What is It About Children?

Mark 10:13-16, CEB - People were bringing children to Jesus so that he would bless them. But the disciples scolded them.  When Jesus saw this, he grew angry and said to them, “Allow the children to come to me. Don’t forbid them, because God’s kingdom belongs to people like these children.  I assure you that whoever doesn’t welcome God’s kingdom like a child will never enter it.”  Then he hugged the children and blessed them.

 

                It’s hard to adequately explain how countercultural Jesus’s actions were in this passage in our current culture where we have shifted to the other extreme.  The disciples, by attempting to keep the children away from Jesus, were doing exactly what they were supposed to do.  Children did not merit being present in the room when a prominent Rabbi was teaching.  In most cases, it would have annoyed the Rabbi and at best distracted the adults present.  Generally, the Rabbi would have been thankful to not have to stop to deal with the children himself.  So imagine the disciples’ surprise when they experience Jesus’s anger instead of his gratitude.  Once again, Jesus is turning cultural expectations upside down.

                Instead of banishing them, Jesus blesses and hugs them.  Even more surprising, He holds them up as an example for the adults to follow.  This would have been downright offensive to even the disciples.  Children are to follow adults, not the other way around!  Even more disturbing – if the adults are not like these children, they will never enter the kingdom of God.  This is a crazy teaching indeed!

                This is essentially important teaching regarding the Kingdom of God here.  First, it primarily belongs to people who are like children.  Children are not able to earn anything.  Their whole existence depends on the provision of others.  In a proper household, even children who tend to be wayward are can still expect to be cared for and provided what they need.  Most adults tend to lose this dependence, which is generally a good thing.  But it is not a good thing when it comes to the Kingdom.  Ther kingdom belongs to those who know they haven’t done anything to earn it.  Much lip service is given to this truth by people who quietly believe their “good” behavior and deeds entitles them to more than certain others.  Jesus is calling such people on the carpet here; to the extent that you think you rightly deserve the kingdom, it will never be yours.  Children tend to trust that what they need will just be there without a thought that they could earn it.  In the Kingdom, all of us are called to trust that way. 

                Finally, Jesus obviously just loves children, for He welcomes, embraces, and blesses them.  Jesus models how children are to be treated in His community.  It’s supposed to be natural for children to be welcomed in the midst of the many activities of the church.  Having them in the midst of the Kingdom community reminds all of us that their dependence mindset should be our mindset as well.  It is also a reminder that our faith is one that is passed down.  Current generations are to always be thinking about how they transfer the faith to those who are coming next.  Our faith is a faith that continues by giving it away. 

 

Questions:  Are there any shreds of entitlement in your relationship to God and or God’s community?  What is your core disposition towards children?

 

Prayer:  Lord Jesus, forgive us for thinking we deserve any of the blessings we have received.  As we experience Your humility, may we live into it ourselves.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people who will be somewhere they don’t want to be for the holidays.

 

Song:  Someday at Christmas – Stevie Wonder with Andra Day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaA7B9cu4kU

What Greatness Looks Like

 

Mark 9:30-37, NLT - Leaving that region, they traveled through Galilee. Jesus didn’t want anyone to know he was there,  for he wanted to spend more time with his disciples and teach them. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of his enemies. He will be killed, but three days later he will rise from the dead.”  They didn’t understand what he was saying, however, and they were afraid to ask him what he meant.

After they arrived at Capernaum and settled in a house, Jesus asked his disciples, “What were you discussing out on the road?”  But they didn’t answer, because they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest.  He sat down, called the twelve disciples over to him, and said, “Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else.”

Then he put a little child among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, “Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not only me but also my Father who sent me.”

 

                The disciples, who are still struggling with what Jesus has been saying many times about His death, are afraid to ask Him to say more.  Maybe it’s because He has just chastised them for having so little faith (Mark 9:19).  Maybe it’s because they really don’t want to hear more about a possibility that seems so hopeless to them.  Maybe it’s a combination of reasons. Nevertheless, they remain silent instead of asking for more clarification. Mark highlights the difference between Jesus’s desire to teach them and His disciples lack of desire to learn more.

