‘Suffer the little children,’ as Jesus told us
It’s worth a trip to St Mary’s, Overton, simply to see the remarkable carved choir stalls, the work of church member and local celebrity Miss Evelyn Wybergh in the 1930s. The fronts of the stalls feature carved creatures and angelic beings, and one of the arms takes the form of a lobster, but the triangular points of each pew end are, for me, the most remarkable feature, with heraldic symbols intermingled amongst representations of Bible stories. You will soon find Moses at prayer, his arms supported; Daniel and the lions; Mary and the infant Jesus; the disciples in their fishing boat. I wonder if you can recognise all of the stories represented? There are still one or two that puzzle me!
Very clearly depicted is an image of the adult Jesus with children gathered around him. This image, beloved of Victorian Sunday Schools, is derived from Matthew 19:14, Mark 10:14 and Luke 18:16, and familiar from Mark’s gospel in the King James Version as “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.” There are two more images of this gospel story in St Mary’s; one, carved in stone, on the font and the other, behind it, in the stained glass of the baptistry.
In our culture, we rightly value and enjoy our children; recent Christmas activities will often have had children as their focus. So, it is shocking to realise that in Jesus’s time young children would have had no status and, in effect, little value. This was because, in an agrarian society, those who could not work did not have much value but, even more poignantly, the child mortality rate would have been high, with maybe 30% of children not reaching maturity. Perhaps parents would attach to their children less readily when the risk of an early death was high.
And yet, the mothers brought their children to Jesus – for his blessing, maybe for his protection or even his healing. These were vulnerable little souls and their mothers worried about them. To the disciples, this was an unnecessary imposition on Jesus, a waste of his time. But Jesus not only welcomed the children, admonishing his disciples, but he also used them as an example; "for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
I draw two things from Jesus’s teaching; firstly, that it is worth us spending time with those whom the world does not value (children, even today, may be neglected; but also disabled people, those who are unemployed, refugees, and those who are homeless, amongst others on the margins of society). And, secondly, that we need to be more like children in our attitude to God, if we are to enjoy the riches of the kingdom of heaven.
For me, the word that sums up this attitude is “curiosity”. We sometimes discourage childish curiosity – the saying “curiosity killed the cat” seems designed to shut children up! But children are born with a natural openness, a desire to learn and to connect, which is critical to their survival but also necessary for growth and development. Jesus encountered many people – including some of the Scribes and the Pharisees – who thought they had everything sewn up, the rules sorted and the world ship-shape. They did not encourage curiosity because that is unsettling. They simply wanted conformity.
But Jesus invites curiosity, he wants us to be open to God, and to continue to learn. He wants us to be like children.
Christians who are curious about the world, open-hearted, generous with their time and their money, and wanting to grow in faith and love, will always welcome children into their midst. Children provoke us to growth as they ask questions and as they challenge us to be flexible. In my experience, disabled people do the same thing for us. It is therefore in our interest, if we are going to be true families of faith, to welcome children and their families into our churches.
How we do that is a challenge we were beginning to grapple with at St Mary’s before the pandemic, encouraged by our connections with our school, and it is a challenge we are picking up again now. But it is also a challenge we have been asked to face in the Mission Area, following the review, given the opportunities created by six church schools and other connections in our communities, including baptisms.
We have started this conversation in the Mission Area with a meeting in January; look out for further reports. But please also pray and work to open your hearts and your churches to the children who have so much to teach us about being with Jesus.
Revd Peter Mackriell