Like a Child

[A reading of Matthew 18:1–14 in Conversation with Romans 14, N.T. Wright’s Matthew for Everybody, Stanley Hauerwas’s Matthew, and Warren Carter’s Matthew on the Margins.]

So last week, I was sharing some of my own journey through this book from Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove as I’m trying to really get to the meat of what does what is the church supposed to look like. What is a life of faith supposed to look like? This week, I’m going a little off the lectionary, but we’re stretching it and playing with it a little bit so for those of you who are really serious about the lectionary, well, sorry. Now this past week, we had our Methodist, Greater Northwest Annual Conference. It usually takes place in June and usually in person and multiple days. In this case, it was 4 hours and over Zoom. The Annual Conference this year really wanted to tackle what it looked like to really love. The question or the tagline was “What Does Love Require?” Well, John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement had three basic rules, which are very simple, but very difficult to make happen. Those rules are 1) Do no harm 2) Do good, and 3) Stay in love with God. It’s as simple as 1, 2, 3. Do no harm, do good, stay in love with God. So what this looks like for our church is doing no harm, part of it is what we’re doing now we’re meeting virtually because we’re trying to fight COVID. We’re trying to protect the vulnerable amongst us (and that’s a little bit of what we’re going to talk about today.) Doing good, in this case, a big part that the church wants to tackle right now, is the doing good of dismantling racism. This needs to be done in our institutions. This needs to be done in our individual lives. This needs to be done in our communities and that’s why Mountain Valley Fellowship and Northwest Abbey together are working with the University of Idaho extension to do an anti-racism diversity learning circle training course. This one’s just getting going. Hopefully, we can get another one going at this one goes well as it is a trial. Finally, staying in love with God is how we reimagine life together, since it looks a little different right now.

What does love require? Do no harm. Doing good. Staying in love with God. This is awfully similar to Micah 6:8 where it says: “He has told you, human one, what is good and what the Lord requires from you: to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with your God.”

So let us start with our reading from Matthew. This begins where Jesus brings a child to sit on his lap. He says to his disciples that in order to be part of the kingdom of God, you need to welcome this child and to be like this child. People look at this and say oh yeah because children are innocent, they have that child-like innocence. It’s not wrong, but it’s not entirely what Jesus is getting at here. Jesus is saying to be humble like a child. A child doesn’t necessarily realize that s/he is humble but a child is completely dependent upon others. S/he won’t survive on their own. S/he will need to be fed, to be led, to be taught, completely dependent on family, caretakers, whoever. I like the way N.T. Wright describes it, “they disturb our organized adult world.” How often as adults have we been in the middle of something and a child wants our attention and completely disrupts what we’re doing. Children disturb the organized adult world. Jesus’s kingdom disturbs our developed worlds. Everything that we think is important is disrupted by Jesus’s kingdom, just like an adult’s activities might be disrupted by a child.

Jesus’ kingdom disrupts the developed world.

Jesus is also noting that so often in our lives, and this would be relevant in our American culture, but was especially relevant in his ancient Jewish context, is how we really like to look up to the heroes. The heroes of old. The military victors. The major players of faith. Just as we revere King David beating Goliath and Solomon’s glory. The way America reveres the founding fathers and successful business people. But, Jesus is kind of throwing that out. I mean he’s not saying it’s not important to understand our history, but a child doesn’t have any of that pomp and circumstance. Instead, a child is shy, vulnerable, unsure of herself. Understanding this is how we get to be a people of a different kind of radical love.

People of radical love are not people that are seeking status. We need to not be worried about our status and in the community. Our status or importance. So often, we see this impulse to prop up our status in the political realm. I don’t know if you’ve watched the Netflix special, The Family, but it talked about a guy who was basically a missionary to Capitol Hill, Doug Coe. I don’t know anything about this person besides what I’ve seen in this series that was on Netflix. I see the strategic approach that he had of trying to witness to chapter Capitol Hill, but Jesus is saying forget about power structures, we don’t need to justify ourselves to the government. We don’t need to get the government doing our job. We don’t need to be involved in that kind of way. We need to be on the ground. With the real people. With “the child” and being childlike in that realizing that we are interdependent on one another like a child is dependent completely.

