A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. The disciples came up to Jesus with this question. Who is of greatest importance in the kingdom of God? Jesus called a little child over, and stood the child in their midst and said to them, to the disciples, I assure you, unless you change and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of God. Whoever makes himself lowly, becoming like a child, like this child, is of greatest importance in that heavenly reign.
Whoever welcomes one such child for my sake welcomes me. See that you never despise one of these little ones. I assure you, they're angels in heaven constantly behold my heavenly father's face. Now, what is what do you think about this? A man owns a 100 sheep, and one of them, one of the 100, wanders off.
Will the shepherd not leave the 99 out on the hills and go in search of the stray, the lost, the wandering sheep. And then if he finds it, believe me, he is happier about this one, than about the 99 that did not wander away. Just so, it is no part of your heavenly father's plan that a single one of these little ones shall ever come to grief. And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise to you, lord Jesus Christ.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. Well, when you read and hear, and I hope listen to these words of our lord about little children, I would guess you have because you probably most of you have more experience with these darlings than I've had. Have mixed feelings about this. This is a pretty When you You know, all this sounds so lovely, be like a little child, know, and you come to me, I'm your father.
This is also nice. But it's completely fiction. Completely fiction. Now what kind of a child is our Lord talking about here? 12 years old, 10 years old, three years old, two years old, how old?
Because you know how darling they can be at all these ages. What's a little child? A little child can be a brat. We know that even if we love them, and they can be angels. What is our Lord telling us here?
And notice it ends up with a terrific sentence. What happens if you despise one of these kids? Despise means to look down upon. Well, as I've often said from this pulpit, your guess is as good as mine. You've listened to the words of our lord.
I've read them, and I think I remember what I read. I will for the next ten minutes anyway. What is our Lord telling us here? You see, the difficulty with parables is to know what they mean. The danger of a parable is to get lost in the parable.
Because a parable, if it's a good one, is targeted on one target. If any of you have ever taken up the glorious sport of shooting revolvers, or rifles, or arrows, Have you ever tried trying to hit two targets with the same bullet or the same arrow? That reminds me of a cartoon in the New Yorker some years ago which has become famous. It shows a ski slope with a tree on it, and the ski marks are on either side of the tree. Now, so when our Lord uses a parable he's using it to teach.
Notice Christ was a teacher. Just remember that. Rabbi means teacher. And anyone who pretends to be a follower of Christ has got to be a teacher. And our Lord is teaching us.
He's using parables. He's using and many of them are very commonplace. But he's using them to teach. Now the problem and the difficulty is to know what is he teaching. It's not always easy.
Take that parable of the of the sower going out to sow. It's a mixed up thing. Today, what do you make of this? What is our Lord telling us? Be as silly as a child?
To be as totally dependent as a baby nursing at his mother's breast? To be as rebellious as a teenager? What is our what is this child our Lord's talking about? In what mood is this child when our Lord brings him over? And notice we're talking about The Orient in about the year thirty AD.
The Orient, where the concept of a child is a little different from the concept of a child USA 1986. So what is our Lord telling us here? Well, I here's one thing I'll say as a first principle, good metaphysician. Our Lord was not an easy man. Our Lord never, never presented an easy doctrine.
In many ways, he never presented an attractive doctrine. I say that with absolute sincerity. What's attractive about telling me I have to lose my life and then I'll save it? What's attractive about that? What's attractive about telling me if I wanna be your my if you wanna be my follower, said Jesus.
And this is the only condition he laid down. If you wanna be my follower, take up your cross daily and follow me, and look where it got him. Isn't that smooth and easy and and comfortable and so peaceful to look at the cross of Jesus Christ and say, if I don't follow him, I'm not his follower. What comfort is there in that? It's repulsive.
Of course it is. And let's face it. I remember a few years ago, an artist happened to cross the Atlantic with her. She brought out a series of holy pictures, and oh, people threw up their arms. They were disgusting, repulsive, because it showed a horrible Christ on a horrible cross.
What else is the cross but horrible? The Thursday of this week, you will celebrate the feast of of Colby, the Franciscan priest who in house fits, gave this completely freely without any compulsion whatsoever. When because a man had escaped from the prison, the commander ordered a number of prisoners selected at random to be thrown into a cell, and to be starved to death. No water and no food. One man was chosen, and Colby stepped out of the ranks and asked if he could take the man's place.
You'll celebrate his feast Thursday, and he's a martyr. What was attractive about being led, stripped of your clothes, thrown into an underground cell, and left lying there till you died of thirst and hunger? What's what's so beautiful about that? It's repulsive. Who wants it?
Following Jesus Christ is nothing soft. It's not being a cuddly baby. It's being an adult who follows Jesus, follows his cross. As I've said many times, whether you like it or not you'll have your share of crosses. And that's what our our Lord never said that.
Plenty of philosophers in the Greek and the Roman cultures have been magnificent men. The stoics to just have mentioned one. Look at look at Socrates, they were great and good men. And but so that Christ never said that that there was anything so glorious about suffering. Oh, no.
Christ was no saddest, and he certainly wasn't a masochist. As a matter of fact, he didn't know too much about Freud. At least he didn't tell us much about it. What our Lord said, take up take up your cross daily and follow me. That's the difference between a pagan and a Christian.
So what is our Lord telling us when he tells us, behave like a a child. Another place he says, look, be as wise as serpents. Look at the look at the men and the women of the world, how they know how to manipulate their affairs to to accumulate wealth. Now be as smart as at least be as smart as those dummies are. Because our Lord told us how absurd and foolish it is to accumulate wealth.
But he admires and holds up as an example. The brains, the intelligence, the smartness of the people who are worldly smart. And he says, be ye like them. Don't be a bunch of dummies. That's what Christ said.
And today he's telling us to be like a little child. No, not the child, but a little child. And there's no problem with the translation here, because it's just as ambiguous in the Greek. So what do we make of this? What is our Lord telling us?
Take your pick. My little suggestion is this, confidence. Confidence. In the Reader's Digest, recently maybe a month or so ago, anything within the last year is sort of recent. There's a story in there of a little girl who was out on a houseboat with her father.
You all know what a houseboat is. And they were on a river someplace, recently. And she was up in the bow with a crab net, picking up debris as they went along to push it away from the boat. However, she picked up a little something too heavy. She's holding the crab net by the handle, and you know what a lever that was, so she toppled over.
And she was caught underneath the pontoons of the houseboat. Well, she was saved. Her father saved her after a terrible ordeal. And somebody asked her, Were you afraid? And the little girl said, No, wasn't afraid.
I knew my daddy would save me. That is I she noticed the confidence that that little girl had in her father. I knew my daddy would save me. Now I have as I say, you've listened to our lord's words. You take from them what you wish.
But there's, I think, one indisputable. There are plenty of others. I'm I'm just saying this is the one I sort of think of this morning. Tomorrow I may think of another one. But to me, to this morning, it is that spirit of confidence.
Daddy, I know daddy will save me. You hear so much today about self confidence. Well, as Chesterton says, there's one thing we shouldn't have is self confidence. As he, of course, he's good at that kind of thing. And he's right, of course.
Why have what reason have we to think we can be self confident? What have we to offer? Well, in a sense, we have a lot to offer. And our lord expects us to be and to offer a lot. He doesn't expect us to be helpless babies.
On the other hand, he's telling us something today in this parable, and it might well be he said, look, have the confidence of a little child. I know my daddy will save me. And we begin the lord's prayer with our father. In the name of the father, and the son, and holy spirit. Amen.