“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. … See that you do not despise one of these little ones … it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.” Matthew 18:3-6, 10, 14.
When we are confronted with these words of Christ, it is difficult at first to understand his precise meaning. The first point of misunderstanding is the obvious paradox, “Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” What about the “humility” of a child is great? Why is it the “greatest” in the kingdom of heaven?
The second point of possible misunderstanding is the cryptic next line, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.” What does this mean? Usually in life when we receive one person we receive that particular person. We reveal ourselves to each other precisely in our particularity, which is both the glory and the peculiar trial of human love. We all bear the same nature, but that does not make any of us commensurate with another. You cannot simply substitute one person for another as though any object expressing the value “human” is equivalent to any other. Oranges can be substituted this way; it does not really matter if I eat this orange or that orange. Not so with people. How, then, can it be that when someone receives a child in Jesus’ name, he receives Jesus himself?
The final point of misunderstanding is the apparent contradiction between Jesus’ warning that, “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea,” and his subsequent declaration in v. 14 that “it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.” What are we to make of the fact that we are apparently precious in the eyes of the Father, and yet the possibility of a fate worse than drowning is somehow hanging over our heads?
The key to the chapter is the image of the child, especially in v. 5. There is not sufficient time here to develop the metaphysical foundations and significance of Jesus’ strange and surprising claim that he, himself is received whenever a “child” is received in his name. For now, it suffices to take the metaphor of the child as a cipher to explain the rest.
It is apparent to faith that if we are children, we are first of all the children of God. The first meaning of the connection between Jesus himself and us becomes clearer here, since Jesus reveals himself to us as the child of the Father. Even before he became flesh, he was the Son of the Father, but Jesus’ meaning is more literal than this. Therefore, if Jesus makes all men his brothers, he makes all participate in his own sonship. We are all children of the Father through Christ (cf. Rom 8:12-17).
This initial resolution of the second point of misunderstanding brings us to the resolution of the third point: if we are all children of the Father, and thus all reveal Jesus to each other, then waylaying anyone and leading them away from Jesus is an offense against Jesus himself. It is his life in our brothers and sisters that we are destroying when we sow dissent and sin, enticing them to cut from themselves the life that goes out to every member of the body of Christ.
Here another meaning of the “child” metaphor comes into focus. It is clear from human experience that a child has an immeasurable value. There is no price too high to pay for the good of a child. In this way, children reveal in a way that is largely intuitive even to non-parents the essential value of all human persons. This only becomes more significant when we consider that in Jesus we are all children of the Father, destined through faith for a share in his divine life. In this specifically Christian sense, value no longer indicates what may be lost for the sake of a child, as though there were some equivalent good against which it can be measured; rather it indicates positively that because of the Incarnation the horizon of human goodness opens out beyond the created world and rests ultimately in the will of the Father. Because it is a value that transcends the created order, it cannot be compared to anything in the world. A glimpse of the value of a human person is an insight into what it means to be the image and likeness of God.
With this preliminary approach to the second and third difficulties of the passage, it may now be possible to discover the truth of the first and most important point of misunderstanding, namely, the humility of a child (v. 4). So far, we have uncovered the infinite value of children through union with Christ. How, then, should the appropriate response to the realization of ourselves as sons and daughters of God be self-humbling? Why should we not puff ourselves up as divine princes and princesses? St. Paul would remind us that “you are not your own; you were bought with a price” (1 Cor 6:19b-20). The fullest revelation of the personal value of each human was also its cause: the death of our Lord for us all. By his death, therefore, Jesus teaches us both our true value in the eyes of the Father—that it is limited only by the limitless goodness of God—and the appropriate response in the face of such goodness. “When we cry ‘Abba! Father!’ it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom 8:15b-16).
Jesus demonstrated positively our value as children, and now invites us to join him in demonstrating that immeasurable value (given in and through him) to each other. How is this done? By laying down our lives for each other as children. Thus, Jesus’ message to his disciples carries an implicit Christological significance: “Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” The “child” is at once the child standing in the midst of the disciples, and at the same time a veiled reference to Jesus himself, the Son of the Father standing before his friends. This brings out another meaning of the following verse: not only do we draw close to Christ in each person we “receive,” but we also draw close to Christ inwardly by becoming like him, the child who lays down his life out of obedience to the Father and love for His children. In light of such a reading, it is hardly surprising that the second half of chapter 18 in Mattew’s gospel focuses on the importance of forgiving our neighbors.
