NOTES for Mat 18:10-14
The words warning us not to despise these little ones are spoken immediately after the warning about the danger of stumbling blocks. But are only children among the little ones mentioned? If Christ tells adults to become like children, then all kinds of people in any age group can be little ones.
In advising us not to despise anyone, He gives us a very difficult commandment. Many of us are used to treating with contempt those who do not suit us. It is very convenient to feel that you are better than other people, those unpleasant people. More than that, many of us are used to "improving ourselves morally" by comparing ourselves with "bad people" and looking good against their background.
But here too the Lord sees and acts differently. Those whom we habitually place below ourselves may turn out to be much more precious to Him than some "proper" people, precisely because we have increased the pain of the rejected with our "proper" blows.
And let us remind the comfortable people whose arithmetic cannot make sense of Christ's rule, according to which one may leave the whole vast flock in order to save a single lost sheep, that no one has a guarantee that he will never become that sheep. And then the Good Shepherd, leaving everything, will go to save him too. After all, He wants every last one to be saved.