The Little Children

 Mark 10:13-15

¹³ People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. ¹⁴ When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. ¹⁵ Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” ¹⁶ And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.

In light of the discoveries of these past days, I feel I should make some affirmations of things I believe and things I choose to reject.

1) Jesus loves little children.  All suffering of children everywhere is a tragedy, and the death of a child is one of the signs that we are living in a world that is not as it should be.

2) God created the family as the place where children should be raised.  Any power or policy that separates families goes against God's design. Some families are broken and some children need to be protected from their parents, but that should be done by the community around the family.

3) Canada is not a Christian nation. Canada was created by bureaucrats, rich businessmen and politicians.  Yes, there is a foundation of justice and human rights that comes from the biblical view of humanity that underlies English common law.  There were Christians in the room when Canada was negotiated into existence.  But government in this world is not what Christianity is about; otherwise, Jesus would not have been crucified, he would have gathered an army and conquered Rome as many thought the Messiah would.

4) Jesus did not create a religion of hierarchy, power, and imperialism. Humans have taken advantage of every opportunity to be selfish and to collect and exercise power. Jesus comes to every institution in every society, including his own church, and challenges its selfishness, its corruption, and its pride. In the great vision of heavenly worship in the Book of Revelation, there will be people from all tribes, nations and tongues declaring allegiance to Jesus as their King, with no intermediary monarchs. His kingdom is not of this world. When the church has tried to institute God's kingdom through the exercise of power, it has produced some of the most blatantly evil times and events in history.

5) God will judge evil. That He allows evil to happen, even within His church, points to how much dignity He has placed in humanity, to make choices and to then have the consequences of those choices play out over generations. In the understanding of the historic church, the ones who cause (or have caused) suffering to children will be punished. Sometimes the evil is so vast that punishment in this life does not seem to be adequate. We understand that God has created us as eternal beings, and that punishment and blessing both extend beyond this mortal life. This provides hope for me that justice will be done. This does not mean that we should not strive for justice here and now.

6) Jesus is the model for people who declare allegiance to him. That means we should do what he did, which is to lay down our rights and our lives for others. As a Canadian citizen I am free to use the laws of Canada for my benefit. As a follower of Christ I need to balance my opportunity for gain against God's love for others. Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve. All who follow Jesus should do the same.

I have learned a lot, but I have much more to learn, about how powerful white Christians have abused their positions to cause others to suffer. Some of that suffering was out of malice. Some of it happened despite good intentions, because of the blindness of white Christianity to its racism and its domination of others.

The church that follows Jesus Christ now needs to be silent and mourn. We need to humbly listen to others, whether those people are from First Nations, from other cultures, from communities that we have shown hatred to. We have not earned the right to say "Jesus loves you." 

We are supposed to be Jesus' hands and feet, going out to the highways and byways and inviting all the poor, the crippled, the blind and deaf to the wedding banquet of love that Jesus is putting on. We have become the ones too busy, too rich, too self-sufficient to even attend Jesus' banquet.

I am sorry.