A Reflection for Tuesday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Find today’s readings here.
If a close friend or acquaintance were to describe you as childish or juvenile, you might justifiably feel insulted. These adjectives and their synonyms—puerile, immature, infantile—are undoubtedly pejorative, connoting all the inexperience and overconfidence of youth. Of course, the issue here is with the unsophisticated attitudes and inappropriate behaviors of adults who act “like children,” but then again, how did children get such a bad reputation? (Perhaps if I had kids I’d know.)
To be clear: There is a difference between being childish and childlike, and Scripture helps make that distinction clearer. In today’s Gospel passage, from Matthew 18, Jesus is asked by his disciples who is the “greatest” in heaven. Jesus directs their attention to a nearby youth and says, “Unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 18:3). What does he mean? Does heaven have an age limit? Are we adults doomed?
In his commentary on Matthew, the New Testament scholar R.T. France notes that Christ is not asking his followers to behave like children in any literal sense. Rather, Jesus subverts the social hierarchy of his community, where children occupy a low status, and encourages the disciples to discover “importance in being unimpressive,” writes France. As he does throughout his public ministry, Jesus bucks the customs and expectations of his milieu by calling Christians to reject positions of power or favor that would catapult them into the upper echelons of society.
We should seek instead to share the same space as children by becoming small—not in size, but in spirit—and also dependent upon God (cf. Mt 5:3). We must shrink our egos and curb our drive for power; we must empty ourselves to take on the role of servant (Phil. 2:7). Thankfully, the Gospels provide us with ample ways to do this. When Jesus moves to wash the feet of Peter during the Last Supper, the apostle protests. But Christ insists, and then instructs his dinner guests to imitate his example by lowering themselves (Jn 13:2-17). Per their vows, Jesuit priests are ordered to live out this lowliness by not seeking lofty titles due to personal ambition. (Yes, there is great irony in electing a Jesuit pope.) As France argues, “True greatness is found in being little.”
Jesus’s answer to the disciples’ challenge also negates their question, as they wish to know how to achieve “greatness.” This attitude, like sin, misses the mark and conflates following Christ with obtaining power.
