23 rd September: Proper 20

The child in the midst

Set in the 1930s, Muriel Spark’s novel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is situated in Edinburgh at the fictional Marcia Blaine School for Girls. We are told the school founder was a C19th wealthy widow who was an admirer of Garibaldi – the Italian soldier and politician not the biscuit, and inscribed under her portrait is a quotation from the Book of Proverbs, “Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.” ⁱ The novel, as well as being about matters of faith, feminism and the principles of education, is also about politics and power. Who and what constitutes the crème de la crème in Miss Brodie’s colourful, iconoclastic and ultimately dangerous world is a matter of importance. How we influence the young, and what we teach them at an impressionable age, shapes the adult. Miss Brodie was a great, though fatally flawed, teacher. John Steinbeck writes of great teachers:

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist, and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. ⁱⁱ

Miss Brodie translates rather freely the Jesuit maxim attributed to Ignatius Loyola, “Give me the child until the age of seven and I will give you the man.” In Miss Brodie’s clipped Morningside tones this becomes, “Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life.” ⁱⁱⁱ

Where we place children, and why we place them there in our society tells us a lot not only about children, but also about ourselves. The days are gone where children should be seen and not heard. For some the creation of the child-centric world where two year old tyrants, or truculent teenagers, demand and get their way is, however, hardly an improvement.

When Jesus took a child and put the child in the midst of the disciples, He was making several points at once. In the culture of the day, the child had no status; by law and custom they were literally nonentities. The child was the least; in fact, the child might be described as the ‘least of the least’. ^iv

What Jesus does, perhaps unsettlingly for His audience, was to bring the child to the centre of things and make the reality of a child the reality of discipleship. If you want to be a disciple, Jesus implies, you must become like a child. Not childish, but child-like.

The disciples had, of course, been childish. Jesus had caught them out a few moments earlier trying to work out who amongst them was the greatest. The fascination with self-absorption and self-interest and ‘my needs first’ has not changed much in the history of humanity from that time to this. In a world gripped with self-regard, in a world that always has an eye out for the next opportunity for advancement or to steal a march on a colleague, Jesus says – if you really want to be a disciple, one of My followers, become like children. Be vulnerable and trusting, be imaginative and unrestrained, be hopeful and absorbing all that is going on around you.

Jesus also challenges His followers, then and now, to be servants. In this upside-down kingdom Jesus preaches about, where children are honoured and central, the truly faithful and truly powerful must be servants. It is a theme Jesus develops later in Mark’s gospel as the disciples continue to fail to get His message. The message remains radical. Jesus challenges His followers not to be served but to serve. Jesus measures greatness not by success but by service. It is interesting to note that the Greek word used to describe a child is the same one used for the suffering servant of the Lord in the Greek version of Isaiah ^vi . Original readers of Mark would readily have seen in Jesus’ embrace of the child His self-identification as lowliest, least, and servant of all.

As we think about our faith, and what it means to live it and experience it, where is the child in the midst? What for us have been the lessons learned years ago that still, rightly or wrongly, shape what we believe and how we behave? What are the foundational stones of faith that were laid down for us by those who shared what they believed with us? What are the heritage gifts that we are already passing on to the generations coming after us – in the unbroken continuum of faithful living? What are the childish things that we need to lay aside? ^vii The beauty of Jesus bringing the child into the midst is not simply the lesson for us to be childlike in our response to Him, but also to challenge us to think about what we teach our children at home, church or school, that builds up their lives, and exposes them to the mysteries, wonders, questions and challenges of a lived-out faith today.

We are also challenged to think seriously about the question of servanthood. How easily do we rank ourselves with the least? How easily do we show solidarity with those who count for nothing? Where in our daily living does our desire to serve others find its daily expression? Selfless service is rarely fashionable, but in times of economic austerity, or social dis-ease – it is surely something that the children of faith can model and offer to a world sorely in need of kindliness and compassion.

William Wordsworth wrote:

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;

I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

Within our lives of faith, the nurtured child retains a place. Sometimes we are still the child, sometimes we have become the adult, but always, in the eyes of God, we remain His child, and that counts for something more than words can easily say. We give thanks for the love and good examples of Christ-likeness shown to us in our own childhood – and endeavour to pass on that example in our own way and words to all God’s children today.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.