The daily office readings for today, however, focus on another episode involving children. In Matthew 18:1-14, Jesus is asked by his disciples to say who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Probably, their question was meant either to resolve boastful competition amongst themselves as to who was the “best” disciple, or to settle niggling scriptural arguments over the relative worth of various patriarchs and prophets.
Jesus, as he does so often, produces a very unexpected and challenging answer. Bringing forward a child, he tells them “Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
Now, in my experience, children are not always humble. I think many parents would agree that children are frequently very selfish and have difficulty accepting that they are not nor should be always the center of attention. So is this simply an idealized vision of childhood innocence, or is there something deeper involved? What does it really mean to change and become like a child in order to enter the kingdom of heaven?
What is important about children, especially in the ancient world, is that they are fundamentally very fragile. Many children, in fact most if you include infants, did not survive to adulthood. Jesus sees this fragility as a metaphor for faith; like children, faith is itself fragile and vulnerable to destruction. In verses 6 and 7, Jesus condemns those who who would put “stumbling-blocks” in front of “these little ones who believe in me,” but what he’s really talking about are stumbling-blocks placed in front of our own fragile, immature faith.
This becomes more explicit and more personal in the following two verses, where our own hands, feet and eyes cause us to stumble. Hands, feet and eyes are all agents of action in our bodies, thus are metaphors for the choices we make in our daily actions. If these choices cause us to stumble in our faith, then Jesus admonishes us to stop making those choices—metaphorically to cut off the hand and pluck out the eye that threatens our faith’s journey.
The metaphor acknowledges that giving up those choices can feel like a sacrifice, a handicap. However, God will be there to support us. In the final section of the reading, verses 10-14, Jesus relates the parable of the lost sheep, reminding us that God rejoices in the return of a single sheep gone astray, that he will look for us when we’re lost and guide us home again.
