Of all the Beatitudes - this surely is the one that sounds strangest to our ears.
Blessed are those who mourn.
In the face of all that we know about human suffering and have experienced of human suffering, those words can sound terribly glib to our ears.
Blessed are those who mourn.
How? We might well ask. How are they blessed?
Where’s the blessing for the widower standing beside a grave, or the mother burying her child, or the man or woman who feels for a spell that their whole world is collapsing because of something that’s happened to them?
Where’s the blessing for those who mourn?
We might find ourselves silently seething at Jesus’ words. For a while at least.
And then we might remember the time he took himself away to a lonely place when he discovered his cousin John had been executed by Herod. Beheaded for the sake of an old man’s pride and lust. Or the time he stood at a tomb and wept because his friend Lazarus had died. Or the time his own mother stood at the foot of the cross, watching the embers slowly dying in her son’s eyes.
Blessed are those who mourn
However strange those words sound, they’re birthed out of all the pain of human experience. And it’s wise to remember that this morning, as we begin to try and understand just how those who mourn can be considered blessed.
When we think about mourning in our culture – quite naturally, the first thing we think about is death and bereavement. And I’ve never found the pain of that particular kind of loss better expressed than in this poem by Kathy Galloway, who composed it on the death of her mother. It’s called “You were here, and now you are not”.
There is nothing to compare with the pain of death.
You were here, and now you are not.
That’s all.
I search for you in old photographs, letters,
Things that you touched,
Things that remind me of you,
But they cannot fill the space you occupied.
The space is in me too,
Bleeding round the edges where you were torn away.
In the night, strange shapes haunt the space….
Regret, fear, fury,
All the things we might have done.
All the shattered dreams.
How can I go on with this hole inside me?
Partial person!
Don’t let me fill the space with the wrong things.
Don’t let me cover it up,
To eat me from within.
Give me courage to bear my emptiness,
To hold it gently
Till the edges stop bleeding;
Till the darkness becomes friendly;
Till I see the star at its heart;
Till it becomes a fertile space,
Growing new life within it.
If I had not loved, I would not have wept.
This love you have given me;
This love I have carried;
This love has carried me.
And I know that though I cannot see you, touch you,
The love does not go away.
Carried by this love,
We are not divided.
And there will be no more weeping.
Until you’ve experienced it, and we all will at some point, there’s no way to sum up the pain of bereavement.
It comes to us in different ways- for some, the mourning starts long before death as we watch a loved one decline mentally or physically. For others, it comes with a terrible suddenness through illness or tragedy.
For a spell everything seems unreal, then too real. We find it hard to focus, we feel numb. We struggle to function. We find great support and solace from the folk around us, but we know too that in a few short weeks, or even days, they’ll return to their normal lives while we’ll still be carrying the pain of our loss.
With time, and prayer, the pain diminishes and the scars heal over. But the emptiness remains with us. And we must reckon with it.
Give me courage to bear my emptiness, Kathy Galloway says.
To hold it gently
Till the edges stop bleeding;
Till the darkness becomes friendly;
Till I see the star at its heart;
She’s asking for help to find the blessing for those who mourn; the star at the heart of her empty darkness.
And in the next verse she begins to realise what that blessing might be, and where her comfort might come from. She says:
“If I had not loved. I would not have wept”.
She’s realising that the measure of her pain is also the measure of her love. She only feels such sorrow because she’s been so richly blessed in her mother.
The loss is terrible, but the loss itself awakens her to the reality and strength and selflessness of love, both human and divine. And that, in the middle of her darkness, gives her a star of hope to navigate by. A star that can guide us, like the wise men of old, into the presence of God,
Is that the blessing for those who mourn, maybe? That in the displacement and sorrow that mourning brings, we realise how fragile life is, and how much we need the comfort our eternal, compassionate God promises us?
Eugene Peterson thinks so – he translates this beatitude with these words:
"Blessed are you when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you"
As I’ve thought about this strange beatitude this week, one of the things I’ve come to understand is that mourning, in all its shapes and forms, is not always about death, but it is always about loss.
That came out in the brainstorm. People find themselves mourning for a host of different reasons.
For some, it’s the irretrievable breakdown of a relationship. After years of investment in a marriage, a couple decide they have to go their separate ways. After years of loving care, a son or a daughter makes some bad choices and cuts off all lines of communication. After years of friendship, things turn sour somehow and the relationship’s spoiled. And we mourn the loss of the way things were.
