“Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?”
We might imagine an analagous situation where someone asked, "Who is the greatest in this corporation?" In response to a question like that we might expect to hear that the greatest person was the CEO, or some other lead contributor or visionary, someone with both power and accomplishments. Or again, imagine if someone asked, "Who is the greatest in this country?" We might mention the person who was the most powerful, perhaps the president, or someone with the most wealth, or even some philanthropist who seemed to be doing great good. There are a wide variety on answers we might give or expect to hear. But among them would probably not be the answer Jesus gives about the Kingdom.
He called a child over, placed it in their midst, and said,
“Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children,
you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven.
Imagine that he said that this child was the greatest in a company or in a nation. Why? What had he done to earn that position? Precisely nothing. The greatest in the Kingdom are those who learn to depend on God rather than to try to achieve greatness by their own efforts. This was precisely the Little Way of Saint Therese of Lisieux whom we celebrated yesterday.
"He calls infants all who believe through the hearing of faith; for such follow their father, love their mother, know not to will that which is evil, do not bear hate, or speak lies, trust what is told them, and believe what they hear to be true."- Saint Hilary of Poitiers
We know that real children are not some ideal form of humility and perfection. They sometimes display disturbing greed, selfishness, and entitlement. But even with these real world instances of the ideal we see why they are made examples by Jesus in that they have not yet built up a narrative of identity based on the satisfaction of these tendencies. As adults, we still experience these same impulses, but we have hidden them behind a facade, a narrative which we desire to believe about ourselves. Children are not tied to the mistakes they make based on their passions in the way that adults tend to be. They may be prideful for a moment, but they don't have the habit of seeing themselves that way. If they turn from trust in their parents for a moment they are to quickly return "ten times the more" to seek them.
As your hearts have been disposed to stray from God,
turn now ten times the more to seek him;
For he who has brought disaster upon you
will, in saving you, bring you back enduring joy.
The stories that we adults tell ourselves about our worth and value are seldom based solely in the fact that we are beloved children of our Father in heaven. Rather, they are about us, and our effort. Mixed up in these stories are many rationalizations for the various sins to which we cling. We have built an identity, and we are afraid to experience what would happen if we let go things like pride, afraid of what would fill the void if we let go of illicit pleasures.
If we were the ones assigning powerful heavenly beings to be the guardians of mere men and women we would probably prioritize the powerful, those who seemed to be accomplishing great things. We would likely give protection first to presidents and CEOs and other great women and men, assuming that by doing so the a solid social foundation could be built for everyone to thrive. But this is emphatically not what God did. No one received a Guardian Angel because of their greatness, but it was rather precisely in our most humble and vulnerable state that God first sent his angels to guard us.
“See that you do not despise one of these little ones,
for I say to you that their angels in heaven
always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.”
Our Guardian Angels are a pledge of love from the Father, an assurance that he is sincere when he says he already loves us for who we are, long before we can achieve anything to merit that love.
For the LORD hears the poor,
and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.
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