Children come to me

Ah, Youth!

"People were bringing their little children to Him to have Him touch them, but the disciples were scolding them for this"

Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) or 10:2-12

One of the difficult things about growing up is that we don't all do it at the same time. A little girl asks, "Daddy, where was I when you were a little boy?" The question prompts Dad to look in the direction of her twelve-year old brother and he recalls his own early adolescence. He decides that now is the time for the bold action. "Son," he says solemnly, "I think its time we had a little man-to-man talk. I would like to discuss some of the facts of life with you." To which the boy replies, "Sure Dad, what is it you want to know?"

Parents are fond of prefacing words of wisdom to their children with "When I was your age..." But what follows often indicates they forget that they were their children's age in a far different age. In the last three decades, the pace of change has quickened to the point that a new era is born in the short space of a generation. Whoever coined the phrase, "generation gap," was not engaged in idle fantasizing. If you are middle-aged or over, TV was not part of your adolescent experience. Today, our four-year-olds can be heard singing beer and deodorant commercials. When you reached driving age, two cars in one family was a first-rate status symbol. Today, two cars are generally regarded as a near necessity. When the tank was empty, you asked your father for a little cash. Today, your teenager borrows you credit card. Thirty years ago, "Children should be seen and not heard," was still a standard family cliche'. But who would dream of trying that one today? And whatever happened to the crew-cut?

Viewed in this manner, youth is a time of life conditioned by the times. But times change, now more rapidly than ever before, and so does the experience of youth.

In our Gospel Lesson, Jesus informs us that the Kingdom of God belongs to youth: "Let the children come to Me and do not hinder them. It is to just such as these that the Kingdom of God belongs" (Mk.l0: 14). Do we have cause to wonder at this? Who are the model children we must emulate in staking our claim to the Kingdom? Obviously, the experience of youth in Jesus' time would bear little resemblance to the growing-up experience of our own children. Could it be that each of us is expected to revert back to his or her own particular time of youth? Or are we to look to the lives of the saints for clues? (In point of fact, some saints were frightful rascals in their younger days!) The answer, of course, is none of these. Jesus is not speaking of youth as a time of life. Jesus is speaking of a state of mind and heart, a quality of life we can aspire to, regardless of age. It is not a matter of rosy cheeks; it is a matter of the will to "seek first the Kingdom of God" in the spirit of youthful enthusiasm and imagination and wide-eyed expectation. Youth, in this Gospel sense, means to approach life in the spirit of adventure and to live in a way which says, "I'm really going someplace." Years may wrinkle the skin, but lack of enthusiasm for life's journey wrinkles the soul.

Whether one is seventy or seventeen, there is in every human heart a great reservoir of child-like awe and wonder, of child-like zest for "What's next?", of child-like hope for the transformation of "things as they are" into things as they will be." We read in First Corinthians,

Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor

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has it so much as dawned on man what God has prepared for those who love Him (). Only a heart filled with child-like awe and wonder can cherish that prophecy!

We read in the Gospel of Mark, "Go into the whole world and proclaim the Good News to all creation" (). Only in the zestful spirit of "What's next?" can we embrace this as the main thrust of our lives!

We read in the Gospel of Luke, "The Lord has been raised! It is true!" (). Only a heart that nurtures a childlike hope for the transformation of "things as they are" into "things as they will be" can believe in the promise of Resurrection!

In that awe-stricken, enthusiastic, expectant spirit of youth, we assemble this day to celebrate our stake in God's Kingdom. We celebrate, because we know in our hearts that life's adventure is worth pursuing. We celebrate, because we know in our hearts that we really are going someplace. We celebrate, because we know in our hearts that every person counts; that man is not just an atom blowing in the wind. We celebrate the Gospel Truth in our hearts that the human family is one, and the vision (not fantasy) of total reconciliation of all things in the Lord Jesus. And we celebrate our awesome commission to perform the Lord's works of reconciliation.

Our so-called mature, work-obsessed culture has little time for youthful vision. It venerates facts, statistics and probability curves. It dispatches our dreamers to the sanitarium and turns the controls of society over to the superrealists. But our super-realists are anything but young at heart. They have a limited vision of "things as they will be." What if they do manage to provide every human being on earth with a guaranteed annual income and every home with two color TVs? What if they do finally solve all of the physical problems of life? Will that be the Kingdom of God, realized at last? Will it even produce a decent society? I hardly think so. The essential question will still be the same: What is really worth doing in life? Jesus gives us our answer: "I assure you that whoever does not accept the Reign of God like a little child shall not take part in it" ().

Behaving as Jesus would have us behave will set us apart, make us appear different-"unrealistic" they may say. It may subject us to considerable scolding by the realists of this world who reject the Christian vision. But, however painful it may become, we will remember these words in today's Gospel Lesson: "People were bringing their little children to Him to have Him touch them, but the disciples scolded them for this." And, however loud the voice of scorn may be raised, we will hear the voice of Jesus rise above it: "Let the children come to Me and do not hinder them. It is to just as these that the Kingdom of God belongs." And no amount of scolding will keep us from Jesus' side.