For others, it’s their hopes and dreams that they mourn. The life partner who never materialised; the child who never came safely to term; the relationship that seemed to offer so much but didn’t deliver; the job that held such promise but proved to be a dead end. The painful loss of things that now can never be,
Others find themselves mourning because of the kinds of things they see going on around them in the world. Milton wrote of Paradise Lost, and even a cursory glance at the papers or the news reminds us daily how far we are from paradise. And on a more local level, if I had a pound for every time people tell me things were better in the old days, I’d be a wealthy man. Folk mourn for changes in the way of life that nurtured them, and the countryside and the villages in which they grew up. We’ve lost something compared to those days, they feel.
And still others mourn because we seem to have lost God in our part of the world. You don’t need me to rehearse that story. Where are the young people? Where are our own children on a Sunday morning? Why don’t they feel the same way about faith as we do? Do you remember the days when this or that church organisation was bursting at the seams?
And maybe, in some of us, there’s an even deeper sense of loss which says “And you know what – I’ve been in the church all my life, and I still don’t feel as close to God as I’d like to or as I ought to. I can’t seem to shake off the flaws and sins that hold me back. Sometimes I wonder if God’s wasting his time on me, or whether I’m wasting my time on him”.
Mourning is all about a sense of loss –
Regret, fear, fury,
All the things we might have done.
All the shattered dreams.
And though Kathy Galloway’s words are about bereavement, they could just as well be about any of those situations I’ve just described:
There isn’t one of us here who isn’t, in some deep place, mourning for something.
This morning, in this beatitude, Jesus is announcing that blessing comes, even in those places. There is a star at the heart of that darkness.
Following it will take time and faith, but if you can find the courage to do so, you will find the comfort that Christ promises.
I want to finish with another poem that’s dear to me. It’s by the French Priest and Palaentologist Teilhard de Chardin and it’s called Slow Work. And I offer this as a promise of God’s comfort to everyone here today who needs that particular blessing. Whatever the nature of your loss, these words are for you.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are, quite naturally,
impatient in everything to reach the end
without delay.
We should like to skip
the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being
on the way to something unknown,
something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability –
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you.
Your thoughts change gradually –
Let them grow,
let them shape themselves
without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today
what time and grace and circumstances
will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
And accept the anxiety of
feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.
Let us pray
God, in our mourning and our loss,
we know, perhaps more than ever, that we are incomplete.
Help us not to hide it, but to own it.
Not to evade it, but face up to it,
Because you promise us a blessing, even in our loss.
As our frailty becomes clear,
Reassure us with your strength.
As our brokenness comes into the light,
Continue your slow work of healing,
And bring us,
By the light of a friendly star,
To the comfort and rest that are found
In your presence alone.
Hear us because we ask all these things in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ,
The Suffering Servant and The Risen Lord.
Amen
Tuesday 9 November 2010
Blessed are the Poor in Spirit
Turn with me to Matthew 4 vs 23.
Over the past few weeks we've been looking at idea of the 'Kingdom' which is absolutely central to Jesus’ teaching and ministry.
You'll recall that after years of thought and preparation, his first words in ministry were– “The time has come! The Kingdom of God is at hand! Change your minds (repent) and believe the good news”.
Jesus came not just to announce but to embody the Kingdom and he did so in a difficult context because his country was under occupation by Rome. A couple of weeks ago we looked at the four typical responses of the day to Roman occupation: (SLIDE)
Armed Struggle – Zealots
Compromise – Herodians
The Way of Purity and Observance of the Law – Pharisees
The Way of Withdrawal – Essenes
Over and above all those responses, Jesus proclaimed a different way, a different reality – the Reality that he called the Kingdom of God.
He used word parables to describe it, like the Parable of the Sower and the Soil
And at other times he used visual parables to say something about it, like when he drew a little child into the midst of the crowd and said that it's such as these who inherit the Kingdom.
But what we have before us in today’s reading, and in the remainder of Matthew chapters 5 to 7, is as close as we get to a clear manifesto for the Kingdom of God. And it’s my guess that though we probably know many of these words well, we might never have taken the time to dwell on them and realise just how countercultural and counter-intuitive they are.
So between now and Christmas we’re going to be looking at the beginning of this section in Matthew which is known as the Beatitudes – a word which simply means ‘Blessings’.
Matthew tells us in 4:23 that Jesus went all over Galilee teaching in the synagogues and preaching the Good news about the Kingdom.
And further on in verse 25 he tells us that large crowds followed him from Galilee and the Ten Towns, from Jerusalem, Judea, and the land on the other side of the Jordan.
And that’s significant. Matthew’s telling us that in that crowd were all kinds of people.
