Children as Signs of the Kingdom of God: a Challenge to Us All

Now and Next Conference                                                                           Nairobi,March 2011

Children as Signs of the Kingdom of God: a Challenge to Us All

Matthew 18: 1-14

Keith J. White

30.01.2011

Introduction

How important is the Kingdom of God in Scripture?  It is the very heart of the life and message of Jesus Christ.  If you take the Gospel of Matthew you discover that this was the core message of John the Baptist: “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand”.[1]  According to Matthew Jesus continued this message with exactly the same words: “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand”.[2]  The whole Gospel is saturated with teaching about, and references to, this Kingdom.[3]  When we turn to the second part of Luke’s writings, called the Acts of the Apostles, we read that for the forty days between his resurrection and ascension Jesus spoke about the Kingdom of God.[4]  The first chapter begins with the Kingdom of God, and the closing words record that when Paul reached Rome he lived for two years in a rented house where “he preached about the Kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ”.[5] 

This should be sufficient to convince everyone here of the importance of the Kingdom of God in Scripture: if not, what more evidence are you looking for?!  But we can go further and say that the whole Bible witnesses to God’s Kingdom: now and not yet. It testifies to Jesus, the Son and the Father with the Spirit in their one history, within which is our creaturely history.  The Kingdom of God is a way of coming to terms with this reality: our lives on earth, individually and corporately, lived within the reality of God.

What is more we are to pray ceaselessly for the coming of this Kingdom: “Your Kingdom come”![6]  And however we choose to describe the calling and mission of an individual disciple of Jesus, and the body of believers that owns His name it will be a dynamic equivalent of the Kingdom of God. Kingdom implies historical obedience, mission on earth, towards “Your Kingdom come”.   Note well that we talk not of Kingdom, but Kingdom of God: in Christ, only in the crucified.  

It is therefore no wonder that one of the great mission-theologians of the twentieth century, John V. Taylor wrote: “The Kingdom of God is the very keynote of the faith of Jesus himself and to understand what it meant to him is arguably the primary task of any who claim to be his followers.” [7]

The words of Jesus ring out among us today, as through Christian history:  “Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven and His righteousness”![8] 

(i) The Kingdom of God revisited

But we cannot simply take it for granted that because we seek to follow Jesus we all know what the Kingdom of God means.  The Jewish Scriptures testify to the challenges of understanding it aright: let alone walking in the way of the Lord! 

Here today we have people from around the world: some live in kingdoms with a monarch, others live in republics.  We know that world history is littered with examples of human kingdoms and other forms of government from the sometimes satisfactory to the downright evil.  But this is true not only of world history, but also current events occurring both on the great continent of Africa, and also on every other continent, East and West, North and South.  We read the biblical message and teaching of Jesus through such lenses.

It is not possible to speak of the Kingdom of God in a major European language, for example, without bringing into play the history of the conquest of other peoples around the world: reino, kingdom, royaume and reich cannot be detached from their historical realities.  And those who hear these words in the rest of the world are reminded of the insensitive and sometimes savage nature of colonialism, and the mixed legacies it has left.

When Jesus taught about the Kingdom of God, his disciples were hearing everything through lenses too.  They knew all too well what the Roman Empire was all about and wanted to get rid of the infidel yoke!  They also knew that their Scriptures taught that earthly kings of Israel were something of a contradiction in terms: there was only one King, Yahweh.  Having a king was a compromise at best, and a rejection of God’s authority at worst.[9] 

In much of the history of Israel God does not appear as a ruler of conspicuous power and authority.  Today our worship songs often resort to kingly language, and acclaim God’s greatness, power and might; his miracle-working strength.  But they cannot obscure the truth that God often seems to be weak in the world, a king looking for his kingdom: in disguise as it were in the enemy’s camp.  Where are the cries of anguish that erupt in some of the Psalms:  “You are my King and my God…but now You have rejected us” (Psalm 44: 4, 9); “How long will the enemy mock you, O God?  Why do you hold back your right hand?”  (Psalm 74: 10-11)  “O God the nations have invaded your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple” (Psalm 79: 1)? 

