Palm Sunday sermon on children

Here's the full text of the sermon I preached this morning (Palm Sunday, 1st April 2007). My text was Matthew 16 - 21 (!) and the subject was children and the kingdom.

Introduction

So, the children have left us. They have gone to their activities, while we’re going to stay in here and get on with the proper business of worshipping God. They don’t understand the things that we understand. They can’t participate in the same way we do. So we have removed them – we have rejected them – from the main worship experience … with the best of intentions. We want to teach them about worshipping God, so that when they are old enough to leave the Sunday School and join us adult worshippers, they will understand what is going on.

Except that is not what will happen. Because as soon as they are old enough to leave the Sunday School, in here is the last place we will see them.

I am absolutely serious. The English Church Attendance Survey of 1998 pointed to 1,000 under 15s leaving the church in England every week. Do you know what? We may be providing such a poor experience of church for our youngsters that by the time children reach the age of 10 (the most common leaving age) they are desperate to escape.

So, yes, the children have left us. But let me suggest that they – and maybe more significantly we – are poorer because of it.

I want to take you for a walk this morning. We are going to follow Jesus – take a pilgrimage – from Mount Hermon to Mount Zion. From Caesarea Philippi to Jerusalem. From the very north of the area in which Jesus ministered to near the south. From a centre of pagan worship to the heart of Jewish celebration and sacrifice. From Matthew chapter 16 to Matthew chapter 21.

It’s difficult to keep track of Jesus’ life story when we focus on single verses or short passages of Scripture. And it’s easy to miss the trends, or links, or themes that run through the story when we read the Bible that way in Church. So, this morning we are going to be thinking about six whole chapters. Don’t worry, I’m not going to read all 200 verses. But I am going to be pulling out some themes that we would almost certainly miss if we didn’t look at them all together.

Caesarea Philippi is (was) on the slopes of Mount Hermon, North of the Sea of Galilee, not far from present-day Damascus. And it is in Caesarea Philippi that Jesus’ ministry gains a new urgency and a new focus. Yes, Jesus is still announcing and revealing the Kingdom of Heaven. But the unforgettable truth of Peter’s declaration: “You (Jesus) are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,” marks – quite literally – a new direction for Jesus. He turns south, heading for the place where a cross awaits Him.

Things, of course, are different now. Jesus’ followers, at last, have realised who He is. And, at last, Jesus can begin to explain to them what is going to happen to Him in the not too distant future. He shares with His disciples the heart of the Gospel: that He, the Christ, must suffer and be killed before being raised to life; and that God’s Kingdom is completely and utterly different to the kingdoms on earth.

Peter’s unforgettable declaration is confirmed on the top of Mount Hermon – the Mount of Transfiguration. A stunning spiritual high point, that is immediately followed by what must have been, for Jesus’ disciples, the lowest humiliation yet. While Jesus and Peter and James and John were up the mountain, the rest of His followers had been busy attempting to exorcise (that’s exorcise spelt with an ‘o’ – nothing like exercising a dog) … they had unsuccessfully (it has to be said) attempting to exorcise … a small child.

One of the themes – perhaps the main theme – running through this climactic period in the ministry of Jesus is children and childhood. Every that Jesus says from here on in – everything that happens to Him – is compared and contrasted with childlikeness.

1. Faith and Prayer

In Matthew 17.14, the father of the child brings his son to Jesus. And in the shadow of the snow-capped peak, Jesus heals the boy. Have you ever stopped to think about just how many of Jesus’ healing miracles involve children? Our journey – our pilgrimage – begins with Jesus’ love, His compassion, His healing care, for a small child. (And yet we have sent ours away.)

The disciples, who hadn’t been able to do it themselves, ask Jesus why they couldn’t rebuke and drive out the demon. And Jesus told them (Matthew 17.20) it was because of their lack of faith. Mark, when he records the same story, puts the disciples’ failure down to a lack of prayer (Mark 9.29). Faith and prayer. Prayer and faith.

2. Become like Children

Having showed His followers – through the healing of the boy with epilepsy – the overwhelming importance of prayer and faith. Jesus heads south, and arrives at Capernaum, on the shores of Lake Galilee. Peter’s home was here, and much of Jesus’ ministry took place in and around this town.

And it is at this point in our story, we find the disciples arguing. And they are arguing about greatness. Even after the Sermon on the Mount, in which their categories must have been flipped on their heads and everything was turned upside down, they were arguing about greatness. Even after Jesus had blessed the poor, the hungry, and the persecuted, the disciples were still fixated on greatness.

