The horrific images of the fire in Fort McMurray caused so many of us not only to grieve with the people there, as we did this morning, but to reflect upon the devastating power of fire. Some years ago, there was an incredible song by Bastille entitled Things We Lost in the Fire. It speaks to us in a poetic way:
Things we have lost to the flames
That we’ll never see again
All that we’ve amassed
Sits before us, shattered into ash
These are the things, the things we lost,
The things we lost in the fire, fire, fire
These are the things, the things we lost
The things we lost in the fir, fire, fire
We sat and made a list
Of all the things that we have
Down the backs of table tops
Ticket stubs and your diaries
I read them all one day
When loneliness came and you were away
Oh they told me nothing new,
But I love to read the words you used
These are the things, the things we lost…
There is an old saying by the Khoi Khoi bush men of the Kalahari Desert: “Fires change everything!” They deal with fires all the time. Their buildings are made of straw and dung and clay, and when a fire comes their place is destroyed. They realize that fires change everything and then they rebuild. It is one of the realities of the power of fire that it consumes much of what is before it.
Fires can also have other deadly effects. This past winter, I met Bill Prevette, the author of The Theology of the Mission to the Child. He has spent his life ministering to children, and sometimes street children. In this book that he put together on the theology of the mission to the child, Prevette collected stories of people who have ministered to children. One of them is a story about a school that was created in Pretoria in South Africa in the 1990s. It was a school and a residence that was created out of an abandoned church where a congregation had moved out into the suburbs. The people who took that church over decided to take particularly young boys who were living on the streets – destitute, beaten, homeless, and parentless, and give them a place of refuge. It wasn’t always an easy road to bring these boys into that nice neighborhood of Pretoria. In what is now Stephen Biko Street, this church stood as the symbol of outreach to the lowliest and the most vulnerable in society. Unfortunately not everyone shared that spirit of generosity! Although it is never stated in the essay, it is implied that one day someone decided to burn down the school, and the boys once again became homeless. The people who had cared for them were devastated, not only because this was a place of refuge for the children, but it was a place of dignity. One of the writers commenting on this terrible story said, “Yes, they took away the building. They took away the security. They took away the home. They took away the safety. But, they never could take away the dignity, the dignity of knowing that someone loved them and cared for them. It is that dignity that stays even after the fire.”
You see, there are things that flames cannot burn and that can’t be destroyed. As significant as physical things are, there are more important things. Jesus addresses one of them in today’s passage from the Gospel of Matthew. He talks about the one important thing that can be lost unless we are careful, and that is the gift of innocence. Throughout his ministry, Jesus talked in parables about the relationship between the powerful and the vulnerable. Over time, you see that he identified with the vulnerable and weak. In this commentary about the relationship between the powerful and the vulnerable, Jesus wanted to make sure that those that were in power took care of those who were vulnerable.
In this instance, he talks about bringing a child into the midst of the disciples who are arguing about which is the greatest. Jesus points to a child, a vulnerable child, and says, “If you have this kind of humility, then you receive me.” I preached on this last September – if you want to go back and look at it – on the humility of a child. But this passage goes even further. Jesus becomes more strident, much stronger, and much more powerful. He wants to defend the innocent and the vulnerable. He sends a warning to everyone to take care of the innocent, and he does so by looking at the vulnerability of the human condition. In this passage, there are mixed messages. On the one hand, Jesus talks about children in a literal sense. He brings a child and he places him in front. Matthew recounts a story that the other Gospels also recount of Jesus and little children: “Unless you become like one of these little children, you cannot follow me.” But you will notice that he also talks about “the little ones” who believe in him, and here the language in the Greek changes. It implies those who are little in the faith, new to the Christian faith, and new to following Jesus as a disciple, to look after and protect these innocent new believers, these children, and in so doing, care for Christ. Jesus did this because he knew that innocence can be lost. I think he was particularly concerned for new believers, for people who were starting to follow him, but were unsure if in fact he was the Messiah, and if they had a really strong faith in him. Jesus saw that those disciples needed to care for and to protect the vulnerable little ones.
I read a wonderful story not long ago by Albert Gordon, who was writing about when he was a boy. He was thirteen years old and his brother was ten. His father had offered to take them to a spectacular event, and you know what children are like when you tell them they are going to a party or a ball game or the theatre or to a performance or something, often they don’t sleep they are so excited about the prospect of going. Well, this thirteen year-old boy and his ten year-old brother were told by their father that they were going to be going to the circus downtown. The day it was scheduled, the father received a telephone call from his work saying, “We really do need you to come back and work downtown.” He was torn. He didn’t know what to do. He was torn between his work and his two boys and the promise he made. He looked into their eyes and made a decision. His decision was that he was going to go to the circus. They sat down at lunch, and his wife said to him, “You do know that the circus can come back again.”
He said, “Yes, I know that. But childhood cannot.”
