Introduction
One of my earliest memories is from when I must have been about three years old. My little brother would have been one, perhaps just under. And I clearly remember, in the middle of the night, lying awake and suddenly feeling inspired.
I crept into the kitchen, filled a jug with cold water, went back into the bedroom and tipped the lot all over my baby brother as he slept. I have no idea why I did that. I can only say that it seemed like a tremendous idea at the time.
Anyway, Richard shrieked and pulled himself up on the bars of his cot, dripping, and blinking water out of his big brown eyes. It was then that I heard the ominous sound of my dad’s footsteps. So I hid under my brother’s cot.
He walked into the bedroom, saw my drenched little brother, and the empty jug, and then noticed my feet sticking out from under the cot. So he pulled me out to face the music. “What is all this?” he said. I looked down at my soaked and shivering little brother. And I looked up at my dad. And all I could think of saying was, “he must have wet himself.”
Most of my earliest childhood memories are of similar misdemeanours. Like the time I tipped a pack of flour out of the upstairs window intending to trick my mum downstairs into thinking it was snowing. Amazingly, that didn’t work. She wasn’t fooled at all.
Or the time I brought a dead mouse I had found outside into the kitchen. And digging it up again and keeping it as my secret pet after my mum had buried it in the garden.
Or when I put a drawing pin on my sister’s chair. I don’t want to talk about how she took that. I’ve still got the scars.
I’m sure you can point to similar transgressions from your own childhood. Children can be, and often are, quite naughty.
So what did Jesus mean when he said “the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are like children”?
Let’s read the passage and see if we can get to the bottom of it. We’re looking at just three verses today; and it’s Matthew 19.13-15.
One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could lay his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him. But Jesus said, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are like these children.” And he placed his hands on their heads and blessed them before he left.
Prayer...
The disciples – off message again
So this is a pretty straightforward account of parents who are approaching Jesus with their little ones. Matthew begins with the words, “One day…” So this is a different occasion altogether from the tense confrontation over divorce and remarriage that we looked at last week. This is a much happier scene.
Jesus’ charisma is attracting parents with their children in the hope that he will even briefly interact with them. You can easily picture the mums and dads with their children hovering around Jesus and his entourage. You can almost hear the sounds of children playing as they wait.
Those of you who are parents, wouldn't you be eager for the Lord to give some time and attention for your children? Of course you would. Wow!
And this seems like the perfect moment. There is not a Pharisee anywhere to be seen, so no one is expecting a bitter argument to break out and escalate. There are no demon-possessed individuals shrieking and making a scene today. There is no disturbed herd of pigs waiting to stampede off a cliff. All is calm. It’s a great day. This is the opportunity of a lifetime. What could possibly go wrong?
And just as we might be wondering about this, Matthew makes this ominous observation; ah yes, but the disciples are there. And instantly, the atmosphere is spoiled by these jarring words, “but the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him.”
These unsuspecting mums and dads find themselves on the receiving end of a frosty reprimand, an unfriendly rebuke, by Jesus’ hapless followers. These are not the guys you want anywhere near your welcome team.
Standing between these children and Jesus, like the Berlin Wall, are twelve self-appointed bouncers.
They know that children cry easily and they cry a lot. They know that kids ask you to read them stories when you’re busy. They’re messy eaters. They want you to play with them when you’re exhausted. They are always wide awake inconveniently early. They generate seepage from every conceivable orifice, and you have to clean them up.
So the disciples think they are doing Jesus a big favour when they speak harshly to these parents, saying, “Get these brats away from here.” If it were today, I reckon they’d be saying, “What do you think this is, mate, Santa’s Grotto? Get lost, Jesus is a VIP. He hasn’t got time to waste on your snotty offspring.”
As far as they are concerned, Jesus is not going to be inconvenienced by hyperactive kids on their watch.
As Michael explained a few weeks ago, in those days and in that culture, children were not valued at all. There is no Walt Disney or Peppa Pig in Jesus’ world. There are no play areas with swings and slides and seesaws. Children are disparaged as silly, easily-led and messy. Until their Bar Mitzvah at the age of 12 they go completely unnoticed. No self-respecting rabbi would waste his time on them.
But, as usual, Jesus takes the cultural expectations of his day, and he hammers them to a pulp. Verse 14; “But Jesus said, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are like these children.”
And Mark adds another detail, not present in Matthew. When Jesus sees that they are shooing the kids away, Mark says, “he was indignant.” There is something conspicuous about how this incident annoys him. It really ticks him off. This is the only time in all four Gospels when Jesus is described as being indignant. This particularly exasperates him.