So, Jesus called to Himself a child – the essence of one who is powerless, dependent, needy, little and poor. He placed the child ‘in the midst of them,’ as a concrete, visible sacrament of how the Kingdom looks. And He said, “Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18.3).

But we so often misunderstand what Jesus said. Usually, people make a list of the attributes of children. For example: they are trusting, they are questioning, they are reliant and dependent upon others. And then we try to apply those things to adults. But, if we do that, we have be very careful that we don’t just read our own adult and cultural preferences back into children.

So what did Jesus really say? Well, first of all, he said we (adult Christians) have to change. So, are we prepared to change or not? If we’re not, then we are unlikely ever to be able to enter into God’s way of doing things. We have to ask ourselves whether we are allowing Jesus to change us. That is primary.

But what about ‘becoming like children’? I am not really sure I know exactly what that means. I know – I’ve heard it, you’ve heard it – people say that when Jesus told us to become childlike He didn’t tell us to be childish. But knowing what it doesn’t mean doesn’t help us to understand what Jesus did mean. (And, anyway, we have sent them away. We don’t want to be like children. We want to get on with the business of grown-up worship.)

Perhaps becoming like children has something to do with having open and enquiring minds? Perhaps it’s about being ready to learn, to obey, to grow, to change, to wonder? Or perhaps it’s more about being ready and willing to pray the Lord’s Prayer. You know: ‘Our Father in Heaven … may Your way of doing things take precedence … may Your will be done …’ ‘You are the Potter; I am the clay’

3. Welcome Children

Let’s move on. We’re still in Capernaum, though, with the fishing boats moving silently across the waters of Galilee clearly visible as Jesus speaks: “Whoever welcomes a child in my name welcomes me” (Matthew 18.5).

What are our relationships like with the children in our churches? Do we really welcome them in the name of Jesus?

In many of our modern, sophisticated congregations, children are viewed as distractions. We tolerate children only to the extent they promise to become ‘adults’ like us. Adult members sometimes complain that they cannot pay attention to the sermon, they cannot listen to the beautiful music, when fidgety children are beside them in the pews. ‘Send them away,’ many adults say. Create ‘Children’s Church’ so these distracting children can be removed in order that we adults can pay attention.

But Jesus put a child in the centre of His disciples, ‘in the midst of them,’ in order to help them pay attention. The child, in Jesus’ mind, was not an annoying distraction. The child was a last-ditch effort by God to help the disciples pay attention to the odd nature of God’s kingdom. Few acts of Jesus are more radical, more counter-cultural.

And yet there has been an adult bias in every aspect of Christian thinking for the last 2000 years. Children have been all but invisible in much of the process and content of mainstream Christian theology, and our churches are all built around the needs and desires of adults. We have seen children as objects to be educated or protected (adults-in-waiting, human-becomings) rather than as agents and signs of God’s kingdom with unique contributions and insights. We have developed a blind spot with regard to the place of children in the ministry of Jesus, and the place of children in the life of the community of God.

Jesus himself deliberately placed a little child at the centre of a theological discussion about the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven and then taught several vital truths while the child was standing there. Not while the child was standing in the background, in the shadows, at the margins, or in the Sunday School room, but ‘in the midst’! Listen: children are central to the biblical vision of the Kingdom of God. They are agents of and partners in God’s mission, not simply recipients of the Good News!

And when we welcome them into our churches, into our services – when we are really, joyfully open to them – then we will find that we have welcomed Jesus!

And how about this? What if it is precisely in receiving and welcoming children that we become like them? (But we haven’t received and welcomed them; we have sent them away.)

4. God Hates Child Abuse

Let’s move on again. And with barely a pause Jesus dramatically changes mood. Jesus’ next words are probably His most angry and condemnatory. These are words that it is so hard to read, and to hear, that most of the time we just omit them.

Matthew 18.6-9: “If any of you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea. What sorrow awaits the world, because it tempts people to sin. Temptations are inevitable, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting. So if your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one hand or one foot than to be thrown into eternal fire with both of your hands and feet. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.”

Don’t you shudder when you hear stories of priests (and it isn’t just Roman Catholics) involved in child abuse? And if it makes you shudder, how does Jesus feel? How does that Graham Kendrick song go? ‘Who can sound the depths of sorrow in the Father heart of God?’