The Decapolis (or Ten Towns) was an area to the east of the Jordan, settled by Alexander the Great and it showed a strong Greek influence on architecture and culture and religion. Some in the Decaplois would have worshipped the gods of Greece and Rome.
Alongside them in the crowd - but presumably not too close! - were strict Jews, with their Moses and their law and their kosher food and their customs – people who shunned the Gentiles as being unclean and different.
There would have been country folk and city dwellers, priests and prostitutes, righteous and unrighteous, God-fearing and god-ignoring shoulder to shoulder. The whole smorgasbord of life in Palestine in those days gathered together to hear Jesus teach.
And Matthew tells us that on seeing those crowds, Jesus went up a hill, presumably for audibility, and sat down, which is the position a rabbi always chose when he was teaching his followers.
And so he began what is widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest orations ever delivered.
And it’s important, right at the outset, that we grasp that what Jesus is doing here isn’t giving us advice, or presenting a 7 step programme that will help make us better disciples. Or giving us something to aim at. The beatitudes aren’t a to-do list.
What Jesus is doing here is making an announcement. He’s telling us how things are in the Kingdom.
The theologian Tom Wright says that in the Beatitudes, “Jesus is not saying ‘Try hard to live like this.’ He’s saying ‘People who already live like this are in good shape” – they’re beginning to get a handle on what the Kingdom’s about.
It’s an announcement of the way things are in the Kingdom of God which is now at hand. So with that in mind – how does he begin?
Well the GNB translates v3 in these terms:
“Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor; the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them.”
Now let me say a few word about the terms “Happy” and “poor” before we go on.
The Greek word that the GNB translates “Happy” is makarios, which doesn’t really mean happy in the sense of having a smile on your face. That’s the word eulogetos in the Greek.
Makarios carries more of a sense of being fortunate or being blessed. It means that God’s on your side and is favourable towards you.
“Poor” here, is not materially poor, but spiritually poor. And the word Jesus chooses is not the Greek word “penes” which is used to describe the everyday poverty of a man who has to work hard to feed himself and his family, but instead the word ‘ptochos’ which means utterly broke, penniless.
So with that in mind, what Jesus is saying here is this: “Fortunate are you when you know you have precious little to recommend yourself to God with. God is on your side and the Kingdom of heaven is yours. Blessed are you when you know your need”.
Now – to whom is that word Good News in the crowd assembled there?
It seems to me that’s it’s Good News to everyone who realises that they are falling short of the mark and don’t make the grade, whether Jew, Gentle, righteous or unrighteous, It’s good news for everyone who feels condemned never to make the cut.
And it’s Bad News for those in the crowd who think they have it all together and can rest on their laurels.
It’s utterly counter-intuitive.
You see life tells us that it’s the successful who are blessed. Those who keep their noses clean. Those who work hard and pay their taxes. Those who never slip up, at least in public. Those who never break the rules. They’re the ones God blesses, and only them.
That was the religion of the Pharisees. Work hard, keep all the rules and maybe then God will hold you in some regard.
I grew up with something approximating to that gospel. But that is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s a gospel of works.
Remember this image from two weeks ago? (Slide of Cycle of Grace) The gospel of the Kingdom begins with the Good News that we are loved by a gracious God even though we don’t deserve it. And accepting that basic truth about ourselves changes everything. It sets us on the cycle of grace.
We still need to change and grow and mature in our faith. There’s still sin that needs to be recognised and weeded out. But we do it in the full knowledge that we are loved and accepted by God and that he is on our side.
The gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of the Kingdom of God is not – “sort your life out and God will love you.” It’s “God loves you, so go and sort your life out.” Those two ways of viewing things are worlds apart.
“Fortunate are you when you know you have precious little to recommend yourself to God with. God is on your side and the Kingdom of heaven is yours. Blessed are you when you know your need”.
It sounds totally counter-intuitive. Maybe even offensive to religious ears. But stop and think about how many of Jesus stories, or his dealings with people gave out the very same message.
The prodigal son: profligate and disrespectful, welcomed back by his Father before he could do one thing to make recompense other than wend his weary way home.
Despised little Zacchaeus up a tree, finding grace and not condemnation in Christ, and finding his life transformed.
The parables where those who should have been in the know are invited to a feast, and when they decline for spurious reasons, the gates are thrown wide for all the undeserving and unexpected who want to come in.
And how many of Jesus’ sharpest words were reserved for those who thought of themselves as having arrived?
Remember the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector? The one loudly paraded his virtue before God in prayer, while the other could barely raise his eyes to heaven in shame. But it was the Tax Collector and not the Pharisee who went home forgiven. One knew his need, while the other didn’t.
