Becoming Like a Child
Photo by Juan Pablo Rodriguez
“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3 NRSV).
Growing up, I never really liked being a kid. I was never taken with the degree of seriousness that I not-so-secretly coveted. I craved the time when I could make decisions that might truly matter. I wanted to feel significant.
Somewhat similarly, the first-century Mediterranean world was intensely concerned about questions of social status and the accrual of public honor—that is, the degree of importance or prestige a person could rightfully claim for him or herself. It is this context in which Jesus instructs his disciples that entrance into God’s kingdom entails forsaking these social prizes—at least in terms of how they were normally understood.
We should initially observe here that Jesus is not suggesting would-be citizens of God’s kingdom must first appropriate a so-called “child-like faith” or “blind trust.” To the contrary, he quite consistently insists upon a fully informed and mature commitment to him and his teaching, whereby his followers are fully aware of the implications in doing so (see, for example, Luke 14:26–33). So, if not appropriating this sort of disposition, what exactly does Jesus mean?
As not terribly distinct from the contemporary West, a child in the ancient Mediterranean world generally possessed low status in the social hierarchy. This would be especially the case if the child in question was among the peasant class of a subjugated people group, such as were Palestinian Jews (“Palestine” being the name assigned to the land of Israel by the Roman Empire). When Jesus refers to becoming like a child, this is who he has in view: the lowest of the low.
Importantly, this self-imposed social demotion for which Jesus is calling presupposes an ordinarily high regard for one’s own personhood. Love and respect for one’s self are good things and the necessary starting point for his admonition.
While it may be a popular pious sentiment, Jesus is not, then, calling his followers to abase themselves for its own sake. And he is certainly not suggesting that there is something inherently wrong with the natural desire to be valued and respected. Indeed, a total denial of one’s own self-interest and desire only amounts to a denial of a good part of our God-given human nature.
Instead, the goal that Jesus sets before his disciples is to radically rethink how one may truly fulfill the innate yearning to matter. Jesus flips the cultural script: the social status and public honor his followers may achieve in God’s kingdom is paradoxically gained by humbling themselves to such an extent that their concern for God’s approval and loving purposes in the world supersedes all other considerations.
In other words, for Jesus, your own sense of worth and esteem is to come primarily from your relationship with God and participation in God’s redemptive program. You are valued because God loves you. You may accrue honor by properly responding to this love, which is foremost done through loving your neighbor as yourself.
Exercising this love will often enough require forfeiting your rights and privileges properly due you, even perhaps the right to self-determination. It will mean embracing vulnerability. Yes, it will ultimately mean becoming like a child.
Of course, Jesus goes on to tell his disciples that they will someday sit on thrones and be given great authority (Matthew 19:28). But like the King himself who gave everything he had in order to save the world, those who wish to be “first” must first be willing to come last.