There is a sense in which a loss of innocence, a loss to the vulnerable, to take away the beauty of the moment, is something that cannot be regained. Why? Because Jesus knew that destiny can be destroyed. All of us are born as human beings and we are born as sinful creatures. That is who we are. Despite that, every single one of us who has been made by God has a destiny. Every one of us has a purpose in this life and in this world, and there is no one who has received the gift of life that does not have that gift of destiny. We are made in the image of God, and we are made for God. We are made by God, and we are made to serve God. Jesus is concerned however, that when the sins and the torments of the world come along, it can take away our sense of destiny. It can damage our innocence. Jesus understood that when that innocence is lost, it can affect both our relationship with God and our relationships with one another. When we lose our destiny, when we lose our call in life, so often this happens, and I think that it is an indictment on faith communities over the last say forty or fifty years, that we haven’t taken that responsibility seriously enough in realizing that by not setting good examples, we have caused “little ones” either in the faith or literally little ones themselves, to have a damaged relationship with God or no relationship at all. There is a sense in which their destiny as servants of God, as disciples of God, has been lost in the mire of all the other things that we think somehow are more important than that. There is nothing more important than that!
Over the winter, I was lecturing for a while about The Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I read the report extensively, and then spoke to other academics about it. My heart was broken by what I was reading – and not in some sentimental, wishy-washy way, but broken-hearted due to the way in which “little ones” were literally led astray. Little ones were wounded and damaged and removed from their homes. Little ones were taken into institutions and mistreated. Little ones were not able to reach their destiny and it affected their relationship with God, and with each other. It affected their relationship with their culture, and their relationship with Jesus himself. In the great blight of the residential schools was the damage it did in removing innocence, for which we should be on our knees begging forgiveness.
Jesus would have something very strong to say about this, and he did. He used words that, particularly in Israel at the time, would have been absolutely catastrophic! He said, “It is better that you have a large millstone about your neck and be thrown into the depths of the sea than be a stumbling block, or cause one of these little ones to falter.” The language is even more important and impressive in the Greek than it is in the English. He uses the word mulos olinos to describe the millstone. There were two millstones: the one in the house that anyone could use with a hand crank with a stone to grind the flour and make it fine, but then there was the big one that would take all the wheat and crush it. It is the mulos, the one powered by a mule. It is absolutely massive! No human being can move it on their own. But then, the language gets even more strident, and for a Jew really, really strident: “It is better that you have a millstone put around your neck and be thrown into the depths of the sea.” The depths of the sea, in Judaism, are where the Leviathan lives. The depths of the sea are where you go and there is no heaven. The depths of the sea are where the rabbis would take the idols and throw them off the side of boats. The depths of the sea represent oblivion. Jesus said, “It is better for you to do good to protect the innocent,( looking at it the other way), to preserve the others, than to have a millstone put around your neck as you are thrown into oblivion.” Why such strong language? Jesus is profoundly concerned about the dangers of leading the innocent astray. Not only do we all have a destiny, but we all have potential. A child has potential in their lives ahead of them. A new believer has potential to be a witness for Christ in the world. It is not only who we are now; it is the potential of who and what we are to be.
I love a story told by William Barclay of the great Duke Robert of Burgundy in the eleventh century. He was a well-known military leader and knight. He would wear his armour, go into battle, and be formidable. One day, he heard that he was going to have to go into battle again, but he had a newly born son. With this newly born child, he handed over the child’s protection to some of his warriors, also in their metal garb. He said, “I want you to look after and to protect this little child of mine.” Well, you can imagine these soldiers having to babysit! This was not high on their agenda! Isn’t that the sort of thing these tough guys get women to do? But that was not what the Duke had asked for. He asked for them to look after the child, and they said, “Yes, but he is only a little baby. It doesn’t mean much.”
Robert said, “No, but he will grow.”
The little boy grew to be William, the Conqueror – a formidable character!
You see, we have potential. You believers have potential, and children have potential. The one thing we must never do is cause either to stumble and to fall by our example, by our lack of teaching, by our lack of compassion. It is particularly hard, I think, for those who live in poverty to deal with these things. There are many stumbling blocks. They find themselves in neighborhoods that are often rough and tough, without the advantages of life, without the security of home life. Oftentimes, it is really hard not to stumble when you have little. Bill Prevette’s book states this in talking about such children:
The child by nature of my faith did not disappear, but I started to grapple with Jesus’ words that we have to become like children. The experience with the boys off the street, who had become my interlocutors became the voices and lives that God used to change me into someone that I was not before. These boys reaffirmed that God embraces the children of the world, and particularly the most vulnerable and the poor. God, in a special way, sides with the children in the face of those who seek to destroy and violate them.
The writer discovered what Jesus was talking about in our text: that the children of the world and the vulnerable of the world need to be protected.
Let us not be deceived into believing all of this is a matter of poverty. In fact, in places of poverty you will find the most committed, the most redemptive, and the most faithful of people. No! it is also for the affluent, for those who place the success of life above the destiny of faith, those who place the accumulation of things above the development of character, those who purport to show the value of life in terms of its achievements rather than the value of life in the depths of its service. Sometimes even the most affluent and powerful can glory in their own wisdom and success and triumph, and at the same time become a stumbling block for the most vulnerable even in their own midst. I see it all the time!
Jesus has strong words! You know where they come from? They come from love. They come from compassion. They come from following him. He says, “If you take one of these children or one of these ‘little ones’ you are taking me.” It is not just about protecting the innocent. It is not just about lifting up the weak. It is about being a disciple, about putting me first, and following these children as if you are following me. Why? It is because Christ came for the vulnerable. Christ came for the innocent. Christ came for the weak. His whole life was an outpouring of love for destinies for children. May we, on Christian Family Sunday, do the same! Amen.