NOTES for Mat 18:7

How are we to understand the words that we need to become like children in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven? Surely everyone who is at least somewhat familiar with little children knows that they are by no means angels, though their angels do stand before the throne of the Most High in heaven. Perhaps the point is precisely their smallness, defenselessness, and dependence on their parents, since the Lord speaks specifically about humbling oneself (v. 4). They are especially vulnerable to temptation, deception, and the action of the world's evil, and therefore they so need God's love and protection. Apparently this very kind of relationship with God is the realization of the Kingdom of Heaven.

The evangelist connects the words about the children we must become in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven with a small parable about a shepherd and a lost sheep, and this immediately puts everything in its place. The point is not only that we become weak, defenseless, and dependent, although at times we really do need to feel like children before God; Christ is clearly speaking here about a "new childhood," that is, about a second birth - not only about feeling like children in comparison with God, but actually becoming children of the Heavenly Father (and here any childishness is out of place; this calling is too high).

Understood this way, the familiar commandment "be like children" becomes an incomprehensible call to become participants in God's life, to become beloved sons and daughters in the beloved only-begotten Son - the path opened before us in Christ's Resurrection...

The question of what it means to be like children has concerned Christians for many centuries. This is understandable: it is a necessary condition for entering the Kingdom. Most often, people mention childlike innocence and childlike naivete. In reality, however, innocence and naivete are not so simple.

Augustine already observed that children are by no means innocent; they simply do not yet have the strength and skill to sin "like adults," but it is impossible to speak of their sinlessness, or even of their lesser sinfulness compared with adults, because all great sinners naturally grow out of little ones if they do not try to resist their own sinfulness. Naivete is not simple either: children usually understand much more than they tell adults, though, as a rule, in their own way, within the framework of their own logic and their own ideas about the world.

There is, however, one essential difference between children and adults, at least up to a certain age: children are usually little concerned with how they look in the eyes of those around them and what place they occupy in the "adult" world. During this period of their life, children simply ignore the reference points of the "adult" world, while at the same time understanding that it is an objective reality. Adults usually perceive such a child's existence as an ongoing game, more important to the child than the life adults consider "real."

For the child at this time, what is important is what he himself considers real and genuine, not what is conventionally considered so according to generally accepted rules, in which adults themselves often do not quite believe. This childlike attitude toward life is a priceless treasure for everyone who strives for normal, full spiritual life. Normal spiritual life is impossible if one does not live by what one recognizes as genuine, authentic, and real.

As we grow up, to a greater or lesser degree we learn to give up what we ourselves consider real and authentic in favor of what is conventionally considered such, and we pass from reality into illusion, in whose reality we strive with all our strength to convince ourselves and others. To be like children means to refuse such self-deception. This, of course, is only the first step on the path to the Kingdom, to authentic spiritual life, but without the first step there will be no later steps, and therefore no path.

The question of evil's origin and nature in the world has long occupied and tormented humanity. Hardly anyone could have told us more about it than Jesus, who was to confront the world's evil. Yet He does not say very much to His disciples about the devil and the world's evil; He tells them only that the devil is defeated and that the day will come when this becomes clearly visible to everyone.

Instead, He speaks to His disciples and followers at length and in detail about how to resist evil in everyday life. One of this life's most serious temptations regarding evil deeds and actions is the temptation to imagine oneself powerless before the evil being done. The issue is not even whether it is possible to stop those who do evil, but whether refraining from evil is pointless. The logic of evil suggests that your participation or nonparticipation will change nothing: if not you, then someone else. By trying to resist evil, even simply by refusing to participate in it, you only make your own life more difficult without accomplishing anything at all, for there will be no less evil in the world.

This logic seems temptingly simple, and it would be conclusive if the untransformed world were the only and final reality. Fortunately, it is not. A person who refuses to participate in evil has good reason to act as he does. The issue here is not only, or even chiefly, the world lying in evil, but the person and his spiritual destiny—whether he will be able to enter the Kingdom or remain in “outer darkness.” Even if a situation in the fallen world is indeed often beyond human control—“it must needs be that offenses come”—a person's own choice is always within his power. Jesus apparently gives no weight at all to what is called environmental influence, social determinism, and other similar justifications for the evil a person commits.

Of course, this does not mean that He fails to take account of the situation in which a person must make his choice. He says only that one must not consent to evil or inwardly surrender to it, accepting it as normal simply because it is normal in the fallen world. The norm of the fallen world is no norm but a perversion, and everyone who agrees to become a conduit for the powers of evil must remember this, for “woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” It may certainly happen that even by refusing to participate in evil, a person will be unable to prevent that evil. But he can keep evil from entering his own heart and thus preserve it for the Kingdom.

It is so hard to take in that the Kingdom of Heaven is unlike earthly kingdoms in every respect. Therefore the question "who is greater?" asked by the disciples vividly shows not only their level, since despite their closeness to the Teacher they are still guided by earthly ideas. This question reflects the state of our whole fallen nature, with its notions of domination and subordination that have belonged to it, and have become so familiar, over many thousands of years.

Whenever anyone tries to justify the principle of domination, it is not hard to notice the hope of the one doing the justifying that he himself will be the one to dominate. But Christ, as in many other cases, gives us here a completely different view of the problem. He proposes that adults, solid people accustomed to respecting themselves, become like children. We are advised to reject what we are used to considering valuable, not only social status, but also, to some extent, experience. But if it is the experience of a life saturated with sin, it may not have the value of genuine life experience. Christ invites us to open ourselves toward the Father like a child trustingly receiving everything new from elders. Only, unlike adult people, the Father will never abuse a child's trust.

And it is no accident that immediately after these words Christ speaks about temptations. How easy it is to traumatize a trusting child for life, and how bitter it is when people who have sincerely reached toward the light run into Pharisees and false teachers. The stern words about cutting off body parts may seem like a call to self-mutilation, but in reality what we have before us is a call, expressed in its most extreme form, to be demanding toward oneself, to overcome the evil that nests within us. This evil destroys not only us, but also threatens those nearby. And especially those who have managed to become childlike in their openness.