NOTES for Mat 18:1-14
On more than one occasion, in various situations, the disciples asked the Savior who would enter the Kingdom and who would occupy the highest places there. Today's reading gives us one of His best-known answers, in which those entering the Kingdom are likened to children. He says this with their conversion and 'self-humbling' in view (vv. 2–4).
This answer has given rise to many theories of 'childhood innocence,' whose proponents sincerely believed that children were almost sinless—or, if sinful, at least less so than adults. Yet already Saint Augustine, who closely observed children's behavior, noted that if children sin less than adults, it is only because they lack the strength to sin 'like grown-ups.'
Why, then, does Jesus compare those entering the Kingdom to children? Perhaps because children, at least in traditional society, have limited freedom to choose their own path until a certain point—more precisely, until adulthood. Their parents, or those taking their parents' place, choose it for them. Of course, an adult cannot renounce freedom of choice and become literally like a child. Yet evidently, to enter the Kingdom one must be able to trust with a child's trust the One who brought it into the world.
Of course, such trust is nothing like a 'return to childhood' in the sense of abandoning responsibility. It is precisely a conscious choice and a freely made decision by which a person agrees to follow Christ, in a certain sense, like a child—that is, by refraining in certain situations from making decisions independently. This choice, involving voluntary spiritual self-limitation for the sake of the Kingdom, is apparently what Jesus means by self-humbling. His words about stumbling blocks and those who cause 'these little ones' to stumble then become understandable as well (vv. 6–7). Every outstanding personality, every leader, especially a religious leader, inevitably attracts attention. If such a leader is not seeking the Kingdom, they will inevitably lead those who trust them astray too. It then makes no difference what has distracted the leader from the goal: improper outward activity—the 'stumbling block of the hand' and 'of the foot' (v. 8)—or attention directed toward what should not have claimed it—the 'stumbling block of the eye' (v. 9). Either can make the leader a false teacher whose fate is very sad indeed.
Remarkably, in His answer Jesus points to one characteristic of a true servant of God, of whom He Himself is the example: such a servant never 'works' with 'the masses.' The magic of large numbers has no power over him, and every 'sheep' needing help matters absolutely to him, so that he can leave the whole 'flock' for one 'sheep' (vv. 12–14). This attitude is unsurprising: what enters the Kingdom is not a 'mass' or a collective in which an individual counts for little or nothing. A particular person enters it, someone whose destiny matters absolutely to God—even if there are many such people.