                Jesus allows them to percolate and talk amongst themselves for a bit until they arrive at the house where they are staying in Capernaum.  The disciples are surprised and embarrassed into silence to when Jesus (aware of their private discussion) asks them what they’ve been discussing.  He doesn’t pile on the shame concerning their argument about who is greater, but uses the moment to teach them what they were reluctant to ask about earlier. Jesus schools them on the nature of true greatness:

                “Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else.”

Driving the point home, Jesus welcomes a child into their midst.  He equates welcoming the child with welcoming Himself. Children in first-century Judaism were NOT welcome in such a discussion between grown men and so the comparison of Jesus to a child would have been quite jarring.  Children had no status or ascribed greatness, yet Jesus compares Himself to them.  While many will reject the status or greatness of Jesus just as they would a child, will the disciples (or we) do the same? 

                The miracles, healings, and exorcisms have been plenty since the beginning of Mark, but from here on out, they will be few and far between.  Instead there will be one difficult teaching after another all aimed at making the true nature of Jesus’s greatness known.  It isn’t His wonder-working that makes Jesus the greatest among them; it is His willingness to be a servant to all.  Even when that means He will be rejected, suffer, and die, He submits His all to all for the sake of all. 

 

Question:  How do you define greatness? 

 

Prayer:  Jesus, teach us how to live the life of greatness, as defined by You.  Amen.

 

Song:  Be Born in Me – Francesca Battistelli

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsXOP7aQeqQ

Do We Have “Guardian Angels?” - January 14, 2022

 

Do We Have “Guardian Angels?” - January 14, 2022

 

Matthew 18:10, CEB - “Be careful that you don’t look down on one of these little ones. I say to you that their angels in heaven are always looking into the face of my Father who is in heaven.

 

Four reflections ago, when we were talking about Matthew 17:22-23, we learned that in most popular translations of Matthew there is no verse 17:21.  I explained that this is because the translators have to make a decision about what they believe to be the most reliable original copy of the text and go with that.  Biblical scholars call these textual variants.  Today we encounter two more.  Both Matthew 18:10 and 18:11 are not found in all the original manuscripts.  The interesting thing here is that most modern translators have decided to keep verse 10 and leave out verse 11.  As I stated in our earlier reflection, I choose to trust the majority scholar opinion in most cases when it comes to textual variants, so our reflection today is on 18:10 and the next reflection will start with verse 12.  But just in case you’re dying to know what the omitted verse 11 is, you can find it in Luke 19:10. 

                In verse 10, Jesus makes one more warning about children.  He cautions his audience to not look down on children because “their angels are always looking into the face of my Father who is in heaven.”  Who are “their angels?”  This is one of the key biblical texts where the notion of “guardian angels” comes from – the idea that we all have an angel assigned to us to watch over us and help us out at times.  This concept actually precedes the New Testament for within Judaism in the Intertestamental Period (the period between when the last Old Testament book was written and the first New Testament book was written), not only was there a belief that all believers had and angel assigned to them, but also a demon.  That idea survives to this day in the sometimes comical depictions of an angel on one shoulder and the demon on the other whispering into both ears about what they should do. 

                As is often the case, a lot more could be said about this topic than is appropriate for a devotional.  So, for the sake of time, let me summarize what I’ve learned.  There isn’t much biblical evidence to support a well-conceived concept of personal guardian angels.  However, there is an abundance of biblical support for the idea that God uses angels to serve humanity and respond to their needs.  The point Jesus is making to his disciples in the verse above is that angels are watching over the children and those angels have a direct connection to God.  Jesus is pointing out that because God is so concerned with children, we should be too.  This is in keeping with the message Jesus has been making in the first half of Chapter 18.  As for whether the children (and us) have guardian angels assigned to them personally, we just don’t know.  If that is the way God chooses to keep watch and care over us, I’m fine with that.  But what I’m sure of is that God does choose to keep watch are care over us, whether God does it with angels or not.  How God chooses to take care of me is something I can leave up to God.  I’m just glad that I am under God’s watch and care.  I hope you are too.

