How often Jesus observed that people who didn’t (and don’t?) count much are the ones who have the inside track on God’s ways! For example, children. They (like women) were considered property, and as almost useless until they grew enough to help the family in some concrete way – sons by learning and participating in the family’s work, daughters when a profitable marriage was able to be arranged.
It’s not the wise, the learned, the clever or those who think they have successfully figured life out who are leaning into the Kingdom of God. It’s not even the well-to-do or the healthy who are first in line. What a shock if they discover that they’re not even close!
Jesus encourages and invites us to become like children. They “get it”. What is to be childlike? What qualities does a child innately possess that puts them at the forefront? Children generally are open, simple, trusting, still able to wonder at the world and to dream about what it might yet become.
Many children, though innocent are not naive. Just by living they pick up the basics of how things “work”. Even when they are deceived, they sense what is fair and what is not. It’s true that they are quite powerless to do much, but just maybe, doing things is not as high on God’s agenda as it is on ours.
Could it be that we who consider ourselves wise or in the know complicate things too much? Have we lost spontaneity, trust, awareness of how awesome it is simply to be alive? Have fears, ego or illusions closed us in our own self-made universe?
The season of Advent invites us to be (or to become again) like children waiting for Christmas, believing in unimaginable possibilities, dreaming of a world where God’s graciousness is unhindered by our grownup act – where we can be surprised again by beauty, goodness and love in our midst. (Luke 10:21)