In this video, Clint Loveall and Michael Gewecke continue their study of the Gospel of Luke. They focus on a beloved passage where Jesus welcomes children and emphasizes the value of humility and vulnerability. The hosts discuss the cultural context of children in Jesus’ time and the significance of treating marginalized individuals with love and care. They also explore the deeper meaning of receiving the Kingdom of God as a child and the challenges of letting go of control and trusting in God’s grace. Join Clint and Michael as they delve into the richness of this text and its relevance in our lives today.
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Transcript
00:00:00:34 – 00:00:22:39
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Thanks for being with us. It’s good to welcome you back as we continue through the Gospel of Luke in the 18th chapter today, verse 15 to 17 here, our first section, I think one of those passages that is beloved, not so much as a story, but perhaps more as an image. Let me read it for you and then we’ll circle back to it.
00:00:22:44 – 00:00:50:57
Clint Loveall
People were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them. And when the disciples saw it, they sternly ordered them not to do so. But Jesus called them and said, Let the little children come to me and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the Kingdom of God belongs. And I tell you the truth, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God as a child will never enter it.
00:00:51:01 – 00:01:17:08
Clint Loveall
So I think those of us who maybe grew up with pictures of kids on Jesus lap or Jesus standing with children who heard this kind of language, I mean, I think this is a warm kind of text for most of us. It’s maybe a little sentimental, but the idea that Jesus loves children is comforting to us. I think it’s it’s a beautiful image.
00:01:17:13 – 00:01:59:30
Clint Loveall
I think that it’s an important image, though. I think, Michael and interestingly enough, you mentioned this on Sunday in in your sermon. I think it is difficult for us to understand that this is not a consensus in Jesus world. It those of us who live in a culture that values children and treasures images and and loves the idea of, you know, babies and young people, it’s a little harder for us to resonate that that was that was not so much the case in Jesus world.
00:01:59:34 – 00:02:32:56
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. This is, I think, very difficult for us to contextualize in our own time and place. And honestly, talking about it makes you feel like you’re a real curmudgeon and makes you not the life of the party. But I think it’s really important that we recognize that there was a different cultural perspective related to children in the ancient world than there is today for a lot of different reasons, though one reason being quite simply, that life expectancies for children were substantially lower at that point.
00:02:32:56 – 00:02:53:47
Michael Gewecke
And so a family might have a number of children and not all of those children would make it to adulthood. So there was a kind of awareness of the fragility of the small life. And then on top of that, you have this reality where so many of these kids claim that they didn’t contribute to the families financial needs.
00:02:53:47 – 00:03:16:17
Michael Gewecke
If a family needed work to be done, especially the youngest children were a burden and they were not a benefit, at some point they would get old enough that they could either be a part of the household chores or ultimately be able to generate income of some form. But the goal of childhood was to get someone as quickly as possible to a place where they could actually carry their own weight.
00:03:16:19 – 00:03:51:16
Michael Gewecke
And so as we look at a text like this, I think what’s really important for us to recognize is that when Jesus calls up infants and children, he’s calling to mind the most humble, the most put out, the most useless, putting that if you can’t see it, if you’re in the pious, I’m putting that in scare quotes that the ones who are creating or contributing the least and he’s saying they have in high parent value because of the reality of whose they belong to.
00:03:51:16 – 00:04:19:30
Michael Gewecke
This language that we here have here as receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, it is God who is the one who determines the value of these children. It’s always important we read these texts in context, and I think that there is a kind of sentimentality applied to this text. So I just want to point out where we ended on verse 14, who all who exalt themselves will be humble and all who humble themselves would be exalted.
00:04:19:42 – 00:04:48:15
Michael Gewecke
The very next words in Luke give us as illustration, the people who are most humbled by definition, literally the children. And it is these who are in God’s eyes exalted. They’re lifted up. They’re made even more important because of God’s grace and power. And that exemplifies the point that Jesus was making and does so in a way that would have really hit home in the first century context.
00:04:48:19 – 00:05:14:48
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think, though, contextualizing this passage might be troubling, the idea that to speak of children as outsiders, perhaps, but Luke is incredibly partial to the down and the out and those who live on the bottom rung. We’ve seen that. Keep in mind that Jesus occupies a culture in which most children are going to do what their parents do.
00:05:14:52 – 00:05:41:09
Clint Loveall
The males are going to grow up and probably inherit their fathers job, their father’s vocation. There’s some flexibility, but not a lot. And and so the idea that a man is sitting around, you know, blessing children, it is we read that and we think, yes, that would happen, that that would have been very out of character in Jesus day.
00:05:41:09 – 00:06:17:33
Clint Loveall
In fact, the disciples, we see it in their reaction, right? They random just don’t bother him with these kids. They go, go on, go on. And then Jesus says, Let the children come to me. Now, this isn’t to say Jesus doesn’t value children. Clearly he does. But it is to say you have to put that in the broader context of what Luke has been telling us the entire time, that Jesus is for the marginalized, that Jesus is for those on the edges, that Jesus has a predisposition, a bent toward those who get pushed out of the circle.
00:06:17:38 – 00:06:49:22
Clint Loveall
And I think if you if you understand that not only can we read through this text and say, hey, children matter, matter, and the church should care for kids and we should care for kids. But more than that, there’s more than that lesson here. And I think the way that we treat children in our culture, which is arguably better than the first century Middle Eastern world, it can get in the way of us seeing the larger picture, the bigger picture here of what Jesus is doing.
00:06:49:22 – 00:07:19:03
Clint Loveall
And so then we come to this this last verse. What does it mean? I tell you the truth, if you can’t receive the Kingdom of God as a child, you can’t enter it. Well, what does that mean to us? It means innocence. It means naivete. It means pure heartedness. Right? Those are what we read into this text. But what might it also mean in the context Jesus says it?