Blessed are you, says Jesus, when you know your spiritual poverty.
I wonder if there were some in the crowd who lifted their heads at those words.
Some who’d always felt beyond the Pale because of the hand life had dealt them; or because of poor choices that they’d made.
Some, genetically predisposed to worry or self-doubt and feeling like they never managed to get things right.
Others, maybe, exhausted in trying to live up to the expectations the Pharisees had placed upon them, and wondering if there wasn’t a better way to live a faithful life.
Blessed are you, said Jesus.
Says Jesus.
Blessed are you if you’re honest enough to know you haven’t got it sussed yet.
Blessed are you if you wish, deep down, you had the resources to do better at this thing called life.
Blessed are you if you long for things to be different, but you can’t even put a name to it yet.
Blessed are you in your spiritual poverty – For God is on your side, and the Kingdom of heaven is open to you.
Over the past few weeks we've been looking at idea of the 'Kingdom' which is absolutely central to Jesus’ teaching and ministry.
You'll recall that after years of thought and preparation, his first words in ministry were– “The time has come! The Kingdom of God is at hand! Change your minds (repent) and believe the good news”.
Jesus came not just to announce but to embody the Kingdom and he did so in a difficult context because his country was under occupation by Rome. A couple of weeks ago we looked at the four typical responses of the day to Roman occupation: (SLIDE)
Armed Struggle – Zealots
Compromise – Herodians
The Way of Purity and Observance of the Law – Pharisees
The Way of Withdrawal – Essenes
Over and above all those responses, Jesus proclaimed a different way, a different reality – the Reality that he called the Kingdom of God.
He used word parables to describe it, like the Parable of the Sower and the Soil
And at other times he used visual parables to say something about it, like when he drew a little child into the midst of the crowd and said that it's such as these who inherit the Kingdom.
But what we have before us in today’s reading, and in the remainder of Matthew chapters 5 to 7, is as close as we get to a clear manifesto for the Kingdom of God. And it’s my guess that though we probably know many of these words well, we might never have taken the time to dwell on them and realise just how countercultural and counter-intuitive they are.
So between now and Christmas we’re going to be looking at the beginning of this section in Matthew which is known as the Beatitudes – a word which simply means ‘Blessings’.
Matthew tells us in 4:23 that Jesus went all over Galilee teaching in the synagogues and preaching the Good news about the Kingdom.
And further on in verse 25 he tells us that large crowds followed him from Galilee and the Ten Towns, from Jerusalem, Judea, and the land on the other side of the Jordan.
And that’s significant. Matthew’s telling us that in that crowd were all kinds of people.
The Decapolis (or Ten Towns) was an area to the east of the Jordan, settled by Alexander the Great and it showed a strong Greek influence on architecture and culture and religion. Some in the Decaplois would have worshipped the gods of Greece and Rome.
Alongside them in the crowd - but presumably not too close! - were strict Jews, with their Moses and their law and their kosher food and their customs – people who shunned the Gentiles as being unclean and different.
There would have been country folk and city dwellers, priests and prostitutes, righteous and unrighteous, God-fearing and god-ignoring shoulder to shoulder. The whole smorgasbord of life in Palestine in those days gathered together to hear Jesus teach.
And Matthew tells us that on seeing those crowds, Jesus went up a hill, presumably for audibility, and sat down, which is the position a rabbi always chose when he was teaching his followers.
And so he began what is widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest orations ever delivered.
And it’s important, right at the outset, that we grasp that what Jesus is doing here isn’t giving us advice, or presenting a 7 step programme that will help make us better disciples. Or giving us something to aim at. The beatitudes aren’t a to-do list.
What Jesus is doing here is making an announcement. He’s telling us how things are in the Kingdom.
The theologian Tom Wright says that in the Beatitudes, “Jesus is not saying ‘Try hard to live like this.’ He’s saying ‘People who already live like this are in good shape” – they’re beginning to get a handle on what the Kingdom’s about.
It’s an announcement of the way things are in the Kingdom of God which is now at hand. So with that in mind – how does he begin?
Well the GNB translates v3 in these terms:
“Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor; the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them.”
Now let me say a few word about the terms “Happy” and “poor” before we go on.
The Greek word that the GNB translates “Happy” is makarios, which doesn’t really mean happy in the sense of having a smile on your face. That’s the word eulogetos in the Greek.
Makarios carries more of a sense of being fortunate or being blessed. It means that God’s on your side and is favourable towards you.
