Greatest In the Kingdom …

Matthew 18: 1-10

Charles J. Tomlin, March 14th, 2021,

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Kingdom of God Series, 11 of 14

 

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "WHO IS THE GREATEST in the kingdom of heaven?"

 2 He called a child, whom he put among them,

 3 and said, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

 4 Whoever BECOMES HUMBLE LIKE THIS CHILD is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

 5 Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

 6 "IF ANY OF YOU PUT A STUMBLING BLOCK before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.

 7 Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks! Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling block comes!

 8 "If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet and to be thrown into the eternal fire.

 9 And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into the hell1 of fire.

 10 "Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven.1 (Matt. 18:1-10 NRS)

 

 

So much in this world is about power.  It’s about who get’s to be ‘first’.

Do you remember that famous and funny exchange in Abbott and Costello?  Abbott, I was going to New York to work with the Yankee’s as a coach and manager.  Lou said, well Abbott, if you’re the coach, you must know all the players.  Then, they start talking about all the funny, peculiar names the ball players have, like Dizzy Dean or his brother, Daffy Dean, and their French cousin,  French?  Yes, Goofe Dean?

Bud Abbott:  Yes, Abbott says, and there strange names too, like  “Who’s on first, What’s on second, I Don’t Know is on third…

Lou Costello: That’s what I want to find out.

Bud Abbott: I say again: Who’s on first, What’s on second, I Don’t Know’s on third.

Lou Costello: You gonna be the manager and coach too and you don’t know the fellows’ names?

Bud Abbott: Well I should.

Lou Costello: Well then who’s on first?

Bud Abbott: Yes.

Lou Costello: I mean the fellow’s name.

Bud Abbott: Who.

Lou Costello: The guy on first.

Bud Abbott: Who.

Lou Costello: The first baseman.

Bud Abbott: Who.

Lou Costello: The guy playing…

Bud Abbott: Who is on first!

Lou Costello: I’m asking YOU who’s on first.

Bud Abbott: That’s the man’s name.

Lou Costello: That’s who’s name?

A: Yes, that him, Who?  And his wife’s last name is who too…

It’s was such a funny routine carried over from Vaudeville to the TV screen.  If you ever saw it, or seen it on YouTube, you never forget it.  

But this ‘who’s on first’ question sounds so much like the human question many still ask: not who’s on first, but ‘who’s first’?   Both nature and human nature too is very much concerned about the survival of the fittest, who’s the strongest, the smartest, the most powerful, and who’s the richest too.  In this was humans become truly, as the crime boss said, ‘filthy animals’.

Power still speaks volumes in life, work, and culture, doesn’t it?   It takes us back, way back even before there were video games, or organized sports for small children, when we used to play those childhood games like ‘king of the hill’?  We wanted to see who’s first, who could hit the ball, who was the strongest, the biggest, and the best.   At a very young age we would look a life and people, valuing everything just like Darwin’s view of nature,  agreeing that only the ‘strongest’ matter.

 

WHO IS THE GREATEST IN THE KINGDOM? (1)

Interestingly, ‘power’ is an important question about God’s kingdom too.  But before we think about this, we must remind ourselves, that God’s kingdom of heaven is not in heaven, but God’s kingdom is in the life of God’s people on earth, as it is in heaven.  

So, here on earth when disciples of Jesus consider doing God’s will in this world, they can’t help put look at the world around them and wonder, ‘who’s on first,  ‘who will be the greatest’; who will be the leaders, and who will be the persons entitled to power?   It even appeared in the fairy tales as ‘Who is the fairest of them all’?  Who will gain recognition, be remembered, have the biggest and most toys?  As they say, history is written by the winners, not the losers.  So, even the disciples are wondering, who is the winner in God’s kingdom?

This question about ‘power’ goes all the way back to the OT when Israel wanted to be like other nations.   The people thought there was to be an advantage in being like everyone else in the world, rather than remaining a people lead by God.   As we know by reading the rest of Samuel, Kings and David’s Chronicles too, that did not work out so well.  Most  of the powerful kings of Israel became obsessed with their power and misused their power only to enrich themselves, not to care for the kingdom and the least of those in the kingdom.  Out of 38 Kings in the biblical record, only 9 were considered ‘good’.    That means in a history covering 434 years, 34 out of 43    royal powers did evil, with  only 5 of majorly positive; David, Jehoshaphat, Jotham, Hezikiah, and Josiah.     This is why God’s kingdom being established through the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus is supposed to be different; very different.  The kingdoms ruled by  human royalty were overly negative, continually downward, and without lasting consequence.

So, do to the human condition, the disciples still are struggling in this very human understanding of power.  This is why the disciples ask Jesus, “Who will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”  This question reminds us again, that God’s kingdom is a kingdom that comes near and is to be realized on earth, where people are still tempted to power for wrong reasons, obsessed by power, and can still be destroyed by it too.