We cheerfully plunder the joyful psalms for images of God’s greatness, majesty, might, power, wonder, and yet are reluctant to hold on to such honest utterances rooted in genuine life and history of a fallen world: a world that is not fair; where justice does not “roll on like a river”, nor righteousness “like a never-failing stream”.[10]  Some Christians fear that this is a serious flaw in the musical legacy that we are handing to the next generation.  Many new songs will not provide a real or substantial enough foundation or rock in times of trial for tomorrow’s Christian leaders.

When we picture the Kingdom of David, which is common to the Jewish and Christian heritages we have a visionary one: a reign that lasts for ever, stretches from shore to shore, and in which the earth is filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.  It embodies all the promises of God, and His character realized in ways we can imagine.  In historical reality his reign ended in a tawdry way, but it was still seen as a token of true Kingly rule that was yet to come in its fullness.

This led many to hope for the Messiah, great David’s greater son, who would usher in an era of pure shalom under his rule. But human history shows that the best we can manage on earth are periods in particular places, often very local, that approximate to the Kingdom of God.

The messages of the prophets, Jeremiah, Isaiah and Ezekiel are all inspired by visionary understandings of this coming kingdom.  Jeremiah sees it as a place where Torah is warmly embraced, covenant written on the heart; Ezekiel as having a well-ordered holy precinct where God’s holiness re-orders and enlivens every part of society; Isaiah as a royal homecoming where a new reign represents unalloyed holistic good news.  They wrestle with particular terms and concepts, both in Israel and neighbouring kingdoms, when imagining how this new kingdom will come in practice and what it will be like in daily life.[11]

Jesus lived at a time when the kingdom of Israel had been destroyed, and he did nothing to support attempts to realize it as a political reality.  Yet at the same time he taught and modeled this Kingdom of God in everyday life in ways that made a difference.  He taught that “the Kingdom of God is among you”[12], and to those with eyes of faith then and ever since it can be seen that God’s rule broke into human affairs like shafts of sunlight through the clouds, or starlight in the dark night sky.  The Beatitudes are a perfect example of this: rooted in human experience with which can identify, yet revealing another dynamic, a way of living by faith, that turns normal assessments and rankings on their heads.[13] 

Jesus chooses, very carefully, to model this Kingdom (“God’s way of doing things”; or “where God has his way”) by gathering a small group of friends who are travelling (on the road; on the way), who own nothing between them, and who have no specific agenda other than listening to and following their servant leader, and sharing good news with those whom they meet on the journey.  Where God has his way, there is no concern, to impress or oppress, to build or expand by human endeavour, economic, social or political planning and power. If there is growth it takes place in a spontaneously and naturally, like a mustard seed planted in a garden, or yeast kneaded into the dough.

You might wonder why it is that despite his acute, prophetic understanding of the frailties and harsh realities of human kingdoms Jesus still used the term.  The fact that he did so constantly, means that the term is theologically significant.  We must pay attention to it, and wrestle with its challenges and consequences.  As we do we see that it points to God’s engagement with creation, law, redemption.  It is where heaven and earth meet; the Creator and His creatures; God and His world.  Without it there is always the risk that we will be tempted to settle for a two-tier frame of reference: the sacred and the secular; grace and nature.  God is in His heaven, and we are in the world.  In this framework as believers encounter appalling suffering and injustice, they imagine themselves into another world where God rules supreme.  In so doing they do not allow the struggles of the Psalms or any theologians worth their sort to detain or disturb them.[14] 

Another way of coping is to focus on what we our doing in God’s name, our work, our mission, our organisations, and to tell others of the success, the blessing we are having.  Some have gone so far as to claim that their organisation, or church is the Kingdom of God: co-terminous with it!  If they don’t claim it openly, sometimes they live assuming it and conveying this message to others.  Many of the European conquistadores really believed that they were bringing the Kingdom of God to South America! This sort of proud thinking shows that the message of the Kingdom of God has become seriously adulterated, or to change the metaphor, squeezed into other moulds.