“Poor” here, is not materially poor, but spiritually poor. And the word Jesus chooses is not the Greek word “penes” which is used to describe the everyday poverty of a man who has to work hard to feed himself and his family, but instead the word ‘ptochos’ which means utterly broke, penniless.
So with that in mind, what Jesus is saying here is this: “Fortunate are you when you know you have precious little to recommend yourself to God with. God is on your side and the Kingdom of heaven is yours. Blessed are you when you know your need”.
Now – to whom is that word Good News in the crowd assembled there?
It seems to me that’s it’s Good News to everyone who realises that they are falling short of the mark and don’t make the grade, whether Jew, Gentle, righteous or unrighteous, It’s good news for everyone who feels condemned never to make the cut.
And it’s Bad News for those in the crowd who think they have it all together and can rest on their laurels.
It’s utterly counter-intuitive.
You see life tells us that it’s the successful who are blessed. Those who keep their noses clean. Those who work hard and pay their taxes. Those who never slip up, at least in public. Those who never break the rules. They’re the ones God blesses, and only them.
That was the religion of the Pharisees. Work hard, keep all the rules and maybe then God will hold you in some regard.
I grew up with something approximating to that gospel. But that is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s a gospel of works.
Remember this image from two weeks ago? (Slide of Cycle of Grace) The gospel of the Kingdom begins with the Good News that we are loved by a gracious God even though we don’t deserve it. And accepting that basic truth about ourselves changes everything. It sets us on the cycle of grace.
We still need to change and grow and mature in our faith. There’s still sin that needs to be recognised and weeded out. But we do it in the full knowledge that we are loved and accepted by God and that he is on our side.
The gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of the Kingdom of God is not – “sort your life out and God will love you.” It’s “God loves you, so go and sort your life out.” Those two ways of viewing things are worlds apart.
“Fortunate are you when you know you have precious little to recommend yourself to God with. God is on your side and the Kingdom of heaven is yours. Blessed are you when you know your need”.
It sounds totally counter-intuitive. Maybe even offensive to religious ears. But stop and think about how many of Jesus stories, or his dealings with people gave out the very same message.
The prodigal son: profligate and disrespectful, welcomed back by his Father before he could do one thing to make recompense other than wend his weary way home.
Despised little Zacchaeus up a tree, finding grace and not condemnation in Christ, and finding his life transformed.
The parables where those who should have been in the know are invited to a feast, and when they decline for spurious reasons, the gates are thrown wide for all the undeserving and unexpected who want to come in.
And how many of Jesus’ sharpest words were reserved for those who thought of themselves as having arrived?
Remember the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector? The one loudly paraded his virtue before God in prayer, while the other could barely raise his eyes to heaven in shame. But it was the Tax Collector and not the Pharisee who went home forgiven. One knew his need, while the other didn’t.
Blessed are you, says Jesus, when you know your spiritual poverty.
I wonder if there were some in the crowd who lifted their heads at those words.
Some who’d always felt beyond the Pale because of the hand life had dealt them; or because of poor choices that they’d made.
Some, genetically predisposed to worry or self-doubt and feeling like they never managed to get things right.
Others, maybe, exhausted in trying to live up to the expectations the Pharisees had placed upon them, and wondering if there wasn’t a better way to live a faithful life.
Blessed are you, said Jesus.
Says Jesus.
Blessed are you if you’re honest enough to know you haven’t got it sussed yet.
Blessed are you if you wish, deep down, you had the resources to do better at this thing called life.
Blessed are you if you long for things to be different, but you can’t even put a name to it yet.
Blessed are you in your spiritual poverty – For God is on your side, and the Kingdom of heaven is open to you.
Children, Grace and the Kingdom
No matter how many books you’ve read, or TV programmes you’ve watched, nothing can prepare you for when it happens to you.
You’ve bought all the equipment in readiness; you’ve spoken to knowledgeable friends; you’ve tried to imagine just what it’s going to be like. But you really haven’t a clue.
Until that newborn baby emerges into the world, bloody and screaming, you have no idea what it means to be a parent.
I remember the day when Rhona and I came home from the hospital with Ross. I don’t think I’ve ever driven quite so carefully in all my life! And when we got home I vividly remember us putting his carry cot on the sofa, with him still sound asleep, and then Rhona and I just looking at each other as if to say “what do we do now”?!
Of course, before too long, it becomes very clear exactly what you have to do. Because this little one you’ve brought into the world is utterly dependent on you for all its needs. So for a while, life becomes a cycle of feeding, changing, washing, burping – that’s the baby, not the parents – and maybe even a little sleep if you’re lucky.
