Addition to Monday Morning

As I was going over some books i have read in the past i came upon this from a book called Resident Alien.  It fits real well into what i was talking about in my post on Monday.

 

• In response, Jesus called himself a child—the essence of one who is powerless, dependent, needy, little, and poor. He placed the child “in the midst of them,” as a concrete, visible sacrament of how the Kingdom looks. Jesus' act with the child is interesting. In may of our modern, sophisticated congregations, children are often viewed as distractions. We tolerate children only to the extent they promise to become “adults” like us. Adult members sometimes complain that they cannot pay attention to the sermon, they cannot listen to the beautiful music, when fidgety children are beside them in the pews. “Send them away,” many adults say. Create “Children's Church” so these distracting children can be removed in order that we adults can pay attention. Interestingly, Jesus put a child in the center of his disciples, “in the midst of them,” in order to help them pay attention. The child, in Jesus' mind, was not an annoying distraction. The child was a last-ditch effort by God to help the disciples pay attention to the odd nature of God's kingdom. Few acts of Jesus are more radical, countercultural, than his blessing of children.