Recently in the Christian news, there was a tragic story of the downfall of a popular pastor of a large church in California.   In that church the pastor was made aware that one of his children’s workers was struggling with attraction to small children.  That worker hadn’t actually acted on that inclination, so that he hadn’t actually become a pedophile, so the pastor allowed him to have some counseling, while the worker continued to work with the church and community’s children.  

Finally, word got out that this worker had these feelings, and that the pastor knew about, and allowed the worker to continue their work.  This word got out through the pastor’s son, who was a transsexual who reported it to church leaders.  That son knew the story was true because the children’s worker who was working with the children and having pedophile thoughts was the pastor’s other son.

This is a tragic story for that church and the pastor.  After a leave of absence, church leaders finally had to release their pastor because of his abuse of the ‘power’ entrusted to him. He misused that power to protect his son, but it was at the potential expense of children in the church.  

This reminds us about that the abuse of ‘power’ can be very dangerous, in the world, in the church, in a home, or in any kind of place or position of authority.  That’s why sole power should never be put into the lap of one person, but power should be shared, held accountable, and delegated too.  

     While power at one person’s absolute disposal might get many things done, these ‘things’ are still too often getting done at someone else’s expense. That’s exactly what happened in this pastor in California.  Too much power and too much success had not only led to dysfunction in his own family unit, now this dysfunction was about to spill over into the life of the congregation and possibly do irreparable damage to innocent children.

That’s why it’s so vitally important for churches and Christians too, to learn what kingdom ‘power’ means, and how to use that power in ways that we don’t abuse it, or to take advantage of God’s power in our lives.   Power is a gift, and can be a gracious gift, but power should only be used faithfully and positively, with humility and grace.  In this text, as in his own life, Jesus is trying to show us how power, or here, how ‘greatness’ looks very different in God’s kingdom that can come near on earth.

 

BECOME HUMBLE LIKE THIS CHILD (2-5)

At the heart of Jesus understanding of power and greatness, is the image of a little child.  

Jesus certainly isn’t alone in this, or maybe I should say, the spirit of Jesus still inspires people to understand the best of life this way.   William Wordsworth, the great American writer, once said in a very poetic way, ‘The child is the Father of the man!’   Wordsworth meant that since a child is so full of carefree wonder and trust, this should never be lost in life, but should continue to shape our lives or we will lose our greatest joy about life.  

But Jesus is talking about ‘power’ and ‘greatness’,  not ‘wonder’.   Jesus selected a child as a way to help his disciples think about a healthy understanding of power.  And Jesus isn’t just talking about greatness in the kingdom, but he backs up to point that this childlike trust and humility is how one enters  God’s kingdom.   “Truly I tell you,’  Jesus says,  ‘unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 18:3 NRS).

 Whatever you do, make sure when you see these words, ‘Truly’, or as the King James say, ‘Verily.  It means pay close attention.   Jesus is talking about the Salvation ‘on earth as it is in heaven.’  Jesus is talking about entering God’s Kingdom now, in how we live our lives.  Jesus is talking about God’s purposes that can and should be realized now, and through us who live in him.

Notice that Jesus isn’t saying that we enter the kingdom by being ‘childish’.  There’s a big difference in being childlike from being childish.

Len Sweet makes an interesting comparison between being childlike and childish.. He asks ‘why is it that one of the most typically “child-like” things we do is to try and to act like an adult?   Little children dress up like Mom and Dad. Kids pretend to drive the car.  Older kids still play with pint-sized pots and pans, play-doctor kits and miniature tool sets.    Some of us are even old enough to remember playing with perhaps the worst child-oriented product ever invented — candy or chewing gum cigarettes.  Does anyone remember those?  Gives you the shivers now, doesn’t it?

The hard truth is children want to imitate and emulate the adults around them whatever those behaviors might be. That is why being an “adult,” and being a “parent,” is such an awesome responsibility.    

If as children we act like an adult, sometimes adults spend a lot of time acting like children, or at least doing things we call “being childish.” This is the secret of the Disney franchise. Disney has designed a playground for even more than for children. Some adults even know celebrate their birthdays by taking everyone in the family on a Disney cruise.  But the hard truth of this side of the equation is that we really aren’t acting like children.  In fact, our “childish” behaviors become the adult “toys” of others — the bigger house, flashier car, the lavish lifestyle of those who live in a higher income bracket.

Poet Sylvia Plath, shows us another form of childish behavior, called the “how come” response to a childish comparison to others: "Occasionally I retch quietly in the wastebasket.”  Or as another says, ‘Every-time a friend succeeds, I die a little.” Bad prayers begin “How come ...” The best prayers begin “Your Kingdom come.”  With childish behaviors like these, some even take out childish frustrations on their families, and direct jealousies toward loved ones.   We kick the dog or the cat, instead of ourselves. This is the big difference between “child-like” of a child wanting to be an adult or an adult acting like a child.