The Kingdom of God brings together two realities, two dimensions. In doing so it creates tension and requires serious theological study and debate for all who live in the world, but who are not of it.[15]

(ii) The Kingdom and Repentance

So, assuming we will not seek to deny the tensions or avoid the challenges by such predictable and well-tried means, how do we begin to adjust to the demands and responsibilities of the Kingdom of God?  The Scriptures are clear: we prepare for it by repentance.  Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand.  What does this mean?  That we must be on our guard lest we have accepted or compromised with an alternative or substitute, and lulled ourselves into thinking that we have arrived and are fully paid up members of the Kingdom, by our sacrifices and commitment to a Christian church and organisation.

The disciples had responded to the call of Jesus that the Kingdom of God was near by leaving all to follow him.  But there were two errors in their thinking.  First, they had been seduced by the dream of a kingdom of greatness with its grandeur, territory, great institutions, like a temple and palace and its other glories.  Second, they were grasping for a notable place or rank in the supposed pecking order of that Kingdom, despite the fact that this involved competition with others.

Put simply: they expected special places and special rewards for following Jesus.  In their heart of hearts they were no different from those who set their sights on earthly prizes and power.

Sadly it is all too possible to reject worldly power and then to recreate our desires in our quest for positions in church and Christian organisations. Full-time Christian service can become modelled on earthly kingdoms: management theory, hierarchies, pay differentials, the rich serving the poor but remaining rich, and charity rather than justice being the norm.  And giving to, and serving, the little ones actually make us feel rather good.

Now you may see this as rather stark, or unduly harsh.  But we gather here in Nairobi as disciples of Jesus, and surely we know that confession and repentance is always the starting point of a renewed relationship with God: that the Kingdom of God is not something that we can accommodate to the way we are living and thinking!  That it’s not a matter of a minor adjustment to the tuning of our car, but a major overhaul, or rebuild.

The history of Christianity and Christian mission is full of examples of people and organizations that have been attracted to big, mighty, impressive manifestations of the Kingdom.  The disciples were among them: “Who is the greatest?” they asked.  A while ago someone wrote to me after having been at a large conference I had encouraged him to attend and he said wistfully:  “It was for the big people and large organizations: we are too small.  None of the platform party was interested in us.”  Is this something that surprises you, shocks you, or leaves you indifferent?  Knowing the quality of life of my brother in Christ and the way his Christian community among the poor operated I was profoundly sorry and disturbed.  I still am.  If that is how our Christian brothers feel in such settings, what about the little ones they are seeking to serve?

May it be that this gathering is characterised by a respect for each and everyone here, without rank or status; insider or outsider; them and us.

Brothers and sisters, I beseech you “in the bowels of Christ” to join me in admitting that our own understandings may need re-aligning. It was perhaps two books, The Upside-Down Kingdom by Donald Kraybill,[16] and Philip Yancey’s What’s so Amazing about Grace?[17] that opened my eyes  to aspects of what the Scriptures had been saying about the Kingdom of God and to which I had previously been blind, and the need for change.[18]   The one thing we cannot do is to carry on as we are assuming there is no need for a revised course.

And we must allow ourselves to be drawn to and motivated by love. Shaken and stirred, touched and moved by God’s grace and mercy.  Some of you know that I fell in love with mountains while I lived in Scotland.  I had always dreamt of visiting the Himalayas, and when my son was in Nepal with UMN I finally realized my dream (not climbing Everest I hasten to say) and saw them with my own eyes.  I am still amazed at the sheer scale of these great ranges.             And in my mind I always associate the greatest mountains in nature with the greatest range of Christian theology: Paul’s Letter to the Romans. 

After eleven chapters describing God’s love, grace and mercy, he turns to urge his readers to live life God’s way (one of his ways of referring to the Kingdom of God).  This is what he says: “I beseech you, in view of God’s mercy, to present your bodies as living sacrifices holy and acceptable to God, for this is your logical service”[19].  Why is such an unthinkable way of living logical?  Surely it goes against every human reflex, hope and ambition!  It is logical “in view of God’s mercy”.  One we have contemplated the sheer scale of God’s love, grace and mercy, no sacrifice that we can make is “illogical” or misplaced.  “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all!”[20]

We are motivated by, inspired by and drawn to God’s love in Christ the crucified, not by criticizing and rejecting the ways of others, nor by hope of reward save that of knowing that we do His will, that we live in a way that pleases Him.

