Children are both central and essential.
They are central to the drama of human life. Jesus ‘puts a child among them’ in more ways than the mere physical positioning of the child whose nature he employs in the teaching that follows as the image of how his Father wishes all of us to be. They are central in that Scripture time and again locates critical importance in their essence and their activity.
They are essential because adults would, it appears from the teaching of Jesus, be rudderless without the reframing, refocusing presence of the little ones. Like so many other creatures whom we find it easy to marginalize, the children are here for us.
One wonders about the touch of Jesus’ hands on the shoulders or about the hand of this unnamed child:
At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.
Grandeur, we are told in one of reality’s stunning paradoxes, is to be located in the simple, vulnerable, easily delighted face of a child. Humility is the childlike virtue that Jesus names. A child like this one does not, it seems, pretend to control very much about life or even to manage much of his own little environment. He does not so much manage his ambitions as he simply fails to possess many. He is dependent and he takes this as the natural course of things.
Does greatness lie just here? It seems so.
Jesus is not reticent about any who would advantage themselves of this defenseless trust:
If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.
The children are here …
Thanks be to God.
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