Becoming “As a Child”: The Lesson After

Mark 10:17-31

Jesus said, “Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it” (Mark 10:15). Those are words from Scripture that we would expect to hear in the gospel lesson for this morning’s Children’s Sabbath and Family Dedication. But it turns out that the gospel lesson for this morning in churches all around the world is the passage right after Jesus says those ideal words for Children’s Sabbath. Immediately after that child-friendly saying, the Jesus of Mark’s gospel forges ahead to talk about commandments and wealth and leaving your family. So down through the history of interpretation of Mark 10, we preachers and teachers have created a great divide between verses 13-16 in which Jesus talks about children and the next 15 verses that are this morning’s gospel lesson in the Revised Common Lectionary.

But several weeks ago, as I looked at Mark 10 in frustration that the passage for our observance of Children’s Sabbath did not include the verses before this morning’s lectionary passage, I saw something I had never seen before in verses 17-31. Verse 20: “I have kept all these things since my youth.” Hmm. Verse 24: “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God.” Hmm. Verse 29: Brothers and sisters and mother and father and children.” Hmm. “Youth . . . children . . . and children.” What if we’ve had it wrong all these years? What if it turns out that the gospel of Mark intends for all those verses to be read together—verses 13-31—without the great divide we have imposed on them in the history of interpretation? “From my youth” . . . “children, how hard it is” . . . “brothers and sisters, mother and father and children.” This morning I want us to consider what we could learn from looking at this morning’s gospel lesson in verses 17-31 as a continuation—an explanation and explication—of the sayings of Jesus in verses 13-16 about how we must become as children to enter the kingdom of God.

One thing we know about children—among many thing that we know about children—is that they grow and they learn. They grow and they learn. And the hard saying of Jesus in Mark 10:17-22 that follows the words about the model that children are for us is a saying about learning and growing. We usually read verses 17-22 as a lesson about wealth and priorities, but what if the wealth and priorities of the man who came to Jesus with a question about eternal life are only the “presenting problem,” only the symptoms or surface issues that disguise the deeper and underlying reason why he just doesn’t get what Jesus is saying about the kingdom of God?

The question of “eternal life” is a question of ultimate value. Among all the things that matter, what matters the very most? Jesus’ answer to the man’s question was not what the man expected to hear or wanted to hear, because it disrupted his understanding and his expectations. It required him to learn and grow into a new perspective, a perspective beyond what he had already learned.

Years ago, I had a friend who was a medical professional, a specialist whose expertise was recognized all over the country. There was a curious thing about him, though. When we sat down and talked about the Bible or theology, he insisted—and he actually put it this way once—that he didn’t want to hear anything from me or anyone else that he hadn’t learned in sixth-grade Sunday school. Well, sixth-grade Sunday school is that important. It is that good. It is that right, but I never could figure out how this man who was an expert in science and medicine was not willing to let his understanding of science be sixth grade stuff or his practice of medicine be sixth grade stuff, but he insisted that he should stop learning and growing beyond the sixth grade when it came to his faith.

In verses 17-22, the man says, “I learned all that stuff when I was a child, Lord!” And Jesus says, “Yes you did, but now you have another thing to learn.” There’s always another thing to learn, isn’t there? There’s always one more thing, have you noticed? How many times in your life have you arrived at to that “one-more-thing moment”? The diagnosis, the police officer at the door, the separation and divorce, the corporate bankruptcy, the job loss. When’s the last time you experienced a one-more-thing moment? Yesterday, last week, today? Regardless of our age or station in life, there is always “one more thing” we have to learn, one more place we have to grow. Jesus said to the man, “Yes, you’re right in all that you learned before, but now there’s another lesson that you need to learn.” But the man went away sad, not only because of his wealth that he could not part with, but because of the underlying issue that he was unable or unwilling to learn and grow, to adapt to a new perspective and a new understanding of his wealth and his faith and his practice. Unless you become as a child, learning and growing over and over again, you will never get the kingdom of God. Become as a child. Keep learning and growing.

In the second episode in the passage in verses 23-27, the “become-as-a-child” lesson builds on the first lesson. Jesus says that it is so very hard for a person who is so heavily invested in what he or she already knows or has acquired to “get it,” the kingdom of God, that is. We are taught from an early age to acquire: to acquire knowledge, to acquire wisdom, to acquire skills, to acquire money, to acquire things. And somewhere along the line in all our acquisitions we become so invested in what we have acquired that we become bloated and engorged. We become big as camels. We become complacent and entrenched in what we have acquired instead of invested in the One who has given it all to us as a gift, even as a gift acquired through our own hard work.

You see, the reason the disciples were perplexed and amazed at Jesus’ words that it is harder for a wealthy person to enter the kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle is that their theology (as often our theology) presupposed that being wealthy meant that you had been blessed by God. They understood the acquisition of knowledge and wisdom and wealth to be a blessing from God. “How can someone who has acquired all of this by the gift of God not be in the kingdom?” the disciples justifiably ask. In other words, “Who can be saved?” they ask. Salvation comes from God alone, says Jesus, not from us or anything we have acquired. In fact, the things that we have acquired, even our theology, our faith and our practice, can incapacitate us when we become more invested in them than in God. We become bloated and big as a camel, unable to pass through, unable to be flexible and graceful as a thread to go through the eye of a needle.

Look at the choir loft this morning. Do you see the flexibility up here among all these children in the choir loft this morning? Have you been noticing all the thread-like motion going on all morning? No camels here. Extraordinary flexibility. Unless you become flexible and graceful . . . you will never enter the kingdom of God. You have to be able to wiggle. Wiggle more! Get unstuck. Be flexible and graceful as a thread that can go through the eye of a needle. You need to learn to wiggle more, because life as God has given it to us takes a great deal of flexibility and adaptability and a great deal of grace and wiggling to make it through. Become as a child. Grow and learn and wiggle as a child does.

And then finally, as a child does, you must move on. You must to move on. Sometimes as we bring our children up, we wish we could hold onto them as children forever. But one thing we know about children is that they learn and grow and up and leave. That's what children do. Children grow into recognizing that the family that nurtured them and in which they grew and learned and loved and were loved is a place from which they must move on. But somewhere along the way in adulthood we forget what we knew as children, and we get stuck. We stop moving on as we learned to do as children. We become complacent and entrenched. But at every age and every station, the kingdom of God is always about moving on, about growing into leaving behind what you have been invested in previously. Jesus says, “Unless you’re willing to move on, you will never enter the kingdom of God.” Unless you are willing to move on, as our children grow and learn to move on.

Let the children come to me, said Jesus, because the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Unless you become as a child is, you won’t ever get it: always learning and growing, being flexible and graceful, and moving on over and over again. Thanks be to God for children who lead us and teach us to learn and grow and wiggle and move on to enter the kingdom of God!

This material is Copyrighted © 2009 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeffrogers110@bellsouth.net.