But, hey, this isn’t just about priests. It’s about everything that might cause children (‘little ones’) to sin. Just look around you at the world we have allowed to be created around us for 21st century children. Child soldiers steal, murder and rape in their hundreds of thousands. There are tens of millions of child prostitutes. What about the children of the rich who grow up to envy the possessions and wealth of others and long to have it? What about those who are targeted and branded by transnational corporations and advertising and marketing machines? Think about corporate and institutional paedophilia. In all these examples, and many, many more, children are being led into sin.

We – adults – we must kneel down and ask God’s forgiveness not only for the sins we know we have committed, but also for the systems and institutions that, by doing nothing, we continue to allow to be created. By not challenging these things – by most of the time not even thinking about them – we cause little ones to sin.

It’s a sobering thought isn’t it?

5. Value Each Child

Let’s return to our story – our pilgrimage. The water of Galilee is still lapping near the feet of Jesus. The afternoon turns to dusk, and the hills in the east grow richer in colour and texture as the sun drops towards the horizon.

Jesus is still telling stories. Right now, it’s the parable of the lost sheep. Isn’t that a wonderful tale? God sees each one of us as of eternal value. God sent Jesus as the Shepherd to search for us and bring us to our Heavenly Home on His shoulders.

But I wonder if you have ever noticed that the story is about children. Jesus is still on the subject of ‘little ones’. He introduces the parable with a reference to the fact that each child has a guardian angel! (Now there’s a neglected teaching!) Jesus’ story of the one lost sheep is set in the context of Jesus’ teaching about the value and dignity and worth of children. And there is a moral to it: “see that you don’t look down on these little ones.” (So why have we sent them away?)

So perhaps the meaning of Jesus’ parable is not simply that God cares for us all as individuals. Perhaps the story is addressed to us – adults – as a call to be Good Shepherds, joining in the search for the lost sheep, restructuring our lives (our churches even?) so that each individual child is loved unconditionally.

6. Allow Children and their Families and Friends to Come to Jesus

Jesus leaves Capernaum, and wends His way south along the eastern shore of the River Jordan. He must have passed the place where He was baptised by His cousin John. It’s not too fanciful to imagine that the next incident on our pilgrimage took place at or near to the exact spot.

Perhaps Jesus was tired from His journey (and all the talking). Perhaps He had settled himself on a boulder to catch His breath. Perhaps he stopped for a bite to eat, or to lap at the water in the river beside Him.

The crowds were still following. But Jesus’ disciples decided that He needed some privacy. Enough was enough for one day. So when some of the parents in the crowd started bringing their children to Jesus so He could pray for them, the disciples (symbolic, perhaps, of the church) tried to keep them at a distance.

It’s a familiar story isn’t it? We’ve all heard it. But have you heard it like this? After everything Jesus has just taught them about little ones, His disciples actually tried to prevent people from bringing their children to Jesus for a blessing!

But, sadly, it’s not difficult to find examples of churches and Christians who have, intentionally or not, done exactly the same down through the centuries. We – adults – have tended to overestimate our own importance, and we have tended to underestimate the significance of the direct relationship between children and their Saviour. And don’t think your church isn’t guilty. And don’t think my church isn’t guilty.

Even the way we tend to use the Bible with our children does it. We have all heard – maybe we have been guilty of telling – versions of the story of Noah and the Ark that focus almost exclusively on the fluffy animals and miss the point of why that story is in our Bibles in the first place! We carve up the Bible into “Bible stories,” so that few children even suspect that the story of God’s people – our story – is not a collection of object lessons or heart-warming anecdotes, but a long story of unbearable loss – and unbearable hope. We violate the story by telling it in snippets, out of order, and treating it chiefly as a source of themes and moral maxims.

‘Children’s Bibles’ are one of my pet hates! Because they reflect prevailing fashions and worldviews, and an adult gate-keeping or selection of what is felt to be suitable for children. It’s a myth that adults understand the whole Bible whereas children can only understand certain adult-selected parts! We have sold our children short. In a culture bloated on junk food, the church has offered its children only crumbs. We can and must do much more to offer our children the nourishment of a rich variety of scriptural images. We can and must do much more to allow our children to come to Jesus.

I said this earlier: we may be providing such a poor experience of church for our youngsters that by the time children reach the age of 10 (the most common leaving age) they are desperate to escape. And what is that if it’s not preventing them from coming to Jesus?

