Becoming Like Children
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator
I am back from my brief vacation which once again took me north to my home state of Wisconsin. Usually traveling north means running into cooler weather. Not so this year. The warmth and mugginess of summer has gripped even the northern climes of our country this year.
As I return to my home base in Cicero, I am greeted by Jesus' call to become like children. However, what Jesus intended by such a statement and the way we read it could be vastly different because our care for children is greatly influenced by our 21st century Western culture. Most people of our country would agree that an investment in our children is an investment in our future. We take the education and welfare of our children very seriously.
This simply wasn't the case in 1st century Middle East culture. Children came in dead last in the care and concern of the people of Jesus' time. Why? For one particular and potent reason! At the time of Jesus, the life expectancy of children who have not yet reached puberty was very low. Some statistics show that the majority children in this time and place did not survive to their teenage years. Poverty, malnutrition and disease claimed the lives of many children. If a child survived till puberty, then the social structure started to provide for their needs. Their education began; their place in the family structure changed. As callous as it may seem to us, these people simply could not afford to invest in those who stood so little chance of living to adulthood.
So when Jesus suggests that rather than wondering who will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven that they should rather think of themselves as children, he is suggesting that they should be taking the last place, the lowest place, the most dangerous place on the social ladder. That is quite a challenge that Jesus places before the apostles and must have shaken them when they first heard it.
Fast forward to 21st century Western culture. Whom do we consider the least valuable or, conversely, the most expendable in our society? When we answer that question, we get some hint of what Jesus is asking of each of us.
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