Monday of the Third Week of Lent
Children of Men came out when I was in college. If you are unfamiliar with it, it is a movie based on a book and is set in the near future after a near-apocalyptic tragedy. Human beings stopped being able to conceive children. The movie is set nearly two decades after the strange event and this gritty, violent, and intense movie shows the imaginings of how much harsher the world would be if we were not tempered by our love for children. This may spoil part of the movie for you, but this theme is driven home when an entire warzone comes to a halt as soldiers hear the cries of a newborn child being carried through the violence. The darkness and grittiness of Children of Men came to mind as I read today's first reading.
In our first reading, our main character is Namaan. He is a highly esteemed military commander. He is a purveyor of violence and would likely fit right into the dark work of Children of Men. He also was struck by an illness, leprosy. Without being an expert, I am aware that leprosy can shut down sensation and can lead to those infected to do harm to themselves because they can't feel the pain. Just as the future depicted in Children of Men was numb to the painful reality they had created.
The similarities don't stop there. Just as the battle is interrupted by the cries of a baby, Namaan hears the voice of child and he is interrupted. Now the similarities start to diverge. Namaan heeds the girl's words, whereas in Children of Men the fight resumes after the child passes. In heeding the child's words Namaan sets out on a journey that leads him from prestige and violence to humility and healing. His leprosy is cured and "His flesh became again like the flesh of a little child." Heeding the child in his midst helped him remain childlike.
This lesson hits home for all of us I think. We often think of how we can help children. We seek ways to have the most positive influence on them that we can. But do we fight the life-altering change they can have on us? We can often temporarily hide our brokeness in the presence of children instead of letting them lead us to lifelong healing. We can often push aside their voices as uninformed and naive, instead of allowing them to strip away our calluses and expose our spiritual leprosy. We pity their simplicity instead of allowing their childlike faith to point us to God.
May we protect our children and care for them, and may we allow their transformative presence to sink deep into our hearts, cleansing us from the leprosy we may have contracted.
-Spencer Hargadon