Unconditional Love

The connection word I am looking for describes not an amalgamation of all these definitions — innocent, trusting, and natural into one unaffected and unwary blob. The word regarding a childlike umbilical channel to God is love, surely. But at it’s root being childlike is love that desires adoration and results in an ecstasy for God. This can only happen after we have successfully overcome the recrimination and judgment that a child fears from their parent -- when a child rests their head upon their parent's body when they are told that their mom and dad loves them regardless of their frailties and faults. Because Jesus is beyond any of that -- sinless -- the Son knows the Father's love at a level he wants us to know about.

Childlike, like the Son


http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071917.cfm
EX 3:1-6, 9-12
MT 11:25-27


No one knows the Son except the Father, 
and no one knows the Father except the Son, 
and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.

Jesus says only the Father knows him, and only he knows the Father, with one huge exception -- anyone to whom Jesus wishes to know the Father. In effect, it is Jesus’ who stands between us and the Father. And Jesus has purposely identified those who can know the Father by a counterintuitive human character for what we consider to be knowledge bearers. 

For although you have hidden these things
from the wise and the learned
you have revealed them to the childlike

Even the longest life lived full of learning and wisdom will not help us to grasp the knowledge of God. Not only is Jesus the only one who can and will reveal the Father to us, but we also must come to Jesus with a character requirement. Jesus bows to the Father, as the Son, with childlike abandon. Jesus tells us that before the Father will be revealed, we cannot know God unless we drop everything we have accumulated and gathered into who we are and become like a child.

When I was a young man, some of the wise and the learned were the professors at the Catholic university where I went to school. They had the credentials, had put in the time studying and writing scholarly works, and logged a tremendous number of hours teaching their students. I respected most of them, feared a few, and learned something from every one.

I don’t think the wise and learned folks of my upbringing were incapable of revelation simply because they were educated adults. So Jesus, hopefully, is talking about something else when he says we must forgo learning and wisdom and be like a child.

Growing up, many wise and learned folks were my employers. I mowed lawns for a dozen different folks who taught me everything from which plants deserved attention to how to avoid sprinkler heads. I also worked for building contractors. Several foremen on construction jobs startled me with their vast grasp of building codes and carpentry details. I also remember when I worked in a grocery store bagging groceries. A certain checker exemplified a complex mix of wisdom and learning. She could punch in codes (pre-barcode days) without checking the vegetable sheet, simultaneously holding long and very personal conversations with customers. Without glancing my way, she could monitor my placement of eggs, tomatoes and packaged fish into paper bags, and offer my grocery delivery services to little old ladies. All that wisdom and learning I encountered before I had turned 18.

My understanding of today’s scripture doesn't include any of those folks as the unfortunate "wise and learned." I still treasure my lasting respect for all of the adult mentors who have formed me. Jesus can’t have been talking about wisdom and learning as something to be denigrated. These were amazing people, and surely worthy of any revelation from God.

Jesus must be referring to a certain negative posture of the person to whom he would not to urge the Father to reveal himself. This must be a person of calculation and assumption, I figure, who abuses their gifts. It cannot be just sin that offends Jesus. He loves the sinner. It must be something more sinister and presumptive. I imagine the fellow who believes he can clutch the elbow of God, sneaking up on him and forcing his way into God's court; or, a thief who charts a course to find the kingdom of God in order pick the lock of his home and steal his treasures; or, perhaps, a nefarious woman who reads the divine words of scripture intent to conjure a graven image useful to attract her own followers; or worse, an interloper who simply wants to uncover God's plan for creation looking for an eternal, fraudulent position of power. 

The one who thinks that because of their catalog of wisdom, and their wealth of information, that they can see into the eyes of God, find a weakness or flaw, and then capture God's essence through bribery and leverage, has missed both the path to God and God's true holy and divine character. It is not our education, insights or even dedication that will focus our eyes, just so, in order to spy upon God for any purpose. 