(iii) The Kingdom as Signs

We have arrived at the point where we understand the true reality, the bedrock on which the Kingdom of God is founded: there is a God who rules, and makes kingdom.  Human kingdoms are lenses through which we glimpse this Kingdom, but they are never to be confused with, let alone identified with it.[21]  Even as a concept, the Kingdom of God may not be identical with its true reality: the God who rules, and how things are when He has his way among us.  The concept has a history and comes and goes; it proves useful, more in some contexts than in others and for various purposes. Jesus had to argue for a certain understanding of the Kingdom of God against other plausible readings.  And that argument is perennially necessary. History moves on and the very nature of the Kingdom of God means that we must constantly take new bearings from the Rock of our Salvation: others who went before us, or who are in different locations cannot plot the course for us.  

This is where we come to a crucial observation: the Kingdom of God is necessarily and only in signs now.  We cannot, we dare not point to a person or a place and say: there is the Kingdom in full and practical reality.  No church, organization or denomination; no Christian embodies the Kingdom of God in its fullness. 

So our task as disciples of Jesus, followers of the Way, is to read signs, to make signs, to live with signs, by faith not sight, in frail little beginnings, and hints. It is now, but not yet.  We see it reflected and refracted, but not face to face in its entirety and full reality.  One day we believe and live in the hope that we will not only see, but experience God’s presence, His way of doing things, and will then know what shalom is in all its fullness.  Meanwhile we are on a journey and we are given signs.

Earthly kingdoms of whatever sort boast of their real greatness with cities, walls, conquests, armies and military power.  They set out to establish institutions, impressive buildings like the Tower of Babel.  Their centre, their metropole is static, a base for conquest and dominion.  The world is covered with the remains of formerly great kingdoms and empires.  God’s Kingdom, by way of contrast, is represented by elusive examples and signs for those who are seeking to walk in God’s way.  One of the challenges that Jesus faced in his ministry was to do with His miraculous power.  People were drawn to him because they delighted in seeing more of this astonishing power in action: to see real evidence, marvellous evidence that they could touch, even eat or drink.  But Jesus constantly referred to such actions as signs.  If they were seen merely as physical realities, then His actions had been misinterpreted: for they were given as a means of signing our journey of faith.

And what is the key that unlocks the door to the Kingdom of God?  It is humility. In essence repentance is an act of humility.  In baptism, for example, there is public humility, risking shame.  But this is not just a key to entry: it is part of the very mode of being of the followers of Jesus.  “By grace are we saved through faith, not of works lest anyone should boast: it is the gift of God.”[22]  “What does the Lord require: to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.”[23]  “The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve…”[24] We are called servants or slaves of our Lord Jesus Christ.[25]  We would rather be “a doorkeeper in the House of the Lord”.[26]  Humility is the hallmark of the life and character of Jesus.  This is the very mind that we are to have.[27]

If we want to be reminded of what to eschew: it is the nature of earthly kingdoms.  These are imbued with a spirit of pride, ambition, domination and status: the exact opposite of the Kingdom of God.  This is why Jesus used them as examples of how not to live.[28] 

But on the other hand this world is God’s creation. And so it follows that everything on earth can be a sign of the Kingdom of God, although not that Kingdom in all its fullness. If we turn for a moment from nation-states and corporations, from communal and tribal struggles for power, we are surrounded by potential signs of the Kingdom: they will “flame out like shining from shook foil”.[29]  Some of us have been blessed by the model of praying described by Michel Quoist: underlying it is a spiritual discipline that always looks on the world around us for, and as signs of the Kingdom of God.  The signs include a banknote, a wire-fence, a tractor, a funeral, eyes, posters, a brick and so on.  If we knew how to look at life through God’s eyes “all life would become a sign”![30]

It was by careful design and intention that Jesus taught in parables.  They are completely consonant with the nature of the Kingdom of God, not just in their content but as a genre.  They are elusive, and must be re-read, re-heard and understood afresh as we journey.  They continue with us: they seem to grow up with us. Just as the parables are signs so our lives, our Christian groups can at best be signs: not the real thing in its perfection and infinite duration. The disciples seek certainties and always tend to ask for clarification and something more definite and concrete.  If you re-read any Gospel in this light you will see immediately that Jesus is signing the Kingdom of God in parables as one of the primary ways of revealing it.