 

Question:  Do you believe and trust in God’s watch and care over you and those you love?

 

Prayer:  God, thank you for the beneficial ministry of angels to humanity.  Thank you for all the ways You watch and care over us.  Help us to trust more fully in that truth.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people today that are completely or almost completely isolated from other people.

 

Song:  Angels Watching Over Me – Amy Grant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNIO9KH3UC8

A SERIOUS Commitment to Goodness - January 13, 2022

 

A SERIOUS Commitment to Goodness - January 13, 2022

 

Matthew 18:6-9, The Message - But if you give them a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you’ll soon wish you hadn’t. You’d be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck. Doom to the world for giving these God-believing children a hard time! Hard times are inevitable, but you don’t have to make it worse—and it’s doomsday to you if you do.

“If your hand or your foot gets in the way of God, chop it off and throw it away. You’re better off maimed or lame and alive than the proud owners of two hands and two feet, godless in a furnace of eternal fire. And if your eye distracts you from God, pull it out and throw it away. You’re better off one-eyed and alive than exercising your twenty-twenty vision from inside the fire of hell.

 

The child that Jesus placed in the midst of his teaching session with the disciples that we talked about last time is still there in this passage.  Jesus has urged his mentees to rediscover their childlike faith and outlook and now, probably looking sweetly at the child, he issues a particularly harsh warning;  don’t cause children to lose that faith and outlook which grown-ups need to recover.  Those who cause children to stumble will wish they hadn’t.  The extreme threat-ladened language Jesus uses here illustrates Jesus fiercely passionate love for children.  This is a place where I feel a particularly close connection to Jesus because I seem to share that strong urge to defend and look out for the needs of children. 

Jesus uses the warning against causing children to stumble as a segue to a more general warning about anyone or anything that causes anyone else to stumble.  There are a couple of important principles here.  First, this teaching brings to the forefront the truth of interdependence.  What we do does not just affect ourselves.  We can hardly do anything that doesn’t affect others.  Jesus is teaching us that we are, at least in part, responsible for those results. 

I am the oldest of three children and so, many times when I was growing up, I got in trouble for violating this principle Jesus is teaching.  I had led my brother and sister to do something that got all three of us in trouble.  My protest at the time was that I hadn’t MADE them do it;  they made that choice themselves.  In one of these particular times (I can’t recall the details of the situation), I made that very argument to my mother. 

She said, “Eric, if you hadn’t made the choice first, they would not have even thought they could make the same choice.”

She had me. I don’t think I admitted it at the time, but I admit it now.  This is not just a truth for those of us with younger siblings.  We all make choices every day that affect the choices of others.  Living with the awareness of that and acting accordingly is something Jesus teaches us to do.  Furthermore, if anything causes us to veer off course, we need to think about removing it.  We’ve mentioned before that Jesus likes to use hyperbole to make a point and he does so here with the business of cutting off hands and poking out eyes.  The point here is that there may be times when we need to put restrictions on ourselves so that we can stay on the path we you know is right.  If you are an alcoholic, it may be necessary to make sure it’s never readily available whenever possible.  If pornography is a problem for you, you may need to look into available software that limits the websites you can visit.  Those are just two examples.  These are just two examples of how self-imposed restrictions can help you live the way Jesus has taught us.  

The larger thread that runs through all this teaching in the first half of Matthew 18 is that we foster that which is good in us and others and we look to hamper and diminish what is not good for us and others.  The implication is that we are looking for and aware of that goodness and are always actively working to protect it.  We feed and nurture goodness and we starve that which hinders it. 

 

Questions:  Who is influenced by what you do? Might it be necessary to impose some self-restriction in order to get the results you know God wants for you?

 

Prayer:  Lord, show us how we affect those around us and how we are led astray.  Help us be aware of these interdependencies and work to love what is good and shun what is evil.  Amen,

 

Prayer Focus:  Spend some time asking God to show you how you influence others and how you are influenced as well?

 

Song:  Jason Mraz - Look For The Good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2trTOe8YuX0