It’s a short episode, in the life and ministry of our Lord and Savior.   People are bringing children to Jesus, to have them touch them, bless them, lay hands on them, pray.

     The disciples were having a day—one of those days, I suppose.   And they thought this was a nuisance.   They “spoke sternly” to the people pushing their children at Jesus. 

     Eugene Peterson, in his paraphrase of the Bible says, “The Disciples shooed them off.”  

     Hear that?  “Shooed them off.”   The way we would shoo away a fly, a moth, or some other pest.  

     Jesus was now annoyed—not with the children…oh no, no no.   But with his Disciples.   You know, it was just a chapter back, when Jesus stopped an argument among the disciples about who would be the greatest in the Jesus Regime.  And he took a child, and put it in the middle of the circle, and he said, “I’m telling you, once and for all, that only those who can be like this kid here…who can recapture a sense of the innocence and curiosity and belief of this child, only those will be in God’s kingdom.   Unless you’re willing to be child-like in your faith, you won’t even get in.  Only those most child-like will rank high.

     Now, not a day or two later, the disciples are shooing the children away.  Pushing them back.   The little pests!

     And Jesus says to his Disciples, “Stop it!”  “Let them alone.  Don’t keep them from coming to me.”   “Remember,” he says, “I told you, God’s kingdom is made up of children.”

     Jesus and his Disciples clearly see these little children in two very different ways.   They see them as an inconvenience, a nuisance, a pesky intrusion into the important lives they imagine they have.  They see children and all they can see are the snotty noses and the dirty fingernails, and the unsightly mess they make.   They see marks on the walls and stains on the carpet.   They see bother and demand.   Diapers to change and elbows to scrub.   They see children…and they see something they’d just as soon not have to contend with.

     Jesus sees the children too.   But he sees them quite differently.  

Jesus sees their eyes searching for acceptance and warmth.   He sees their little hands reaching out to touch and to know.   He sees tiny minds forming and absorbing and learning.   Jesus sees their gap-toothed smiles and the joy that fills every muscle of their faces.   Jesus sees the ones who are hungry, or who are uncomfortable, or who are hurting, and knows they are complete in their ability to express their needs and seek help.   He sees the same marks and stains and wear they leave in their wake but declares these to be the landscape of growth and development.   Far from bother, Jesus is overjoyed the children want him, long to be near him.   Far from a nuisance, Jesus sees the children and understands this interruption for what God surely must have intended it:  kiddo time—a time to hold a child close and be refreshed and renewed by their innocence and the gifts of their joy.

     Yes, even Jesus needed kiddo time.   I get it now and then, at the Joy center.   When I see the children arriving with their parents and they tug on their mom’s pant leg and point to me.  “That’s pastor Lance!”   Followed by a smile and a wave.

     I get it when I lead children’s chapel for Joy Center occasionally on a Thursday.   The kids sing and dance and wiggle and get so excited in their prayer time…appropriately called “Go God!”

     I get kiddo time when I get to go rescue babies from the nursery during fire drills.   There is nothing like carrying a snoozing lump of baby, smelling the oh-so-fragrant baby magic rubbed into its skin.

     Kiddo time.   Jesus wanted it—needed it.   Even when the Disciples didn’t. 

     Jesus saw the children and saw the possibilities, the created human in its best form.

The Disciples saw the children and saw only the imposition they created on their agenda and desires.

       We all know persons who see children the way the Disciples saw children.  A woman in my first appointment saw children somewhat the way the Disciples did.   She saw them a potential problems, a mess to clean up, a bit of chaos to contain.   The bane of her existence was ball caps.   Now we grew up learning to remove our hats or caps when we entered a building, in particular God's house, but the youth that came to our new youth group in Tescott didn't have those manners.   And she would lay in wait for them.   And when they walked into the church wearing their ball cap, she would shriek, "take of your cap!"   If that weren't enough, she would at times snatch a cap from some poor boys head and exclaim that he "could retrieve from her after youth group was over.

            In that same community, we had a severe flood that devastated the town in 1993.   And Senator Bob Dole came to this tiny community to survey the damage.  It was a special day for such a small town.  He was to come to our church building, where he would meet with citizens who had been flooded.  We would serve coffee and cookies.   And of course, being the hard-working church member that she was, the woman I am talking about would be there.

            We were all boosted by Senator Dole's appearance.   No one more so than my friend from the church.   She was just beaming.   After the senator and his entourage left, she came to me.  "I will remember this day for the rest of my life," she told me.  "The day Senator Dole came to our church."

            I couldn't resist.   I asked her if she had noticed anything at all unusual about Senator Dole and his group.  

            "Unusual?"  She repeated.

            "Anything at all about them.   Each of them.   All of them."

            She shook her head.

            "So, you didn't notice that the entire time they were here, in our church, they all wore their FEMA ball caps?"

             She looked at me for a moment.   She seemed stunned.  "They wore ball caps?" she finally asked.

            The church today can see children one of these two ways, as well, seems to me.   A bother.  A pest to be shooed away.   A problem to be solved, a mess to be cleaned, an outbreak to be contained and quarantined.   Or, children can see children as Jesus saw them:   After all, the church is the body of Christ, serving in Christ’s stead until he comes again to fully establish his Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.   To see children as possibility and joy!  The innocence, the tenderness, the ongoing process of growing and learning.   And when a church sees children like that, they do what Jesus did.   They reach out.   Lay hands on them.   Touch them.   To draw them close.

         That’s why Joy! Center is such an important part of this church.   We see children as Christ sees children.   And we want to hold them close and help them grow and learn.  

         And when we do that…we’re closer to the kingdom.   That’s what Jesus said.   We’re closer to the kingdom.

    Thanks be to God.