Tuesday of Holy Week 2017
Entry
into the City, John August Swanson, 1990.
Tuesday of Holy Week 2017
“People
were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the
disciples saw it, they sternly ordered them not to do it. But Jesus called for
them and said, ‘Let the little children
come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom
of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God
as a little child will never enter it.’”
Swanson’s painting captures this truth with the gaggle of children
he has positioned nearest to Jesus. Boys and girls waving their palms are
conspicuous by the position the artist gives them. It is they, perhaps, among
all the people gathered to this moment, who give Jesus the truest and purest
welcome to Jerusalem. “Truly I tell you,” Jesus says, “whoever does not receive
the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”
Why? Because they matter to him. In a world where children
didn’t matter all that much to most adults and whose wishes and desires were
often ignored and brushed aside, even by Jesus’ own followers, these social
nobodies found an hospitable welcome with him. Imperial politics and the threat
of Jewish revolt butted heads at festival time. Important, adult things
consumed everyone’s attention. Jesus had his own unfathomable struggle with God
and Satan in the offing. Yet, in the midst of it all, he had time and regard
for those who had nothing to offer him or enhance his interests. The children.
The children. Yes, the children.
Somehow these no-accounts sensed they counted with Jesus.
And they came to him. And he welcomed them. In all their no-accountedness. And this
how they enter the kingdom of God.
Nothing has changed since then either. It’s in our
no-accountedness that we meet Jesus and enter the kingdom. Like children.
Well, some things have changed, actually. It’s not with us.
We still tend to operate on our accountedness and ignore those who have little
or none. Same old same old. And Jesus still welcomes into his kingdom those who
comes to him in their need for welcome and hospitality.
What has changed is Jesus’ followers no longer seem to care
or have time to welcome and provide hospitality for the no-accounts of our
world. All sorts of thing clamor for the attention and energy of those who
account themselves of some standing. Adult things. Politics, economics, family,
and so on. All those things that make us count. The more we count, though, the
less regard we have for those that don’t it seems.
The children no longer come to us. The poor expect no
welcome and succor at our doors. Sexual minorities fear to see us coming.
Non-white people know they are not welcome in our sanctuaries. The Jesus we
portray shoos the children away because he has bigger fish to fry.
“Truly
I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will
never enter it.”
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