We’ve often been fed a lie in western culture, of this independence, this rugged individualism. It runs through our culture. Jesus is saying that this is not the kingdom that he has in mind. We are a kingdom of interdependence. We are a kingdom that is supposed to value the vulnerable child just as much, if not more than the important politician. When you look at Jesus's disciples, who were they? They weren’t the elite. They weren’t this ruling class. Just like in our time where we’ve got a lot of Christian leaders that are intertwining with government, you know, pastors that are praying with the with and over the president and making photo ops with the president. Now, this has happened under all administrations. This isn’t unique to the current administration. But, this happened in Jesus’ time too. In this case, it was the Jewish rulers of this specific area trying to pony up with Rome. To gain favor from Rome. To get religious freedom.

But that’s not what Jesus is getting at here. Jesus called his disciples from ordinary common people, some of whom were the dregs of society. They were loan sharks (tax collectors), Antifa (Simon the Zealot), and whatnot. These were people without significant status. A child that Jesus is referring to has no status. It’s also important, as we’re talking about the significance of a child, that children in this time period that he was speaking, they weren’t playing on the playground like they are now. Children were viewed as subhuman. They were just dealt with until they became old enough. A lot of children were left behind. Literally. They were born and if they weren’t a boy that was going to create status, they would leave the child for death. This was called abandonment. Jesus is saying this is not acceptable. To love radically, this is doing harm, and Jesus is saying in his own way, John Wesley’s interpretation of Loving God and loving people, to do no harm, do good, and to stay in love with God. While we may be talking about literal children, in our time, who are the people that are being left to the metaphorical wolves? Who are the people being left behind that we are not seeking after? How might we as people of faith seek after these little ones? These ones that aren’t of importance? How do we radically love them? How do we see them? How do we say, “I see you, a child of God, made in the image of the Creator,” rather than, “you’re a nuisance,” rather than, “oh I’m sorry, I’m busy, I’m on my way somewhere and I really don’t have time to help you right now,” rather than, “her again…”? I’ve been there. I’ve been on my way somewhere and I don’t want to be inconvenienced helping some random stranger out when I’ve got a place to be. But, that’s our call.

So, in Romans chapter 14, Paul is talking about conflict between some of the people in the church that feel that they have to carry out certain dietary restrictions, and there’s frustration about what you do and do not have to carry out. Just as Jesus said do not despise these little ones who are of weaker faith, or of lower status, Paul is kind of exhorting a similar thing here. He’s saying don’t let where this person is in their faith walk cause you to despise them. If they’re still finding it hard to get unbound from their practices, in this case, happens to be dietary, but it could be anything now. It could be certain prayer rituals that someone might be attached to. It could be certain songs we like. Paul is saying don’t despise these people. Don’t even look down upon them! But, value them just like yourself! Value who they are in Christ. To show love in this way is to value people where they are and to love and value them right there.

So how can we as a church? This is an opportunity for us to radically love our community. If we first realize that status is not important, that we are all to be like children, interdependent on one another as children would be dependent. We should be interdependent on one another and dependent on God. We should realize that we don’t have all the answers and to radically love people that are in different places and are struggling with different things. We need to be patient! We need to be kind!

The last part of the text today in Matthew is the parable of the lost sheep. Jesus talks about a shepherd. One of his hundred sheep runs off. Would he not leave the other 99 to chase that lost sheep? This is a parable for the kingdom of God, but this is also a parable for how the churches should be. So what does that look like for us, to leave our own comfort? Think of the 99 as our own comfort. To leave our own comfort, to go after the one that is lost, in this case, it could look like being willing to leave our traditional building, our traditional service, to meet in this virtual way for that one sheep, which in this case the sheep that’s in danger, the immunocompromised and is in danger of from COVID 19. To go after that one sheep, the lost sheep being those affected by racism, not that they are lost, because in many ways it is the dominant culture that is lost, but that they are in danger. This alone sheep is in danger, and people that are facing racial or any form of discrimination, are in forms of danger. So what does it look like to leave our place of safety to radically pursue that sheep that is in danger? That is our call! That is what can make a church radically different!

It’s an easy concept. This is what doing no harm and doing good looks like, but it’s hard to actually do. Simple in concept, hard in practice. This is our challenge. Let’s think hard as a community about what that looks like.