Matthew 18:1-7 PHILLIPS It was at this time that the disciples came to Jesus with the question, “Who is really greatest in the kingdom of Heaven?” 2-4 Jesus called a little child to his side and set him on his feet in the middle of them all. “Believe me,” he said, “unless you change your whole outlook and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven. It is the man who can be as humble as this little child who is greatest in the kingdom of Heaven. 5-7 “Anyone who welcomes one child like this for my sake is welcoming me. But if anyone leads astray one of these little children who believe in me he would be better off thrown into the depths of the sea with a mill-stone hung round his neck! Alas for the world with its pitfalls! In the nature of things there must be pitfalls. yet alas for the man who is responsible for them!
Observation
Jesus’ disciples must have been taken aback by this answer. One only has to read the book of Leviticus to know that Jewish religious practice was complicated and exacting; over the years between Abraham and Jesus, legalistic interpretations of The Law by generations of religious leaders added rules and practices that made it even more difficult for anyone to understand or comply. This complex religious structure meant to create human rankings in God’s sight based on performance and heritage – essentially:
(1) high ranking – the religious elite (privileged experts) who specialized in the study, practice and enforcement of the myriad rules and practices of the complex religious structure, standing as God’s judges of religious acceptability and performance (such as the Chief Priest and the Sadducees and Pharisees of the Sanhedrin);
(2) lower ranking – those with a heart to honor God, who did their best but who, feeling the heavy burden and impossibility of full compliance with the rules and required practices, relied on the judgment of those higher ranking to determine the appropriate sacrifice for the infraction and appropriate method of offering it to receive forgiveness. This included sincere ones who did their best to recite all the prayers and follow the rules, however imperfectly, without hope of truly pleasing God; and
(3) lowest ranking – those who gave up trying to comply because it was just too complicated or they believed they were too much of a stench in God’s nostrils (e.g., lepers, prostitutes, etc.).
With this teaching, Jesus is turning His disciples’ understanding on its head, offering a completely counter cultural and seemingly heretical teaching. “Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom.” What Jesus taught required the disciples to abandon the past understanding of the Abrahamic covenant (based on centuries of added religious traditions, rules and teaching). He shattered the idea of a God too holy to approach and in its place asked then to embrace a new covenant of a Father full of redemptive grace offering a personal relationship with God through Jesus the Messiah. Mind boggling when I think of what courage, conviction, persecution, and personal cost it must have required for them to make this choice ….
Impact on Me
I am a simple person. This teaching of Jesus resonates with my personal understanding of and experience with the heart of our God to embrace and provide eternal life for whosoever will come. Certainly, there are tenets of faith that are true, eternal and immutable that guide us in following, loving, and serving God well. Thankfully, through the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross, we have access to repentance which leads to redemption, rescue, and restoration when we either fall into sin or become another’s pitfall in sin. However, despite wanting to keep my relationship with God simple, just as in the time of Jesus, I can become intimidated by the acceptable rules and practices of my culture or the larger religious community, judging myself as inadequate or guilty in God’s sight because I am not performing up to a standard set by men or my own perfectionism.
When I do this, I am presuming to set the rules for the limits of God’s grace and my relationship Him, creating my own standards for what is acceptable, denying the completeness of the work of the Cross, and doubting that the love and grace of Father God is sufficient for me – essentially, recreating God into an idol made by my hands in my lesser image, by my expectations, controlling the relationship by what I will allow him to be for me. Who do I think I am?! Am I so foolish?! Why would I ever doubt the sufficiency of the Cross, the love and grace of Father God?! I find that I fall into this trap when I see myself as the ruler of my own fate (god of my own life?) – adult, experienced, learned, “wise in my own eyes” – and begin to hold my performance up for comparison to another’s. May I always remember that I do not serve a performance-based God.
Devotion
Father God, full of mercy and love, Redeemer, I worship You. I want to come as a child to You again, in Christ full of the wonder of You and Your Love, completely submitted to Your care, often sitting at Your feet, a frequent requester of Your wisdom, and willing to trust You to be all I need. By Your Holy Spirit, search me for every barrier of complication, every standard that does not honor Your grace, love, and sacrifice, every offensive presumption, every sinful way; I come heartbroken to repent of all these and ask that You would forgive me and lead me in becoming more childlike, more dependent, more trusting in my relationship with You. Because I know You love me past all understanding, I know that You hear me and will work in me to make it so. I commit to seek to please only You. In Jesus’ name, I pray.
Pressing On In His Footsteps 