Pretty soon you realise that one of the many miracles of parenthood is how something so small can so completely turn your life upside down.
It’s a labour of love. There’s no other way to describe it. But of course, with the labour come immense rewards.
I remember going in to check on Ross one evening in the first few weeks, and when I got through to the bedroom he was awake. And for the first time, really, he looked at me – really looked at me. And those dark eyes just stared at me with a perfectly pure and open gaze. It was like looking down an infinitely deep well.
They say that the eyes are the window of the soul – well I felt in that moment I was seeing right into that wee one’s soul; right into the centre of his being. And somehow - in that beholding of each other - we connected. It was one of the most precious moments of my life.
It’s hard to put into words the bond between a parent and a child without sounding sentimental, and those of us who are parents, and all of us who were children, will know that the course of these relationships doesn’t run smoothly all the time.
But for good or ill, the bond is always there, like an unseen umbilical tying us to the people who nursed us through those early years of life.
And I’m sure that’s why these people in our reading this morning brought their children to Jesus for a blessing.
If you’d stopped them that afternoon and asked them “why are you doing this – why are you bringing your kids to Jesus” I’m not sure they’d have had a ready answer. They’d probably have had to stop and think for a few moments, because they’d have been puzzled by the question.
And the kind of answer they’d have come back with, I think, would have been quite vague. “We just want them to be ok. We want them to be happy – to have a good life”.
And by “a good life” they wouldn’t mean wealth and status and power and influence, necessarily. They’d mean contentment; happiness; love; purpose. Because these are the things a good parent wills for their child, above all else.
Could Jesus guarantee these things? Would a touch of his hand ensure that everything would always work out fine? Maybe they thought so, but I’m not so sure. Fast forward with me to the end of Jesus’ life, and see a weeping mother beholding her son nailed to a cross. Imagine how that must have felt. Whatever God guarantees us, it’s not a trouble-free life.
But what God does guarantee is that faith, a reaching out to him, can change our perspective on life. And today’s story is a good illustration of that.
See how he welcomes these children? See how angry he is that the disciples try to keep them away? In the culture of the day, children were right at the bottom of the pecking order. They were to be seen but not heard. How dare these people bother the Messiah with children, when he was already tired and busy with important things!?
But Jesus rounds on them for thinking like that. “Let them come” he says “Let them come. Don’t you realise that the Kingdom belongs to such as these?”
There’s that word again – the Kingdom. The Kingdom belongs to such as these, says Jesus. Not the powerful and the privileged, not the movers and shakers and manipulators; but those with the simplicity and straightforwardness of the child.
The child who has no trouble accepting others as they are, or accepting his or her own self as a person of value.
Jesus means us to learn something about the Kingdom from the child, because unlike children, we have real trouble accepting our acceptance.
Kids have no problem with that at all. They grow up in the blissful assumption that they matter and that everybody loves them. In the early years at least, they have no problems with self-image; in fact, very often the problem is convincing them that they’re not the most important person in the world!
There’s a lovely story about a man who woke up at night in the middle of a fierce thunderstorm and went down to check on his three year old to make sure she wasn’t frightened, because she’d never experienced a storm before.
And when he into her room he found her spreadeagled against the window like a starfish. “What on earth are you doing?” he said. “I’m trying to make myself as big as possible” she said. “I think God’s trying to take my photograph”!
But there’s a truth there that the child gets, but the grown-up misses. We matter to God. We’re his beloved. We’re the one he wants to behold. Not because we’re special but because he is gracious. Not because he thinks we’re perfect, but because we are his children.
“Look at the child” says Jesus, “and learn”. The child accepts everything as gift because he trusts that his parents love him. When will you learn to do the same with your Father in heaven?
And therein lies the sharp edge to this story, because Jesus goes on to say “whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it”.
Now over the years, people have read a great deal into that statement. Some think it’s about humility; others about innocence. But I think they’re wrong. I think it’s about accepting the fact that you – just as you are - are God’s beloved.
The clinical psychologist Dr Frank Lake, did a great deal of work on how human beings develop, and he summed up his findings in what he called the “Cycle of Grace”
The cycle of grace begins with being accepted. When we grow up in a setting where we’re loved and valued, even when we mess up, we learn that we’re acceptable. That knowledge helps us become strong and accept that our lives have significance. And with that confidence as our foundation, we’re able to go on and achieve things in life.
That’s how children develop, or at least should develop.
But of course it doesn’t always work that way, and part of Frank Lake’s great insight was the realisation that in many of us the cycle actually works the other way round.