How often have we talked as if, given sufficient resources we or others could create the Kingdom of God on earth?  We use words like transformation and development, and we describe projects as if they were the real thing!  We tend to revere individuals and groups: we seek to replicate their methods as a way to successful Christian living, but in the very process if we are not careful, we idolize them.  And when an icon becomes an idol it ceases by definition to be a sign.  It has attracted the attention and adoration that belongs alone to God.  Notice how meticulous Jesus was in not accepting praise: why do you call me good: there is only one who is good, God.  We are so willing to settle for lesser standards.

Why can’t we be humble enough to admit that there are weaknesses and failings?  Will it let our organization down?  What government admits to weaknesses?  “I thank you Lord that I am not like other organizations”, we seem to imply.  “God be merciful to me a sinner” is something we would never say in public.  I recall a meeting when I was giving news about Mill Grove: I talked of ways in which we had come short of the very best that God’s nature and character demand and inspire through Jesus Christ.  Someone wrote to me saying he was taken aback with surprise.  He had never heard the leader of a Christian organization admit to failings!  How come?

And humility is not something that requires us to gaze at our own navels and to look only within to admit the fault-lines in our own personalities and groups.  If we lift up our eyes and try to take in what is going on in the world, and in the heavens above we will find ourselves reminded of our relative insignificance.  The Psalmist[31] and Job[32] both discovered this from contemplating or being confronted by the scale and grandeur of the universe and creation and the Creator.  But we also find it if we are taking in the scale of human suffering.  Say we work for the good of children in the world.  What is the comparison between what we are all doing together and the scale of the total problem of children poverty and suffering? Could I offer you the metaphor of a drop in a bucket for starters?

The biggest of our organizations are like pebbles on a vast seashore, while the ocean of undiscovered suffering lays before and beyond us. How many cries of children in the world go unheard?  How much of their suffering goes on in lingering and frightening isolation?  What have we to say about the Kingdom of God when arising from every part of the earth are the unheard cries of little children, rich and poor?  What is there to boast about?  Recently in our parish in the UK we had one of the Chilean miners speaking.  It was a great and uplifting event.  There had been a miraculous rescue: God was vindicated.  We rejoiced with exceeding joy.  But the unheard cries of the families of the miners in New Zealand went unremarked.[33]

If we take in human history, there is much to be humble about. Can we not see that Jesus did not attempt to eradicate human suffering and poverty with a programme of economic, social and political action? In fact he specifically resisted such ideas as temptations.[34]  He chose instead to bring comfort, healing and forgiveness to individuals and local groups.  They were signs of God’s Kingdom.

The best that we can offer are not final solutions to human suffering, injustice, oppression and sin, but signs of hope, intimations of a better way.  A sign of the Kingdom is a precious gift from God.

We look to a coming Kingdom and a coming King, not to the creation of heaven on earth by our own plans: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”[35].  Meanwhile our coming King has given us rich signs and revealed himself in so many ways, most fully of all in Jesus his beloved son, our Lord and Saviour, and it is to Him that we turn for the final part of our exploration this morning.

(iv)  The Child Placed by Jesus as Sign

Everything we have considered so far serves as a preparation for, or background to this moment.  Given all this, and in this context we return to Matthew, Chapter 18.  The disciples were arguing about relative greatness in their idea of the Kingdom of God.  If we think we can understand it better than them, then those who are without sin can cast the first stone in their direction!

What does Jesus do?  How does he counter their mistaken ideas? Does he point to his miracles, to himself either as a man, or a baby?  No, Jesus offers his followers a little child as a sign of the Kingdom of God.  