When he sees what is going on, he says, “No! The children stay. Let them come. Don’t stop them.” Jesus is once again setting culture. And it is radically different to anything anyone has seen before.
“You think that the kingdom of God is only for sophisticated grown-ups? You’ve got it so wrong. I want to see them and I want them to see me because the kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like them.”
Which raises an important question. Is Jesus really saying here that all children naturally belong in the kingdom of God? It seems that's what he's saying.
Many people read this statement and think that Jesus, with these words, is drawing attention to the many and diverse virtues of children. Qualities like innocence and humility and trust and purity. Is that what he is saying?
What it means to receive the kingdom like a child is actually not obvious for us, because generally, in our society, we tend to idealise children as innocent little angels.
But, lest there be any doubt, my observation is that the tendency to romanticise small children for their innocence and goodness is virtually never found among their parents.
We have four children, and all of them learned the word “no” some time before they learned the word “yes.” It wasn’t their willpower that summed up the toddler phase; it was their “won’t power.” They all had it in spades.
We never had to teach our children to lie but they all got the hang of it no problem. We certainly had to train them to tell the truth, and it was hard work. We never had to teach them to be rude; that seemed to come naturally. We did have to patiently train them to be polite. “Say please, say thank you…” We never had to teach them to fight and snatch toys from each other. But we did have to train them to play nicely.
All parents have the doctrine of inherited sin and human fallenness, displayed and confirmed for them on a daily basis by their kids. All children can be, without a doubt, sweet and adorable. But they are a consistent, living reminder and proof of what the Bible affirms when it says, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
Nevertherless, Jesus needs to correct the disciples’ wrong-headed belief that children cannot grasp anything spiritual until they become adults. It’s the exact opposite. The truth is that we adults will never grasp anything spiritual unless, in some ways, we become like children.
So what is it about little ones that Jesus says is so necessary to imitate? Jesus is not drawing our attention to their righteousness or their goodness. He’s drawing our attention to their neediness. To their utter dependence on another. To the self-evident truth that they are weak, with no sense of their own importance.
New Testament scholar James R. Edwards says it so well; “A little child has absolutely nothing to bring,” he says, “and whatever the child receives, he or she receives by grace on the basis of sheer neediness rather than by any merit inherent in him or herself.”
Children, in Jesus’ society, as we have noted, had no status. The first century world was not child oriented in the way ours is. Children in our own society are not earners. Children earn nothing and need everything. That is why the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are like small children.
A pastor in Kent was speaking in church a few years back on the theme of healing. And as he was in full flow, talking about the healing power of Jesus Christ, a small boy about four or five walked up to the pulpit and looked up with his big brown eyes.
So the preacher paused, and crouched down and asked the little boy if he’d like to say anything. “Yes,” he said. “I hope Jesus can heal Derrick.” So the pastor said, “O.K., who is Derrick?” “Derrick is my hamster. So I’d like you to pray for him.” “Oh!” says the pastor, “All right. And what is wrong with your hamster?” “Well, he’s dead!”
And so, thinking on his feet, he quickly prayed along the lines of “Lord, thank you for this creature and for the joy it brought to this family. Thank you for this little boy who wants to talk to you about it. Help him to find another pet that will be just as nice.”
You see, pastors anointed with great faith for hamster resurrections are hard to find!
But that little boy brought nothing and needed everything. We fit in the kingdom of God when we live fully aware of our desperate need of grace.
Jesus said, “Without me you can do nothing.” I’ve looked up that word in the Greek; it means nothing. In fact, literally, it means absolutely nothing.
The kingdom means I say “no” to my impulse to earn spiritual points and exalt myself. I think that you will find this innate neediness and helplessness in most children and without it there’s no way into the kingdom of God.
1. An open hand
Now, I have a bar of chocolate here. And it’s free to anyone who comes up here and asks me for it... Cue general reluctance and awkwardness…
A child who is aware of his or her neediness will tend to have an open hand. I mean by that that they are not embarrassed to ask and receive.
The Bible says, “God gives good gifts to those who ask.” If I want to receive anything from God, I have to take it, open handed like a child.
I find that the older we get the more reluctant we become to get out of our chair, hold out our hand and receive a free gift. We feel awkward. We worry there might be a catch. We wonder if we might be expected to give something in return. Sometimes, we even refuse assistance when we know we need it. “Oh, no thanks, I’ll be all right!”
Children don’t think that way. No child I know will ever say, “Thanks for offering me those sweets, but I don’t need your charity.” Children have nothing so are more willing to receive - and that is a must in the kingdom of heaven.
