The Child Within

June 21, 2002

On April 3rd, 1997, an Irish phone company named Eircom announced a unique competition. Every town in Ireland with a population under thirty-thousand was eligible to become what Eircom called “The Information Age Town.” The prize was a computer and free Internet access for every household in that town. One of the contestants was the small, sleepy village of Ennis. They coaxed Eircom officials into a helicopter and taught a thousand school age children to march across the football field spelling out the phrase “Information Age Town.”

Ennis won the competition and that’s where the story gets interesting. According to Michael Lewis, no one in Ennis even knew what the Internet was! They just knew it was something you were supposed to want. Lewis discovered that the older citizens of Ennis had no idea what to do with the computers. Some of them never opened the computer boxes while others actually displayed the computers on fireplace mantles like trophies!

The overnight transition from medieval Irish village into Information Age Town had an interesting side effect. Lewis says, “It inverted long-standing relationships between young people and old people.” Instead of adults teaching children, children started teaching adults. The same kids who marched across the football field spelling out the phrase “Information Age Town” offered classes on computers and the Internet.

In Matthew 18, Jesus inverts the long-standing relationships between young people and old people. The disciples asked Jesus, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of God?” Jesus picked a little child out of the crowd and said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Most religious traditions look to the wise old sage as the epitome of spirituality, but Christianity is child-centric. Children are the centerpiece of Jesus theology. Christians are called to childlikeness.

Childishness

It’s important to understand the difference between childlikeness and childishness so let me make the distinction. I Corinthians 13:11 says, “When I was a child I thought like a child, I talked like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.”

The word “childish” means “simple-minded.” Oliver Wendell Holmes said there are two types of simplicity. There’s simplicity on the near side of complexity. And there’s simplicity on the far side of complexity. God calls us to simplicity on the far side of complexity.

There are a lot of Christians who have settled for simplicity on the near side of complexity. They’re unwilling to deal with doubt. They’ve never wrestled with paradox. They’ve never been stretched by the tension of opposites. They have a childish faith--it’s simple-minded. Hebrews 6:1 says, “Let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity.” I Corinthians 14:20 puts it this way, “Stop thinking like children. In regards to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.” We need to avoid childishness at all costs, but we’re called to childlikeness.

The Child Within

Dr. Seuss said, “Adults are obsolete children.” Somehow we need to rediscover the child within. That’s not just “pop psychology.” That’s good theology. Jesus said we can’t enter the kingdom of heaven if we don’t. “Unless you change and become like little children you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” The King James version says, “Unless ye be converted.” The words “change” and “converted” come from the Greek word strepho which means “to reverse.”

One dimension of spiritual growth is reversing the aging process, not the physical affects of aging, but the spiritual and psychological affects. Childlikeness is rediscovering the child within--the person we were before we were pressured by peers or polluted by the harsh realities of life, before we developed limitations and assumptions, before we had egos and alter egos. The child within is who we were pre-sin.

At NCC’s recent Baptism @ the Bay, one of the baptism candidates talked about how Jesus had transformed her life. She said, “Now I’m the person I was as a child--always smiling and laughing.” Jesus used the phrase “born again” to describe conversion. It’s about starting over again. It’s a new lease on life. In a sense, it’s a second childhood. Conversion kickstarts two processes: Christlikeness and childlikeness. Spiritual maturity is becoming like Christ and becoming like little children.

Foolishness

Jesus says, “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” The humility of children is disarming. There is no pride or pretense. There are no inhibitions or hidden agendas. When you’re around children you don’t need to “put on airs.” You can just be yourself. Michael Lewis says, “Children enjoy one big advantage over adults; they haven’t decided who they are. They haven’t sunk a lot of psychological capital into a particular self.”

The word “humble” in Matthew 18:4 comes from the Greek word tapeinoo, which in it’s strongest form, means “to humiliate.” No one is better at that than kids! But if kids weren’t willing to humiliate themselves they’d never learn to walk or talk. Stepping out in faith can be humbling, even humiliating at times. But faith is the willingness to look foolish.

Noah looked foolish building an ark in the desert. Sarah looked foolish buying maternity clothes at ninety-nine. David looked foolish attacking Goliath with a slingshot. Peter looked foolish stepping out of the boat in the middle of the lake in the middle of a storm. Jesus looked foolish hanging half-naked on a cross. But that’s faith--a willingness to look foolish. And the results speak for themselves. Noah was saved from the flood. Sarah gave birth to Isaac. David defeated Goliath. Peter walked on water. And Jesus was raised from the dead.

I Corinthians 1:27 says, “God choose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.” Faith often feels foolish at the outset, but it makes perfect sense at the end of the day. Ludwig Wittgenstein said, “If people did not sometimes do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.”

Here’s a final thought. Ashley Montague said, “I want to die young at a ripe old age.” As we get older we should get younger. Cicero said, “For as I like a young man in whom there is something old, so I like an old man in whom there is something young.” Rediscover the child within. The process begins when you are “born again.”