At this point, and having spent ten years seeking to understand and communicate what this passage is about, could I draw attention to four things?  Although this is, as it were, in parenthesis, it is vital that we do not overlook these details. 

First we know nothing of the character of this child: we don’t even know if the child was male or female.  So let us dismiss any interpretation of the sign that assumes the child is dependent, trusting, vulnerable and so on.  We do not know, so whereof we do not know, thereof we must not speak. 

Second, although the child is silent, the sign is not simply the child in the midst, standing in splendid isolation.  The child has been placed by Jesus, and Jesus speaks about the child and explains how this little child is a sign of the kingdom. We have no mandate from this passage to look at children and see in them qua children a sign of the Kingdom of God per se.  There are of course very precious insights that we can gain from genuinely receiving children, accepting them with sensitivity, listening to them, being attuned to their way of thinking and so on.  But paying attention to children alone is not the sign that we are offered. 

Third, Jesus does not, either here or at any other time in his ministry, refer to his own childhood.  Theologically we will want to do so, and we will find signs: there are deliberate signs in the Gospel records, but that is not what Jesus does here. 

Fourth the whole event is emptied of its power as a sign unless we see the child as a sign of Jesus: Jesus has placed a representative of himself, of his nature, his way, his calling, and the cross in the midst of the disciples.

Kingdom of God in way of cross means we walk in a pilgrimage of signs, and no more than signs:  but we do not like that, and we prefer to see world as real and final, and our achievements as solid.  We grasp at that greatness, and are not content to live in signs, not content to walk with Jesus, and so it is highly possible that we will overlook the true nature of the sign of the child placed by Jesus in our determination to find what we are looking for, to see the sign through unreconstructed lenses, and to find that which is definite and clear.

This said, and as we draw to a close, what then does this action sign?

It signs first and perhaps foremost that the disciples are on the wrong track for the reasons that we have already noted. And this is where the surprise, even scandal comes in: the little child is a sign or model of entry into the Kingdom of God!  But how can this be: surely if anyone is in this kingdom then they are?!  What a sobering, if not ridiculous thought.  If the travelling band of twelve is not in the Kingdom of God, then surely there is no hope: there is no point in continuing the journey with Jesus.

I have tried this message out in various places, most memorably a Christian seminary and a strict Baptist Church.  Reading the passage and looking people in the eye, (they included the principal of the seminary and the elders of the church), I challenged them to repent and become humble in order to enter the Kingdom of God.  The reactions were the same: not spoken, but in eloquent and indignant, if not dismissive, body language: you do not know who we are, for if you did you would realize that we are right at the heart of the Kingdom of God.  You should take the message to other seminaries (I have been given names!) and other denominations (even more names!): you are wasting you time preaching to the converted.

Do you get the point?  Is it the same this morning?  Why are we all being challenged with that which would be far more relevant spoken elsewhere and to others (whom we know very well)?  The very moment you think like that, you have betrayed the truth of the situation: you may be inside your own idea of the kingdom of God, but you are not inside the Kingdom that Jesus has come to reveal!  I continue to be moved by the way Christians who are farther along the spiritual journey with Jesus than me convey without ever speaking about it directly, the quality of humility that Jesus exemplified.  Pandita Ramabai, as some of you know is one; Lesslie Newbigin another. 

You could add to the list.  Karl Barth once preached a sermon on the subject: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief”.  He was preaching it in a prison and to convicted criminals.  Yet what did he say?  I am the chief of sinners this morning!  Just what the Apostle Paul knew to be his own situation.  If you and I were preaching the sermon, what might we have thought, even if we did not say it?  Once we even think for a passing moment that we are more deserving (better) than others we have shown ourselves to be at that very moment outside the Kingdom.  It has no rank or status, except that its Lord serves and gave his life a ransom for many.  There is no competition in this Kingdom.  

But there is a second aspect to the message conveyed by the sign.  It not only deconstructs errant understandings of the Kingdom of God, it also gives a clearer picture of the Kingdom of God. We do not have an old rugged cross placed by Jesus and standing in the midst; we do not have the Law revealing how far we have fallen short; we do not find ourselves being offered a hair shirt, or a programme of denial and fasting.  No we are given the sign of a little child.  This unknown child is placed by Jesus and is a sign of hope, of promise, of a journey ahead, of potential growth, of discoveries and learning. 

