"Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it" (10:15). Looking at this rich and evocative text from Mark's Gospel, one is reminded that children serve as poignant examples of those for whom the rule of God is intended, but also their manner of receiving it becomes the model for adults. The weight of "…whoever does not receive…" falls clearly on the verb "receive."
As I ranged over the many facets concerning the notion of "receiving" I was reminded of my college roommate, now the head of the English Department of a college in the south and published mystery writer. I recalled his difficulty with Chemistry 801a during our Freshman year at the University of Texas at Austin. For some reason, he found himself unable to adapt his considerable intelligence in the proper way to get his grade level above a low C, even though he worked quite hard in the course. What galled him especially about this was that his lab partner, a coed who was not his intellectual equal, was scoring A's.
He began to obsess on the problem. He couldn't understand how this girl, who was not ordinarily a better than average student, could keep beating him in chemistry. His wounded pride was killing him.
Then one day, late into the fall term, we met after class (I was in a different section). His eyes were red and it was clear that he was on the verge of tears. (You have to understand that this was in the early 1960's before it was acceptable for men to shed tears). He showed me the just-returned chemistry exam…On the front of the "blue book" was a capital "A" in red followed by the simple phrase: "good work, Mr. Crider."
I realized that the tears welling up in his eyes were tears of relief. He had finally cracked the system. He had finally found out how to do well in chemistry.
What was the secret?
The secret, as he later explained over coffee to me, was that he had learned to follow the example of his lab partner.
After observing her for some time, he realized the reason for her success: she never questioned the lab instructor about anything, but followed his simple, step-by-step instructions for working through the assigned experiments.
The same was true when she worked through her lesson plan: she followed the system without trying to expand on it or get ahead of it..
He discovered that Chemistry 801a was a step-by-step discipline. Anyone who followed the plan conscientiously, and without challenging it with theories of their own, would eventually arrive at the correct answers.
But my dear friend and roommate, whose mind was quick, restless, and theoretical, was used to skipping steps along the way and making leaps to what seemed to be, to him, logical conclusions were off the mark. He didn't have the basis of knowledge from which to make them.
Chemistry , as a way of thought, was too foreign to his own experience for him to theorize about it. He simply had to learn it the slow way, as his lab partner was content to do, step by step. This required a certain humility, and actually, an appreciation for obedience, in that he had to follow the instructions he was given without questioning them.
Our spirituality is something like this. We can have a brilliant theory, or theology, going for us, but this, in itself, will get us nowhere. Because our theories about God and spiritually can be like my roommate's attitude toward chemistry…incomplete and based on the wrong kinds of experience.
We have to learn spirituality; I continue to learn about spirituality, the way my college roommate finally learned chemistry…by doing precisely what we are told to do by our instructor, and trusting that the instructor is showing us the steps by which we will finally arrive at the goal. Who might that instructor be? For me the instructor is a Presbyterian layperson in Fairfield County. For some of you, members of this congregation, the instructor might have been your former pastor. For others of you, the instructor might be a Stephen Minister. Still others may be content for now with the more general instruction offered in the study of the Psalms, our summer Adult Education offering.
The lab partner had that essential child-like quality that Jesus is talking about in the passage from Mark's Gospel. She had that quality of being willing to "receive" from her instructor. When my roommate decided he'd better imitate her example, he was, in his own way, "becoming like a child again". He had pushed his own ego out of the way enough to allow himself to do this
The innocence of a child isn't the same a "goodness." We all know that children are generally no more "good" than adults are. They can be just as selfish, aggressive, and hostile. On an afternoon several weeks before I moved from Darien to West Hartford, I was standing with a friend watching a gaggle of young children playing in the Noroton Presbyterian Church play yard. Several of the three-somethings were jumping off one of the boxes into the sand. I thought to myself that this activity would probably end with one child in distress. I didn't have long to wait, as one blond-headed kid finally couldn't stand it and pushed another blond-headed kid off the box. I don't think that our Lord meant that children, beautiful as they are, are always pristine in their actions.
What I do think he meant is that children haven't had enough life experience to become jaded and suspicious; they can be taught things. Only people who have trust left in them can learn. This is because learning in a form of acceptance.
So when Jesus said to his followers, "You have to be like these children if you want to enter the Kingdom," he was saying something very like, "If you want to learn chemistry, you're going to have to surrender you own judgement long enough to let someone teach you the basics."
In childhood Jesus found the perfect analogy for membership in the kingdom of God. "Look at this child in my arms," he says, "to such belongs the kingdom." They already have the spirit of its citizens. The context, especially the phrase "receive the kingdom," makes clear what the characteristics are which distinguish those who truly enter it. The marks of the child which are stressed are dependence and receptivity. Without these no one can enter. With them one is already a member. Again we note that the qualities of mind frequently cited in discussion of this passage--innocence and humility--are not indicated here. Innocence and humility do appear in children, but they are not an unfailing mark. Every parent knows that the "innocence of childhood" is often a beautiful myth.
Yet the child is dependent. He/She looks to the parent for all that is received. What is received is a gift. So, Jesus says, must be the mind and spirit of one who receives the kingdom of God. This looks very simple, but it goes deep and is far-reaching. One cannot receive the kingdom if pride and self-righteousness are in the mind and heart. The Pharisees with their self-conscious goodness could not receive it. No one can receive it with arms thrown wide whose religion has any trace of the "Look at me, I did it" spirit. Eudora Weltey, a southern writer, describes in one of her short stories about a woman who had "…that mean Baptist look." The sense of superiority, hardness, lack of sympathy, qualities which have often marked religious people, keeps one from receiving the kingdom at all. That is why this gospel story, so beautiful and touching, universally acclaimed as one of the loveliest stories in the New Testament, is also in its implications one of the most challenging and disturbing. It was an invitation to children. It was also a rebuke to pride and self-righteousness.
When we approach the Lord's Table, as part of our Lord's kingdom, are we able to come as children? Are we able to come as children from as many different emotional, psychological and spiritual places as there are persons in this sanctuary? Are we able to come as children, trusting the words to the Hebrews: "Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son…." That Son welcomes His children to His table.