We crave the acceptance we’ve never had. Maybe we didn’t get it at home or at school. So we throw ourselves into the business of trying to achieve. We hope that achievement will make us feel significant and strong and make us acceptable to other people.
We get caught in a cycle, not of grace, but of works.
How many of us get trapped in the cycle of works, running ourselves in to the ground because we’ve never really heard the voice that tells us that we’re accepted?
The writer Rob Parsons tells the true story of a boy who grew up in the shadow of a very demanding father. On one occasion the boy ran home from school having got the highest marks in the country in a music exam. He got 97%. And he ran in the door shouting “Dad – I came top in my exam. I got 97%”. Do you know what his father said? “So where did you lose the 3%”?
Small wonder he grew up to be a wounded and bitter man after years of that kind of treatment.
Take a look again at that diagram.
Which way round are you living life? The Cycle of Grace or the Cycle of Works? Has your childhood set you on one path over and against the other? It’s worth spending some time thinking that one through.
And then ask yourself, which way round are you living out your faith? Have you realised that the good news of Jesus Christ begins with a gracious God who loves us despite our failings, and wants to see us grow stronger, and find significance and achieve things in his name?
Or are you caught up in the cycle of works, thinking that you have to work your way into the good books of an angry and grudging God.
It’s no accident that Jesus embraced these little children just moments after he’d been having heated debate with the religious leaders, the Pharisees.
Seeing those stern men, so preoccupied with working their way into God’s favour, Jesus welcomed the little children in his arms, and in so doing, deliberately showed us another way, The way of the Kingdom. The way of grace.
Grace, which sees us as we are, fickle and fallen, and yet loves us as we are. Grace which insists that we are God’s beloved, and asks us to begin to live as though that were true.
Have you heard those words today, because they’re for you. Learn from the child. Choose grace over works, and the Kingdom over the World. Accept your acceptance.
Amen and thanks be to God for his word.
You’ve bought all the equipment in readiness; you’ve spoken to knowledgeable friends; you’ve tried to imagine just what it’s going to be like. But you really haven’t a clue.
Until that newborn baby emerges into the world, bloody and screaming, you have no idea what it means to be a parent.
I remember the day when Rhona and I came home from the hospital with Ross. I don’t think I’ve ever driven quite so carefully in all my life! And when we got home I vividly remember us putting his carry cot on the sofa, with him still sound asleep, and then Rhona and I just looking at each other as if to say “what do we do now”?!
Of course, before too long, it becomes very clear exactly what you have to do. Because this little one you’ve brought into the world is utterly dependent on you for all its needs. So for a while, life becomes a cycle of feeding, changing, washing, burping – that’s the baby, not the parents – and maybe even a little sleep if you’re lucky.
Pretty soon you realise that one of the many miracles of parenthood is how something so small can so completely turn your life upside down.
It’s a labour of love. There’s no other way to describe it. But of course, with the labour come immense rewards.
I remember going in to check on Ross one evening in the first few weeks, and when I got through to the bedroom he was awake. And for the first time, really, he looked at me – really looked at me. And those dark eyes just stared at me with a perfectly pure and open gaze. It was like looking down an infinitely deep well.
They say that the eyes are the window of the soul – well I felt in that moment I was seeing right into that wee one’s soul; right into the centre of his being. And somehow - in that beholding of each other - we connected. It was one of the most precious moments of my life.
It’s hard to put into words the bond between a parent and a child without sounding sentimental, and those of us who are parents, and all of us who were children, will know that the course of these relationships doesn’t run smoothly all the time.
But for good or ill, the bond is always there, like an unseen umbilical tying us to the people who nursed us through those early years of life.
And I’m sure that’s why these people in our reading this morning brought their children to Jesus for a blessing.
If you’d stopped them that afternoon and asked them “why are you doing this – why are you bringing your kids to Jesus” I’m not sure they’d have had a ready answer. They’d probably have had to stop and think for a few moments, because they’d have been puzzled by the question.
And the kind of answer they’d have come back with, I think, would have been quite vague. “We just want them to be ok. We want them to be happy – to have a good life”.
And by “a good life” they wouldn’t mean wealth and status and power and influence, necessarily. They’d mean contentment; happiness; love; purpose. Because these are the things a good parent wills for their child, above all else.
Could Jesus guarantee these things? Would a touch of his hand ensure that everything would always work out fine? Maybe they thought so, but I’m not so sure. Fast forward with me to the end of Jesus’ life, and see a weeping mother beholding her son nailed to a cross. Imagine how that must have felt. Whatever God guarantees us, it’s not a trouble-free life.