All children with the exception of those who are dying embody these things.  In place of the sacrifice and denial that the disciples have in the forefront of their minds as they think about rewards, Jesus offers a sign of life, and of encouragement.  The disciples are to continue to dream, to long, to hope to experiment (and no doubt to fall over and have to start again) on their journey of faith.  This is a positive sign, like the new shoot on a branch, a newborn lamb, the dawn of a new day. 

A Challenge to Us All

This brings us to our gathering today: we are followers of Jesus, disciples, and we have left certain things to follow him, and we must also admit that there have been some rewards.  But do we need to repent?  Are we outside the Kingdom?  Do we need the little child as a model of how to enter? 

The single clue that Jesus gives about the meaning of the sign of the child is the word humility.  This word comes from the same root as humus: that is soil, or compost.  It is a call to get right back to our roots: we are from dust.  We are creatures, frail children as dust and feeble as frail.  The Kingdom of God reminds us that God is God; we are his creation.  The Greek word for humble in Matthew’s Gospel is the very same one that Paul uses to describe the nature and action of Jesus: “He who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, became obedient and humble”.  He calls us in the little child to follow him.

And that requires stooping low. I pray that each one of us here uses well and values highly that shortest and perhaps greatest of prayers so beloved by my mentors in the Orthodox Churches: “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy”. If you have not welcomed and embraced this prayer now is the time, the kairos moment.

The kingdom of God is always a call to repent: we will always tend to be off-beam, off-line; off-song. On the walk with Jesus we are prone to wander off track, to stumble, to become proud, to look with pity on others: always the prayer is waiting for us. Lord have mercy.  Or of course: “Father forgive us…as we forgive those who sin against us” [36]: we “know not what we do”[37].

One of my discoveries in life is that there are general temptations and particular temptations.  One that we may have in common as a gathering is that we are respected, even admired by others because of the work that we do.  We are working alongside little children, we seek to love them, to nourish them in the name of Jesus: we are their faithful advocates.  (There are variations on this temptation in other fields of Christian service.)  If we are not careful we will accept some of the praise ourselves that belongs only to our God and Father: the giver of all good gifts.

But there is another temptation: we can so focus on children and their needs, potential, even spirituality, that we see them as solely as objects of care or respect, rather than as signs of the Kingdom.  And we get so bound up in our work, our organisation and our programme that we tend to mistake our vision and achievements for God’s Kingdom.  If so, people including children, may look to us rather than to Jesus and the One who sent Him.

Yet God is always calling us with those visionary signs that we recognize as Christ-like, and true.  We are citizens of that Kingdom, and this world is not our true home.  We love it, and seek to care for it, to improve it, but our calling is from and to beyond.

This is a sign and challenge not only to us all who are gathered here, but also the whole church: ministers, leaders, seminarians, missionaries, evangelists. Over the course of our time together we will be exploring the child placed by Jesus as a sign to church, seminaries and Christian organizations engaged in mission and ministry.  One of the challenges we will face, as we always do, is to remain focused on the theological framework for our lives and service.  At other times and in other places we do and must engage with other discourses and perspectives, but here our purpose is to ask above all else what God reveals to us by signs that provide a clue to how we should change in order to be in tune with His Kingdom, and therefore fit partners in His mission.

Because we are privileged to be alongside children (those who Jesus has placed in the middle of our lives) we are uniquely situated to receive little children as signs and models of the Kingdom of God, and to communicate something of this revelation to others. It is unlikely that this message is best conveyed by shouting from the rooftops, but by living lives inspired by God’s revelation of His Kingdom, and modeling a new way of living in the tensions and messiness of life, political, economic, social and emotional: a sign of the Kingdom, if not the Kingdom in all its fullness.  Better to light a candle in the darkness.

