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July 05, 2008
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - "Understanding Mystery"
It seems to be a common feeling among most of us that we love newborns, new newborns of every kind: Little babies, colts, calves, rabbits, baby pandas. You can add to the list. My hunch is that we love little ones because they are still whole, still unspoiled. As for little children, they are still totally innocent. Nothing spoiled has entered their tiny minds. (Wait until they are teenagers!!)
I must confess that some of the most wonderful, the most hilarious experiences have been in my association with little kids in church. In some of the churches I served in the Archdiocese of Anchorage, I would take the opportunity before the readings and call up all the kids who wanted to come. And then I would pick a short piece from the gospel and quiz them. Now, let me tell you that can be a risky thing to do. You never know what is going to come out of the minds and mouths of six or seven year olds. Sometimes even I was embarrassed and happy to know that the kids could not get near the microphone. Their parents would have been scandalized. Knowing they were kids, of course, we can let it go. Adults say worse things.
I must admit also, however, that there is a kind of wisdom that flows from the lips of children. They may not know it as wisdom; it’s just something that flows out naturally, and that is a sort of childlike wisdom.
It has often occurred to me also that, at least in church, kids will always tell you the truth. (I don’t know what goes on at home!) It may be a kind of naïve truth but it will always be truth as they perceive it.
It occurs to me also that children have an uncluttered, untutored mind and there is a kind of wisdom that manifests itself when they speak, not the wisdom of the philosophers and theologians but something that comes as though from “instant thought.” It is something that just feels right and so they say it, whether it theologically correct or not.
I always find it interesting also to read in the gospels that Jesus took note of little kids. He must have sensed their innocence as even we do today. It is also interesting that Jesus points them out as models of truth, of simplicity and suggests that adults might learn some wisdom by observing the actions of the kids.
Perhaps it might be said that kids teach us a kind of intuitive theology, something that comes not from books or even from sermons, but simply from the first thought that comes to mind.
Unfortunately, we adults, particularly those of us who make theology or preaching our business, have learned too much theology to the point where we have forgotten simple theology, the kind that comes from intuition, from the heart.
But perhaps it’s not too late. Perhaps even we adults can learn all over again to think and pray as little children. It may embarrass us, but that may also be the most truthful way.
It is interesting, finally, to note that Jesus tells his disciples that God has hidden certain things from the learned and the clever and revealed them to merest children. That has always been a mystery for me: What was hidden from adults, and what was revealed to little children? Perhaps it means that kids understand mystery and we have gotten too old for that. Perhaps the fact that you and I must still continue searching for that sort of wisdom means that we still do not have the mind of a child. I suspect that it takes a lifetime. Oh well, we’ve got time and it will be worth the effort in the end.
The scriptures: Zechariah 9: 9-10; Romans 8, 9:11-13; Matthew 11:25-30
Posted by Cindy Lentine on July 5, 2008 12:35 PM.