But what God does guarantee is that faith, a reaching out to him, can change our perspective on life. And today’s story is a good illustration of that.
See how he welcomes these children? See how angry he is that the disciples try to keep them away? In the culture of the day, children were right at the bottom of the pecking order. They were to be seen but not heard. How dare these people bother the Messiah with children, when he was already tired and busy with important things!?
But Jesus rounds on them for thinking like that. “Let them come” he says “Let them come. Don’t you realise that the Kingdom belongs to such as these?”
There’s that word again – the Kingdom. The Kingdom belongs to such as these, says Jesus. Not the powerful and the privileged, not the movers and shakers and manipulators; but those with the simplicity and straightforwardness of the child.
The child who has no trouble accepting others as they are, or accepting his or her own self as a person of value.
Jesus means us to learn something about the Kingdom from the child, because unlike children, we have real trouble accepting our acceptance.
Kids have no problem with that at all. They grow up in the blissful assumption that they matter and that everybody loves them. In the early years at least, they have no problems with self-image; in fact, very often the problem is convincing them that they’re not the most important person in the world!
There’s a lovely story about a man who woke up at night in the middle of a fierce thunderstorm and went down to check on his three year old to make sure she wasn’t frightened, because she’d never experienced a storm before.
And when he into her room he found her spreadeagled against the window like a starfish. “What on earth are you doing?” he said. “I’m trying to make myself as big as possible” she said. “I think God’s trying to take my photograph”!
But there’s a truth there that the child gets, but the grown-up misses. We matter to God. We’re his beloved. We’re the one he wants to behold. Not because we’re special but because he is gracious. Not because he thinks we’re perfect, but because we are his children.
“Look at the child” says Jesus, “and learn”. The child accepts everything as gift because he trusts that his parents love him. When will you learn to do the same with your Father in heaven?
And therein lies the sharp edge to this story, because Jesus goes on to say “whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it”.
Now over the years, people have read a great deal into that statement. Some think it’s about humility; others about innocence. But I think they’re wrong. I think it’s about accepting the fact that you – just as you are - are God’s beloved.
The clinical psychologist Dr Frank Lake, did a great deal of work on how human beings develop, and he summed up his findings in what he called the “Cycle of Grace”
The cycle of grace begins with being accepted. When we grow up in a setting where we’re loved and valued, even when we mess up, we learn that we’re acceptable. That knowledge helps us become strong and accept that our lives have significance. And with that confidence as our foundation, we’re able to go on and achieve things in life.
That’s how children develop, or at least should develop.
But of course it doesn’t always work that way, and part of Frank Lake’s great insight was the realisation that in many of us the cycle actually works the other way round.
We crave the acceptance we’ve never had. Maybe we didn’t get it at home or at school. So we throw ourselves into the business of trying to achieve. We hope that achievement will make us feel significant and strong and make us acceptable to other people.
We get caught in a cycle, not of grace, but of works.
How many of us get trapped in the cycle of works, running ourselves in to the ground because we’ve never really heard the voice that tells us that we’re accepted?
The writer Rob Parsons tells the true story of a boy who grew up in the shadow of a very demanding father. On one occasion the boy ran home from school having got the highest marks in the country in a music exam. He got 97%. And he ran in the door shouting “Dad – I came top in my exam. I got 97%”. Do you know what his father said? “So where did you lose the 3%”?
Small wonder he grew up to be a wounded and bitter man after years of that kind of treatment.
Take a look again at that diagram.
Which way round are you living life? The Cycle of Grace or the Cycle of Works? Has your childhood set you on one path over and against the other? It’s worth spending some time thinking that one through.
And then ask yourself, which way round are you living out your faith? Have you realised that the good news of Jesus Christ begins with a gracious God who loves us despite our failings, and wants to see us grow stronger, and find significance and achieve things in his name?
Or are you caught up in the cycle of works, thinking that you have to work your way into the good books of an angry and grudging God.
It’s no accident that Jesus embraced these little children just moments after he’d been having heated debate with the religious leaders, the Pharisees.
Seeing those stern men, so preoccupied with working their way into God’s favour, Jesus welcomed the little children in his arms, and in so doing, deliberately showed us another way, The way of the Kingdom. The way of grace.
Grace, which sees us as we are, fickle and fallen, and yet loves us as we are. Grace which insists that we are God’s beloved, and asks us to begin to live as though that were true.
Have you heard those words today, because they’re for you. Learn from the child. Choose grace over works, and the Kingdom over the World. Accept your acceptance.
Amen and thanks be to God for his word.
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