People will be inspired by different Christians who they see as embodying the Kingdom of God in ways and contexts that they can understand.  I have already mentioned Pandita Ramabai.  Let me just say this about her this morning:  everything she did and said was in tune with this teaching of Jesus.  You may say no one can achieve this.  And I must admit that she would be shocked to hear me talking of her in the same breath as her Lord and Master![38]  Yet she was refined and purified beyond human understanding until she was like a diamond, able to reflect God’s ways and His Kingdom first in her “sadan” in Pune, and then at Mukti on a piece of waste land. 

In both places she welcomed rejected girl children and created a place for them where all were welcomed irrespective of merit, and where everything she did was a sign.  It is still there for us all too read, but many, if not most, find it hard to stoop so low as to visit such a small place and to learn by sitting on the ground with children, the blind and the least and lowest. Perhaps it is given to others to see that our God is “The God of small things”[39], while we are still attracted by delusions of greatness and grandeur!

Are we ready for the Kingdom in all its fullness?  A lamb upon the throne?  With little ones always beholding the face of the Father?  Perhaps we still need to hear the words of Michel Quoist: “If we knew how to look at life through God’s eye, we should see it as innumerable tokens of the love of the Creator seeking the love of his creatures. The Father has put us into the world, not to walk through it with lowered eyes,  but to search for him through things events, people.  Everything must reveal God to us.  All Life would become a sign.” [40]

Strange that followers of Jesus who accept that the sign given to the shepherds that the Messiah had come was “a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger”, should still overlook little children, little people and little things: some of the chosen signs of their Lord and Master!

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[1]    Matthew 3: 2

[2]    Matthew 4: 17

[3]    See for example Keith J. White, “He Placed a Little Child in the Midst”, The Child in the Bible, ed. M. Bunge, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008,  page 354:  “one of the central and continuous themes in Matthew”.     

[4]    Acts 1: 3

[5]    Acts 28: 30, 31

[6]    Matthew 6: 10

[7]   John V. Taylor, Kingdom Come London: SCM, 1989, page 16.  He is also author of The Primal Vision.

[8]    Matthew 6: 33.  Matthew uses the term Kingdom of Heaven where Mark and Luke refer to Kingdom of God.

[9]   I Samuel 8-12.

[10] Amos 5: 24

[11] See W. Brueggemann, OT Theology: an Introduction Nashville: Abingdon Press,  2008,  pages 283-291

[12] Luke 17: 21

[13] Matthew 5: 3-10

[14] For example Miroslav Volf’s remarkable book Exclusion and Embrace, Nashville: Abingdon Press 1996.  This work wrestles with the meaning of the Gospel amidst the horrors of war in the Balkans.

[15] John 17: 15-17

[16] Donald Kraybill  The Upside-Down Kingdom Scottdale: Herald Press, 1978

[17] Philip Yancey What’s so Amazing about Grace?  Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997

[18] Matthew 18: 3.  The word used by Jesus in Matthew 18 is to “change” (and become humble), also translated as “be converted” or “turn”, and is close in meaning, though not the same word in Greek used for “repent”.

[19] Romans 12: 1

[20] Charles Wesley:  When I survey the wondrous cross on which the prince of glory died.

[21] Matthew 20: 25-28

[22] Ephesians 2: 8, 9

[23] Micah 6: 8

[24] Matthew 20: 28

[25] Paul begins his “Himalayan theology” in Romans with the words: “Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ” Romans 1: 1

[26] Psalm 84: 10

[27] Philippians 2: 5-8

[28] Matthew 20: 25

[29] Gerard Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur

[30] Michel Quoist: Prayers of Life, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1963, pages 14-32

[31] Psalm 8: 3, 4

[32] Job 38-40: 6

[33] 29 miners lost their lives in November 2010 after a series of explosions at the Pike River Mine in Atarau in New Zealand’s South Island. A month earlier 33 Chilean miners had been rescued.

[34]  Matthew 4: 1-10

[35]  Matthew 6: 10

[36] Matthew 6: 12

[37] Luke 23: 34

[38] She did not want her name to be associated formally with her work at Mukti, for example.

[39] Arundhati Roy  The God of Small Things Delhi: IndiaInk, 1997

[40]   M. Quoist, Prayers of Life, page 14