The ‘attitude’ of a child-like behavior Jesus means, is ‘humility’ of being a child.   That may be a difficult image for some to grasp, since children of today are sometimes allowed to ‘rule’ their parents, and aren’t considered to be so humble.   So, perhaps we need to use another word; vulnerable.   Children are those who are most vulnerable because they are the smallest, weakest, and most likely to be hurt or rejected by the world around them.  In fact, in Jesus’ world, 60 percent of children didn’t live past 16 years.   That’s why Jesus finds great value in a kingdom that ‘welcomes a child’.  Besides, those in power often used children, abused children, or they told children to get out of their way.  Welcoming a child wasn’t how the ancient world worked.   When things went wrong or when people abused power, it’s was normally the children who ended up suffering the most. 

 

IF ANY OF YOU PUT A STUMBLING BLOCK  (6-10)

It was the child’s tremendous vulnerability, that makes the wrong kind of greatness a ‘stumbling block’ to children, to the weak, and to young Christians too.  Hunger for and misuse of power can hurt and bring harm to the most vulnerable in both society and church.   When adults spend all their time pursuing success, power, position, money or ‘greatness’ on the world’s terms, they can, either purposely or accidentally,  put a terrible ‘stumbling block’ in the path of the young who suffer the full impact of adult problems and irresponsibility.

Now, folks, I’m going to say something here, that may be difficult to hear, but many of the struggles we see in our world today, drug use, sexual confusion, teen suicide and many other social problems we see in the lives of young people today is not directly caused by wayward, rebellious or immoral youth, but much of it is young bearing the weight of the poor choices of adults and society.  And this kind of thing is exactly what Jesus warns about.  Jesus says it is inexcusable when adults cause children to stumble.  The whole society ends up suffering too.    This is the reason for Jesus sharp warning at the close our our text.  Here, we see how Jesus has moved from thinking about a healthy view of greatness which should resemble childlike humility, to Jesus warning his own disciples about being like the world and it’s grab for success and power.

In the story of Richard Jewell, as told by Clint Eastwood,  it was a power seeking, ambitious reporter for the Atlanta Newspaper that jumped the gun and published a story about Jewell being a prime suspect in the 1996 Olympic bombing. 

Without any firm evidence, and with only a mistaken theory, the reporter nearly ruined the lives of Jewell, his mother, and his friend, by exposing an investigation and leaking it so that it became a media circus.  And why did it happen?  It was a misuse of power, seeking greatness. 

Interestingly, that report backfired on the reporter who died of a drug overdose only 5 years later.   Jewell himself, died of a heart attack 11 years later at the young age of 44.    Again, why did so many have to go through that?  What was all that for?  Perhaps this is why Jesus becomes so graphic in the final words of this text.   He says bluntly, if your right hand or foots cause you to stumble, or anyone else for that matter, cut it off.  It’s better to be maimed in life, than to end up going into the fire with both hands or both feet.   You get the picture.  Jesus takes very seriously the human responsibility to ourselves, to others, and especially to the young.   He suggests that it’s better for us to have less, even of our own body and do what is right than to have our whole body and do wrong, either to ourselves or others. 

But perhaps the final thing that needs to be said here, is that it is very important to remember that Jesus is talking about the kingdom.  When he speaks of putting a stumbling block before little ones, he’s probably talking about young ones in faith too.  For like children, new Christians are very vulnerable to having their faith injured or threatened by others, either intentionally or unintentionally.   Think back for to the tragic of the pastor in a prominent California church who abused his position by not removing his son with pedophile thoughts.  Think how some young Christians, or new converts in that church, may have had their trust broken and faith weakened when they learned their pastor had acted so irresponsibly, with such disregard for innocent young lives.

The temptations of power in the world today, are not that different from the temptations to misuse or abuse power in God’s kingdom work too.   This is, perhaps why, when asked about ‘greatness’ by his disciples,  Jesus puts forth the vulnerable child, who must not only be emulated in humility, but protected in that adults do.   Again, this is why Jesus’ ends with such a sharp, pointed warning.  

But, thanks to Jesus’ warning, we can conclude this message in a positively.    We can now understand true greatness not as known best in what we achieve, but true greatness; greatness in God’s way and in God’s kingdom is already there in who we are in God’s love and who we are called to be in Christ.  Like a child, who has ever yet achieved anything, greatness is who we are, because, as Jesus says, ‘ in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven (Matt. 18:10 NRS).   I don’t think there is any more beautiful, poetic, theological understanding of true greatness in the kingdom that this.   Greatness is like a child who, due to the child’s innocence, vulnerability, and humility,  has better ‘angels’ who can see straight into the face of God.    Now, that’s greatness.   Amen.