7. Children are Signs of the Kingdom of Heaven

We are still following the River Jordan, but Jesus’ final destination is near. And Jesus has more to share with His followers on this whole subject of little ones. Matthew 19.14: Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to children!

You see, when Jesus teaches about the Kingdom of Heaven, we learn that greatness in His kingdom has nothing to do with status, power, strength, influence, wealth, or the normal assumptions in society. We have to change (to repent) to enter the kingdom. You have to become like little children if we are to enter the kingdom of
Heaven. When we welcome a little child we welcome the Lord of the Kingdom!
The Kingdom belongs to the childlike. In other words, Jesus’ Kingdom is not like an earthly kingdom at all. It is a whole new way of living. It’s an upside-down, inside-out and back-to-front world. And it operates on almost exactly the opposite principles of the political kingdoms we know from personal experience and history worldwide.

The other great paradox of the Kingdom of Heaven is that it has already started, but it is not yet fully realised, or when it started. It is ‘now’, but also ‘not yet’. And children can help us to understand that paradox. Because children are both fully human (now) and also not fully developed (not yet). Childhood and the Kingdom illuminate one another.

So whenever you see children playing, watch them refusing to be fixed and finalised, open to exploration and revelation and change. Remind yourself about God’s way of doing things, because there is no better sign of the Kingdom. (But we can’t see them because we’ve sent them away.)

James and John, though, (like lots of us and our churches) are still fixated on the ‘greatness’ question, and persuade their mother to ask Jesus who would sit at His right hand and His left hand in heaven. Jesus’ disciples still didn’t get it!

8. Children’s Worship: God’s Way of Doing Things

At last, Jesus arrives at Jerusalem. He rides His donkey from the Mount of Olives, over the coats and branches laid before Him in the road, and into the heart of the city.

He enters the Temple courtyards, and upsets the Ministers there by overturning the bookshelves and the fair-trade stall, by emptying out the collecting plates and scattering the change, sending pound coins skipping and rolling down the stone staircase.

And still the crowds came to him. Blind people were made to see again. Cripples threw away their zimmer frames. This is what church is supposed to be: come to Jesus and find life!

And the children, the children who had started the football chant …
Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!
… they were all there too. Still singing and chanting and crying out.

But how did they know? Where did those words come from? Why was Jesus letting them say those things? The Temple ministers were angry. Livid, in fact. The behaviour of the young people, the singing and the shouting, was wholly inappropriate! Not the sort of thing that goes on in our church! Shut them up!! Give them an ASBO!!!

Sometimes children think playing is more important than formal education. Perhaps that’s the way God sees things too. And when our children don’t do exactly what we think they ought to in church, and we disapprove, or glare, or ‘tut’, or make their parents feel so uncomfortable that they don’t ever come back … is our disapproval representative of God and the way He feels?

I love to see children worshipping. I love to lead children in worship. Because their worship is more real than that of many adults. And they are much more in tune with God’s way of doing things than we are.

Jesus knew that. He saw the singing and shouting of the children in the temple in a completely different way. He knew that they were doing exactly what God had intended.

So Jesus quoted the Scriptures back at those Temple Ministers. Psalm 8, in fact. Verse 2, in fact. ‘Have you never read the Bible?’ asks Jesus. ‘From the lips of children and [even] infants God has ordained praise!’ Luke’s version of the story has Jesus adding these words: ‘Try to keep them quiet, and the very stones of this place will cry out in praise.’

Maybe we, too, need to listen more carefully to what our children have to say to us. Jesus challenges us adults to become like little children. And yet so much of what we do with children in church is designed to turn them into what we think are mature Christian adults. Maybe, rather than us teaching them, we need to give them the opportunity to teach us. You might be surprised!

Conclusion

And so we come to the end of our journey, our walk with Jesus. But we have just raced through six chapters in the life of Christ which are of considerable importance in understanding the Kingdom of Heaven, and children, and how they relate to each other.

The journey from Mount Hermon to Mount Zion was an epic one for Jesus. And to all those whose eyes and ears and hearts are open, the heart of the Kingdom and the Gospel that has been revealed is momentous. The whole journey is framed by the cries of an epileptic boy and the shouts of bunch of rowdy young people!

And if we were to take this stuff - these words and this example of Jesus - seriously it would change our churches and our whole lives.

(Many thanks to Keith White on whose devotion on Matthew 16-21 - published as an appendix to the report of the Cambridge Consultation on Child Theology, 20 February 2006 - this sermon is extensively based, and from which it has been adapted! All the good bits are his!!)