A Child As a Teaching Occasion

17  Pentecost Cycle b Proper 20   September 23, 2012

Wisdom of Solomon 1:16-2:1, 12-22Ps. 54

James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a Mark 9:30-37      

Lectionary Link

    One could make the case that the goal of the entire biblical tradition is to train a person in wisdom.  Some have found that the most suitable way to characterize the way in which Jesus presented himself was as a wisdom teacher.  He used parables and riddles to stimulate the learning event for his followers.  Wisdom is more than information and more than knowledge; wisdom pertains to the complete art of good living.  It is knowledge in the pragmatic action of ones lives.  Wisdom involves the integration of all of the best ways of being human.  The writer of the letter of James is within this wisdom tradition of Jesus.  He writes:  Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. …. the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.

  In the wisdom teaching of the Gospel one can find some overarching metaphors that provide us to the hints of what Jesus of Nazareth was trying to leave as his legacy to the art of good living.  We are so used to our doctrines that perhaps we are not practiced in imagining how they must have functioned in their original settings.  Take for example the notion of God as Father.  A rather important notion in our Trinitarian doctrine, but what does it mean when Jesus refers to God as his Father and why would that parental title be important in his context?  Could it be true that Jesus found in his setting that the general level of nurture in Palestine to be completely lacking?  What was the model of adult caretaking in Palestine?  Well, the ultimate adult of the time was the Caesar in Rome and his nurture through all of his surrogates was the brute expression of power.  People like King Herod and Pontus Pilate and all of their agents were the eyes and ears and boots on the ground for the Caesar.  The most impressive experience and modeling of adulthood in Palestine was the experience of having power and positions over others.  And in their oppressed communities, Jesus perceived the religious leaders to be emphasizing the power aspect of their religious authority.  So idealized adulthood in Palestine was seen has having obvious power over other people.

  And that kind of thinking also was present in the disciples of Jesus?  What did they want?  What did they argue about behind the back of Jesus when he was gaining a following?  “Well, Jesus is getting to be well known.  He may be the one who will be the next great leader.  And so it is time to think about what my position will be in the administration of Jesus.”  So even the disciples were presented as being power hungry; after all that is the adult task in life, to wield power over others.

  We find in the wisdom tradition of Jesus some interesting emphases.  The Fatherhood of God is revealed in the face of profound failure of the power of nurture of dependent people in Palestine.  And if people have been very poorly parented what do they need?  They need to be re-programmed; they need to be re-parented and in such a drastic way that they need to be re-born.  What did the skeptical Nicodemus ask?  How can I be re-born?  How can I get back to my mother’s womb?  As skeptics we might ask, how can I be a child again?

  In the wisdom teaching of Jesus he constantly uses the motif of the child.  The kingdom of heaven is hidden from the wise and revealed to infants.  Jesus performed lots of his miracles on children and often those who were designated as “possessed by unclean spirits.”  One can note that traditional religion can be presented in a way to give bad parents an excuse to inflict trauma on their children.  The book of Leviticus gives the permission to stone an insolent child.  Others writings in the Hebrew Scriptures warn parents about “sparing the rod and spoiling the child.”  I highly suspect that Jesus came into an environment where children were often abused or traumatized, even to the point what we today call “dissociative disorders” that may have had the general diagnosis of “demon possession” in the time of Jesus.

  I find in the Gospel that Jesus of Nazareth is presented as having a great affinity for children.  He must have been aware of their vulnerable situation so much so that his recommendation for anyone who offended one of these little ones was rather harsh: put a millstone around their neck and cast them into the sea.    In his fascination for vulnerable children, Jesus also found the perfect metaphor for his teaching.

To understand the kingdom of God or to understand how the invisible presence of God is all around us, one has to be able to access the child-like capacity of wonder.

  Jesus found in Palestine and even amongst his disciple those who could not access their child-like capacity of wonder.  They perhaps had it beaten out of them by the adult world of power.  And so they had conformed themselves to the adult world.  To be adult is to have power and to use it.  So the disciples imagined a kingdom with Jesus in charge and where they would be able to exercise authority and power.

  Jesus said, “Forget guys, look at this child here.”  Why have you missed the point?  If you welcome this child into your care, then you’ve understood how God is my Father and parent to all. Life isn’t about being important in my administration; it is about using one’s power to help the vulnerable.”

  I invite us to this wisdom of Jesus today.  As people who grow up we are gradually surpassing ourselves in age.  We may see ourselves as always leaving behind us the former ages of our lives but if I am 62 I include in myself all states of being the person named Phil from my conception.  And I include in my years memories of how I was Phil at different ages.  I include in myself the experience of being happy and helpful and joyful for no reason at all.   So in my severe adulthood, I need to learn how to access receptive aspects of my personality to awaken the kind of wonder and curiosity that is needed for me to see behind what is presented to my eyes.  This is the kind of seeing that is needed to know God’s presence in the world.  This is the kind of sensitivity with which one can identify the sublime.

  We often need re-parented and re-programmed when we've gotten ourselves caught up in the severe adulthood trap of life being about grabbing power for ourselves rather than receiving the power that we have as power to care for others.

  I believe the wisdom of Christ and the child motif is a part of intergenerational age therapy that we all need.  How many people sit in skilled nursing centers who feel like they have no worth because they are no longer strong to compete?  In intergenerational age therapy a person accepts one’s own age as a public witness to the world of what it is like to be 82, 72 or 52 or 12.  We all need to model our age to each other as the age that we all once were or might be some day.  But at any age, we need to learn how to be the receptive child to the presence of God and at the same time we need to take up the gifts that we have at any age to serve the community.  And our gifts are not measured in dollars and cents.  A baby can just plain delight us without earning a dime, and each person can represent their age with delight of their worth and gift to the world even as they are always in the child-like receptive mode for the wonder of God’s presence that morphs itself in myriad ways into our lives.

  Let us accept the intergenerational reality of our lives and represent our age well, even as we access a child-like receptivity to the Sublime behind the ordinary.  And where we have come into our adult power and maturity, let us use that power and maturity to be a part of God’s effort to re-parent persons in this world who have not had the advantage of beneficial nurture.  And in so doing we will understand why Jesus came to teach his disciple about his relationship with God as his Father, his parent who sent him to re-parent those who fell through the full blessing of effective parenting nurture in this world.

  Let the Gospel today give us new insights in how we might be better adults in the art of living well and and living with wisdom.  Amen.