It is only because of our childlike wonder and yearning for God that will Jesus will reveal him. So what does being childlike mean?

The term “childlike” in today’s reading isn’t about children — quite the contrary. The childlike know that they are children of God, no matter their age, brains, or proverbial insights. The people who willingly take the position that they are a child of God stand differently from those who consider themselves God’s peer, or God’s general, God's replacement, or worse, God’s advisor and counselor. Preposterous. No wonder God throws towels over the eyes, ears, and nose of such people, hiding his visage, sound and scent from them.

Jesus did not mean to tell us that the knowledge of God as Lord of heaven and earth was to only be revealed to seven year old boys and girls. Being an actual child cannot really be what Jesus is talking about. But there are some important aspects of a child that set us up for revelation from God.

A child needs a father and mother to survive. Your own child may not know it, but practically every aspect of their existence relies upon you. A child may consider their parents or adult charges as their slaves, constantly at the ready to do their bidding. But, they are wrong. Childlike in Jesus’ frame of mind means to grasp the nature of God’s relationship to us. No matter our age, or education, status, wealth, or physical fitness we are God’s children. He’s the guy and we’re his kids.

Not to say that it’s a just a one-way thing, that our position to God is similar to being a single tree on a mountain — insignificant and merely helpful in seeding a hill with ground cover for erosion control. No, that practical, egalitarian view of our role as a child within a social system doesn’t point out the truly awesome nature of God. Yes, God is the creator, but he has built and designed us for something much more intimate than just being a lovely tree.

There’s also so much about a child that Jesus is surely “not” speaking about. A child doesn’t have the social graces required to keep order in a house, the community understanding that we should follow the rules of the road, respect ownership of property, and compromise in governance and legal standards. These are not childlike things, but they are critical for survival. 

A child, for instance, must learn basic things about life or they will wilt away, harm others, and even die. The list is quite long — caution with heights, skills handling sharp objects and fire, routines to keep bodies healthy, mental exercises to build a foundation for learning, to name just a few.

So, what does childlike really mean? What does childlike wonder and childlike yearning for God look like?

The dictionary calls childlike several things: innocent, guileless, unworldly, unsophisticated, naive, ingenuous, trusting, unsuspicious, unwary, and credulous. Even gullible. It also means unaffected, without airs, uninhibited, natural, and spontaneous.

While all those things are adorable and wonderful, I still think that the wonder of a childlike affinity and the yearning for God translate into something deeper and more intimate than adorable. Revelation flows when we are connected to God at our very veins -- heart to heart. The connection word I am looking for describes not an amalgamation of all these definitions — innocent, trusting, and natural into one unaffected and unwary blob. The word regarding a childlike umbilical channel to God is love, surely. But at it’s root being childlike is love that desires adoration and results in an ecstasy for God. This can only happen after we have successfully overcome the recrimination and judgment that a child fears from their parent -- when a child rests their head upon their parent's body when they are told that their mom and dad loves them regardless of their frailties and faults. Because Jesus is beyond any of that -- sinless -- the Son knows the Father's love at a level he wants us to know about.

Loving God means that upon our repentance over awful things we have done we desire to be held in his arms, washed clean, stroked on the head, and set off again with his hand on our shoulder and his whispers in our ear.  Loving God with childlike intensity means to step into both uncomfortable and exciting situations with his words on our tongue and his signs everywhere around us. We head off and perform the most mundane of duties and tasks with his Spirit flowing inside of us, humming to us as we move through life. 

The childlike nature of an adult isn’t an act to gather more insights into who God is, but to experience God in action and to participate in life as God provides for us. We do this through our brother and Lord, Jesus. He is both Lord and brother, pointing us to the Father. He brings us to the Father by sending the Holy Spirit to live in us. He helps us to know what it means to be loved by the Father. A child instinctively wants to be loved, and reaches for their parent. Upon this childlike recognition of who we are, we can safely walk with the Holy Spirit. Jesus, then, slowly, quietly, and patiently helps us to come to know the Father.

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