutrition. Only when they gained the age when they could contribute to the family livelihood did they become a priority in the lives of these people.

So Jesus is asking his disciples to make themselves as vulnerable as were the children of Israel in the first century of the Common Era. We are used to Jesus telling us that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Using children as the reference point in this equation makes the admonition all the more telling. In order to enter God's reign, we must make ourselves as vulnerable as the most defenseless of our culture and society. For a people who are driven by independence and self-reliance, this makes Christian life all the more challenging.

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator