“Belonging
to the Kingdom”
Matthew
18:1-5
Mark
10:13-16
He was a little different from the rest of the youth at the Middle School Conference. He was very small for his age, much smaller than everyone else in his group. He wore a mismatch set of clothes – brown cargo shorts that went down to his calves, a tie-dyed t-shirt, and a green fatigue jacket. He wore several multi-colored bracelets around his wrist, and his hair was down below his shoulders. It was very clear that Matthew stood out from the rest of the group. He was kind of a loner, a bit eccentric, and he knew he was the outsider.
When he first walked into the
class I was teaching on the Sacraments, he went and sat down in the corner of
the room seemingly uninterested in what I had to say. He looked down at the carpet most of the
time, and periodically would blurt out something only to be shhh’ed
by the adult advisors sitting near him.
He clearly wanted and liked the attention, but at the same time was
either unable to know when it was ok to talk, or else didn’t care.
But something happened to Matthew
that day in my class. As I talked about
the Sacraments, and their meaning for us as signs that point to God’s act of
grace, our identity as God’s children, and our belonging to God’s family,
Matthew suddenly became silent and attentive.
His eyes moved up from the carpet, and he began to watch me move around
the room. As we broke up into groups to
read and talk about some key passages from the Bible about the Sacraments, he
immediately joined a small group and participated fully in the discussion. And when it came time to work on the
Communion tablecloth, he led the way working with others and sometimes by himself to create images to put on the table cloth.
It was truly amazing to see this
little transformation taking place in this very different middle schooler. And I was
stunned when he came up to me during the class and inquired about what he needs
to do to be baptized, saying that he had not thought about it before, but that
he is seriously thinking about it now.
Later that night at the conference dance, with a room full of youth and
adults, Matthew was walking around with a small, Styrofoam cup full of water
baptizing people, unofficially of course as he would tell me later.
From that
point on, Matthew was a different. He no
longer sat in the corner of the room, no longer intentionally excluded himself,
and no longer was treated as an outsider by the rest of his group. In fact, his group made a point to invite
Matthew into their conversations, they saved a place for him at the table
during meals, and they made sure that he participated with them in their
activities.
I think for the first time Matthew
found a sense of belonging that he had not experienced before, a sense of
belonging that allowed him to realize that he was part of a group of people not
based on looks, clothes, hairstyles, popularity, or greatness, but rather based
on the truth of God’s claim on him as a child of God, the truth that he too
belongs to the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of God he is ready and willing to
receive with open arms with an eagerness to embrace this new reality of God’s
claim on his life.
During VBS
last week, I was once again reminded of Jesus’ words to his disciples about the
central place of children in the God’s Kingdom, and their example to all of us
about what it means to receive the
No wonder Jesus holds them up as
the ones to whom the
They receive the Kingdom of God,
not as something to be earned, not as something only certain people can have,
but as what it really is – the pure gift of God, and they want to take hold of
it, with hearts and minds wide open to receive the truth of God’s grace and
love, ready to embrace and welcome God’s authority in their lives, and eager to
learn more and more about the Lord and Savior they believe in and love.
Maybe we
adults should stop for a minute and take notice of Jesus’ words to his adult
disciples, who wanted to know who was the greatest in the Kingdom. Jesus says to them, “Truly I tell you, unless
you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of
heaven…truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the
I don’t think
Jesus means that we should divorce ourselves from our judgment, maturity,
intelligence, wisdom, and intuition that we have gained as adults, but what I
think Jesus means is that we must not allow them to become the source and
reason for our belonging to the kingdom of God.
We must not allow them to close us off from trusting and depending on
God’s grace and love and care for our very entrance and inclusion in God’s kingdom. We must not allow them to shut our hearts and
minds to the hunger, desire, and readiness to learn more about God and the ways
in which God wants us to live as God’s children in the world.
As I have
immersed myself in the presence of children and youth these last three weeks,
and am reminded of all the conversations I have had with not only them, but
with my daughters as well. And I marvel
at their eagerness and openness to God’s work in their lives. They soak up everything like a sponge, ready
and willing to explore and discover and experience the reality and truth of
God’s presence in their lives and in the world around them. I am amazed at how full their minds are of
questions, and how they are hungry for answers, and how no question is beyond
answering, and no answer is beyond questioning.
What I
discovered again was what it means to be part of the church, part of a body of
people who are included in the family of God, who together have a desire, a
mission, to teach others what they know, and a deep longing to model for others
what it means to be a child of God. But
what I discovered again was even more than this. What I discovered again was nothing short of
the embodiment of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and a reminder that we owe it to
our children to model for them what it means to be a mature disciple of Jesus
Christ, just as they model for us what it means to be a child of God. And in doing so, we will come to fully know
the glory of belonging to the