Memorial of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr
You just have to love the disciples in the text from Matthew today. There they are—the guys who have Jesus’s ear, the inside circle of witnesses to his ministry, the ones among all others he often selects to share a special teaching—and they ask Jesus to tell them who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. Of course, I can’t say this with anything like certainty, but I have to believe that they were expecting him to say that they are. I mean, they are his disciples! I wish I could have seen the looks on their faces when, in answer to their question, Jesus calls a child over and tells them that unless they—the disciples—become like children they will not enter the Kingdom of heaven.
Become like children? In Jesus’s day, children were not exactly exalted. They were not seen as the model for adult human beings and especially not grown men. The point, from a societal perspective, was for children to grow up, learn valuable skills, and become productive members of society. That is, they were to become precisely not-children. But what makes sense from a Jesus perspective so often does not make sense from a societal perspective.
We live in a culture in which we are almost constantly urged to promote ourselves. Is our resume up to date? Have we done truly impressive things we can list there? Do we have our elevator speech ready in case some more important person than us asks us who are we? Are we “on trend” when it comes to what we wear or drive? And these days, with social media everywhere, questions like these have only become more pervasive and pressing. As we live in a sea of questions like these, Jesus asks us to become humble and turn our gaze from up the social ladder to down the social ladder—to the little ones.
Who are the “little ones” in our culture? To be sure, children are among the little ones, and we are called to take very good care of each one no matter where they come from, who their parents are, or what challenges they may face. But others are too—people who can’t make ends meet, people whose lives have been torn apart by drug addictions (whether theirs or someone else’s), people who are struggling with their faith in God, refugees who have been displaced by violence or fires or famines. All sorts of people.
Jesus calls his disciples, and surely us, to love “the little ones”—every single one. May we look around our parish, our city, our country, our world and seek after the little ones. This is Jesus’s word to us today. May it be as sweet as honey in our mouths.
- Sue Trollinger