2. An open heart
Secondly, a child who is aware of his or her need will tend to have an open heart. Children need to be loved, and if you love a child, they will naturally love you in return.
The children want to come to Jesus in v14. Mark adds another detail that Matthew left out; that Jesus takes them in his arms. Children are often more tactile than adults.When you show love to an adult, you sometimes get the response “So what’s he after? What’s the catch?”
Life changes us and as we get older, the heart hardens. People let us down, so we learn to stop trusting. We become cynical and wonder if people are trying to use us. Children don’t think that way. They have open hearts.
Here’s a true story - a man was flying from Atlanta to Dallas and it just so happened that in the seat next to him was a little girl with Down’s Syndrome.
After a while she turned to him and said, “Do you smoke?” He was a little uncomfortable, but he told her that he didn't. She said, “Good, because smoking will make you die.” (Children tell you the truth in ways that adults don’t)! She nudged him, pointed to the guy across the aisle and said, “Ask him if he smokes.” And so, good-naturedly, he did, and the man said that he didn't smoke either.
Then she said, “Mister, do you love Jesus?” He smiled and said, “Well, yes, I do.” The little girl smiled and said, “Good, everyone should love Jesus.” Then, a little later, she nudged him once again and said, “Ask him if he loves Jesus. Ask him!” He thought, “Oh no,” but he swallowed hard and turned to the guy again and said, “Now she wants to know if you love Jesus.” His expression became serious. He said, “You know, in all honesty, I can't say that I do. I've wanted to be a person of faith all my life, but I haven't ever taken that step.
But now I've come to a time in my life when I know I should.”
And so Milton Cunningham, a preacher on his way to Dallas, Texas, led that stranger to faith in Christ on that airplane all thanks to one little girl’s open heart and eagerness to ask that simple question, “Do you love Jesus?” Isn’t it beautiful to have an open heart?
3. An open mind
I wonder too if the kingdom of heaven belonging to those who are like children has something to do with children having an open mind. Children have big imaginations. If my dad had told me he could fly I would have believed him. Children have open minds, and although that means they accept things that are not true, it also means they’re ready to receive things that are. That’s why they can have amazing faith.
I know I’ve told this story many times, but when our daughter Anna was about 3, she was buckled up in the back of our old Citroen 2CV one damp, misty morning. I tried several times to start the car, but to no avail. I must have tried for about 10 minutes, but it wouldn’t start. I got out and looked under the bonnet – nothing obvious. I tried again, failed again, and slumped in the driver’s seat, feeling helpless.
Then, from the back seat, a little voice squeaked “Come on Jesus, start the car!” My mind was closed, and I confess that I felt a bit sad that Anna’s open mind and simple faith would be crushed by our useless, unreliable old banger stubbornly refusing to start yet again.
But anyway, resigned to the inevitable disappointment, I put the key back in the ignition. I turned the key. It started perfectly.
As we get older, we close our minds, we shut off our imagination, we complicate everything and say, “I can’t believe that.” But, because of their neediness, children’s minds are open to believe God for great things.
Blessing
Matthew then records for us in v15 that Jesus placed his hands on these children’s heads and blessed them. You can add children to the list of all the supposedly unimportant people that Jesus notices and cares about.
He is counter-cultural in approaching and touching lepers, cleansing them instead of shunning them. He is counter-cultural in welcoming foreigners, including them instead of rejecting them. He is counter-cultural in respecting and speaking with women, taking them seriously instead of ignoring them. He is counter-cultural in elevating the poor, having good news for them instead of despising them. And he is counter-cultural in receiving children, blessing them instead of looking down on them.
Ending
As I end, how might you become more like a child? Are you coming to God, bringing nothing?
The gospel is not about what we have achieved; it is about what we have received from Jesus Christ. Becoming like a child means I know I cannot supply God with anything he needs. He is almighty and all-sufficient.
In this short, 3-verse interlude, Jesus challenges our proud instinct to earn and achieve, and ultimately to applaud ourselves.
And it is surely intentional that, as we’ll see next Sunday, these verses are followed immediately by the story a rich young man who comes to Jesus with his long list of good works, rather than an acknowledgement of his neediness.
Let’s this day acknowledge our neediness like a small child. Just as Naomi is wholly dependent on her parents for feeding, changing, bathing, clothing, love, protection and everything else… just as she is able to contribute nothing by earning… may we all today be like her in simply receiving the Lord’s gracious gifts of faith and grace.
Because Jesus said, and he meant it, “Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of heaven like a child [aware of his or her neediness, leading to an open hand, an open heart and an open mind] will never enter it.”
Let’s stand to pray…
Sermon preached at King's Church Darlington, 29 September 2024
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