00:07:19:08 – 00:07:45:16
Clint Loveall
It might also mean those who have nothing to offer, those who don’t have standing in the world, those who can’t buy their way, and those who aren’t important. If you can’t receive the kingdom as one who can only receive, then you might not ever enter. And again, Michael, I think while it may be troubling for us to get there, I think if we can see that, I do think it deepens the text.
00:07:45:21 – 00:08:16:44
Michael Gewecke
It deepens the text. I think it also points out the ways in which a text like this has been formative in the life of the church and the world, I think, in helpful ways. And if you’re a person who’s been with us for a number of these studies, then I’m sure at some point you’ve been with us at the point where we had rather critical things to say about the church or the church’s interpretation of a text or, you know, over thousands of years, the church has certainly got it, gotten it wrong more times than we can count.
00:08:16:44 – 00:08:52:26
Michael Gewecke
But it’s worth pointing out the church has taken words like this incredibly seriously in the history of its life. And it’s because of texts like this and this is this text with its other inclusions in the Synoptic Gospels. I mean, the establishment of orphanages, the establishment of children’s hospitals, the establishes ment of schools, this text being directly referenced in the midst of the the series of reforms that happened when legislation was passed that children couldn’t work.
00:08:52:26 – 00:09:22:35
Michael Gewecke
I mean, this this idea of treating children as valuable, regardless of their contribution, has been read by the Church helpfully throughout its history, and it has been taken seriously. And because of that, I do think we inherit a world in which it is not for every child. And that’s a thing that we have to recognize. But for many children, the world that we live in today is a far more equitable place than it was for children.
00:09:22:35 – 00:09:44:29
Michael Gewecke
And some of that is because of Christians who read a text like this and said, I can put that into action. Now, that said, I think a more complex reading opens our eyes to see that text. Surely Luke is not just talking about children. Luke is talking about all of those vulnerable people who are displaced and put out and who are powerless.
00:09:44:29 – 00:10:03:41
Michael Gewecke
I think that Luke has a much larger view than just children in mind. But there are times in which the church has taken a text like this and said this is a clarion call. We need to live into the kinds of values we see in the scripture here. And I think that this is an example where that has been done well in many cases.
00:10:03:52 – 00:10:35:58
Clint Loveall
And that happened fairly early. We have documented history of things that happened in Rome, in the Roman world, in Jesus day of people taking children either born the wrong gender or unwanted or couldn’t afford them and leaving them in fields, or that there was a particular dump outside of Jerusalem where that often happened. And we have documentation that suggests Christians went out and and did what they could to rescue those children.
00:10:35:58 – 00:11:02:19
Clint Loveall
So that call was taken seriously very early in the church’s life, and we should continue to hear it. Having said that, we also want to put this text in conversation with the other texts around it. And I want you to hold on to this one, because essentially what this text says is that those who really don’t have much to offer receive the kingdom.
00:11:02:24 – 00:11:30:02
Clint Loveall
And tomorrow we meet a man who has everything to offer and can’t receive the kingdom. And so Luke, as he often does masterfully, places stories together to get a contrast and to get the most impact out of each one. And I think you’ll want to hold this story loosely as we go into a very different story tomorrow, because I think they accent each other really well.
00:11:30:07 – 00:12:04:05
Michael Gewecke
And I think the question that comes to us comes from this last verse. Truly, I tell you, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it. This is a really challenging word from Jesus. I think, really, if we take it seriously, because most of us live our entire lives seeking agency far beyond that child, we want to be in control of our life and we try to achieve that control through so many different means, through influence, through popularity, through money, through resources.
00:12:04:10 – 00:12:27:16
Michael Gewecke
We try to pull ourselves ahead. And when we do that, we put ourself at the driver’s seat and we make it all the harder. I think when we come to a text like what Jesus is teaching here, we make it all the harder for ourself to receive the kingdom, which is always by definition, gift. It’s never earned, it’s never achieved.
00:12:27:22 – 00:12:53:33
Michael Gewecke
And I think for so many of us, myself included, maybe myself supremely, I find the texts like this very, very challenging because it’s it’s very hard to live your life open to vulnerability and trust. And that’s what Jesus is calling us to lives of of trust in him and not our own agency or power or whatever things we might reach for.
00:12:53:33 – 00:13:00:54
Michael Gewecke
And I think if we’re willing to hear in this, yes, there’s a comforting image here. There’s also a challenging applicable image here.
00:13:00:59 – 00:13:26:09
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And and again, masterfully, Luke puts this little episode which we love on its own, but notice to where it is. It is between the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in which the tax collector said, Forgive me, I’m a sinner, and went home justified. And the tax collector said, I’m so good. I’m glad I’m not like these other people and didn’t go home.
00:13:26:09 – 00:13:48:15
Clint Loveall
Justified. And then the story will see the moral the rich ruler who who wants to inherit eternal life but finds that the price is ironically too high for a rich man and this text might seem oddly place and less. I think you understand what Luke is doing with it.
00:13:48:19 – 00:14:10:08
Michael Gewecke
And this is the value, and this is why we’re so glad for all of you who join us daily as we go along this study. Because when we take it slowly, we discover the ways in which these stories have been included together to teach us something with much larger strokes than just short little sections. So thank you for investing your time with us again today.
00:14:10:08 – 00:14:24:57
Michael Gewecke
If you’ve made it this far through the study, were overjoyed that you’ve done that. We hope that you will leave by giving this video a light that helps others find it in the future and then subscribe so you can stick with us along the journey. We look forward to seeing you all and study with you when we return tomorrow.
00:14:24:59 – 00:14:25:44
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.