No Child Left Behind

Matthew 18:1-10

At that time, Jesus’ students approached him and asked, “Who gets to be the boss in God’s coming kingdom?” He called over a small child and put him right in the middle of them. He said, “Pay attention now. Unless you become completely transformed and become like a child, you won’t even get through the front door of God’s kingdom. The one who will be boss is the one who will be socially on the level of this toddler. And if you welcome and show hospitality to a child like this, then you are welcoming me. But whoever traps one of the insignificant ones who believe in me, it would be better for him to strap himself to the bottom of the Queen Mary and sink it than what he would suffer as punishment. The world is a terrible place because of traps that make you sin! Yes, it is true, traps are inevitable—but how awful to be the agent of the trap! So if something deeply important to you—as important as one of your limbs!—causes you to stray away from God, get rid of it! It is better for you to be without one of your limbs, but alive, than to be whole but in hell. And if whatever you see causes you to stray away from God, get rid of it! It is better to be half blind but alive than to see everything but end up in hell. And be very careful that you do not disrespect one of my insignificant disciples—for they have a line directly to the throne of God!

Being Childish

We’ve been taught from children not to be childish. Of course, when you’re a kid, it’s hard NOT to be childish. Being childish just comes naturally. But we have all grown out of that. Just as Paul said, “When I was a kid, I acted childish, but now that I’m grown up, I’ve matured out of childish things.” Now Jesus gives us a role-reversal. He is saying that if we are REALLY going to grow up (in Him) then we need to be childish.

This doesn’t make much sense, really. I mean, being childish is a bad thing, sometimes. Does Jesus want us to throw tantrums? Does he want us to be socially inept? Does he want us to have our meat cut for us? And there are some things about being childish that we CAN’T be: It is too late for us to be innocent. Heck, we know when we’re doing wrong (most of the time) and we have all sinned on purpose. Can’t turn back the clock on that one. We can’t really be any shorter than we are—unless we cut off our legs (maybe that’s what Jesus was talking about!)

So what does it mean to be childish? We have to see children as they were seen in Jesus day. When you are a kid, what is probably the number one complaint? That you aren’t listened to, and that you have to do what the grown ups tell you to do. Frankly, it’s a distinctly unfair system. It is no surprise that one of the main words for a slave in ancient Greek is “child”. Because slaves and children are treated basically alike! They are told what to do and their opinion doesn’t really count for much. In the ancient world, children were pretty much ignored and if they did impinge themselves on the consciousness of an adult, then they were usually beaten. That’s what it was like for children until the last hundred years or so!

Being the Anawim

So what does this mean for the Christian? We need to remember the question that Jesus’ disciples raised—“Who gets to be boss? Who’s the most important?” Jesus’ answer is this—the one who is most important in God’s future utopia is the one who was least important on earth. But even more than this, Jesus says, you can’t even get into God’s kingdom unless you set aside the things that make you important, the things that make you significant, and basically become a child, a nobody, a person who only exists to be ignored.

To put it in more basic language, Jesus wants—no, demands—that everyone who is a disciple be someone who makes himself insignificant, unimportant, an outcast, a person whom everyone else shakes their head at. I won’t get into detail here, but there are only a few ways that Jesus specifically mentions that would make a disciple an outcast. First of all, a disciple has to be repentant, setting aside all the sins that the world considers important. Secondly, Jesus says that a disciple has to sacrifice—their family, their friends, their inheritance, their possessions and their economic status. Lastly, Jesus says that the disciple must be an evangelist, which makes them persecuted. (But we’ll talk about all that later)

Traps

In the midst of this discussion, Jesus talks about “traps”. Most translations use the word “offense” or the phrase “cause to sin”, but the Greek word, skandalon (from which we get the word “scandal”) literally means a trap that one might set for an animal or a person. It is something used to trip someone up. What kind of traps is Jesus talking about? It means anything one might do to draw one away from God. It could be causing to sin, but not only that. If we discourage someone from trusting in God, then we are setting a trap (John 6:61). If we are doing something that isn’t a sin to us, but it is a sin to someone we are doing it in front of, then we are setting a trap for them (I Corinthians 8:13). If we act in a way that is hypocritical to our life before God, we are setting a trap for anyone who sees us doing it. (II Samuel 12:14)

And traps are important to avoid, as well as important to avoid setting. If we fall into a trap, distance ourselves from God in our trust, our belief or our actions, then we are endangering our very lives for all eternity. If we are vulnerable to a trap, we need to do everything we can do to avoid it. If that trap is a person who is begin to convince us to stray from God, we need to avoid him or her. If that trap is an entertainment that is destroying our soul we need to cut it out of our lives. Even if that trap is something that is so dear to us that we cannot imagine doing without it, we must do so for God’s sake, for our sake.

But most importantly, we must avoid setting traps. If our lives are at stake if we fall into a trap, it is nothing compared to those who set traps. Those who set traps, who cause others to fall away from God by their speech or action, have the very worst punishments in store for them. The reason for this is because setting traps is the work of Satan, the accuser, the deceiver of the brethren. And so anyone who does the work of Satan—tempting, causing others to fall away from God—will be given the punishment of Satan, the worst punishment possible for all eternity.

The Brothers Minor

But there is one other trap we haven’t mentioned, a difficulty we put in front of people seeking God, that Jesus is specifically pointing out in this passage. Like bookends around the verses about traps, Jesus speaks about his “little ones” or “insignificant ones”.

In the book of Mark, this passage is connected to an event that happened to Jesus. Jesus’ disciples noticed that there was someone who wasn’t part of the group of “official” disciples doing a miracle in Jesus’ name. They stopped him, and Jesus said, “No, don’t!” He explained that even though that person didn’t have the Jesus’ Disciples Membership Card, that he was just as important for the kingdom.

This is the kind of person Jesus calls the “little ones”. The little ones are those who are in the church, but they are unimportant even in the eyes of the church. Perhaps they dress differently, act differently, are uneducated, are socially awkward, perhaps even offensive in some way. They aren’t on any church board and they never will be.

Jesus’ point about mentioning these “brothers minor” (which is the name Francis gave to his insignificant troupe of beggars for Christ) is to let everyone else know that we need to go out of our way to accept these folks. Jesus says that to welcome them and give them hospitality (food, drink, a place to stay the night) is to welcome Him. To love them is to love Him.

But more than that, to not welcome them is to set a trap for them. If we reject these outcast Christians, then we are causing them to drift away from God. If we encourage them to find another place to worship, we encourage them to think that all Christians reject them. To push people away from the church is to set a trap for them. Perhaps, at times, we need to train people, to help them fit it, or to just accept them as they are. But if we push them away from God’s people, in any way, then we are doing Satan’s work, and we will be judged for it.

Be insignificant. Welcome the insignificant.