- Proverbs 31:10-31 and Psalm 1 •
- Wisdom of Solomon 1:16-2:1, 12-22 or Jeremiah 11:18-20 and Psalm 54 •
- James 3:13 - 4:3, 7-8a •
- Mark 9:30-37
The words ‘childish’ and ‘childlike’ are very similar, yet
there is a huge and important difference in their meaning. It is a difference
that takes on special significance in the context of this week’s readings. Both
the Old Testament and the Epistle continue the theme of previous weeks – the
nature of wisdom, its importance and its elusiveness. How easy it is to mistake
what is truly wise, for what is ‘worldly wise’ – ‘wisdom' as James puts it, that 'does not come
down from above’.
 |
|
Christ Blessing the Children, Nicolaes Maes (1652-53)
|
The Gospel for this week also takes up an earlier theme – the
inability of the disciples to fathom Jesus’ warning that the ‘prophet’ they
have followed for three years, and to whom they have more or less given over their
daily lives, is going to be betrayed and killed like a criminal. That much,
perhaps, they could have grasped, albeit with the deepest reluctance, but that
this was necessary was more than they
could understand.
This conversation about violence and death, oddly, provides
the background to the touching moment when Jesus takes a child in his arms. How
are the two things connected? The answer is that real spiritual understanding
has a childlike quality about it.
In First Corinthians St Paul contrasts wisdom with
childishness. Here, in this passage from Mark, Jesus makes a certain kind of
childlike innocence a pre-requisite for understanding God’s purpose of
salvation. Now, centuries later, we are in a position to see and
to understand what the disciples at this stage in the Gospel story could not. But
it is no less difficult for us than for them to strip away all the assumptions
and presuppositions that we bring to hearing the Word of God. Children in their
innocence often (though not always) have a kind of honesty and simplicity that makes them open to
the wonder of things. Rightly, the process of growing up requires us to put away
childish things. But it also brings with it the risk that we will lose the
childlike openness to wonder which is a condition of wisdom, and become 'worldly wise' instead.
No comments:
Post a Comment