Saturday, August 29, 2009

The Ragamuffin Gospel - page 52.
Today at 8:58am Edit Note Delete

Jesus cuts to the heart of the matter when he sets the child on his knee. The child is unself-conscious, incapable of pretense. I am reminded of the night little John Dyer, three years old, knocked on our door flanked by his parents. I looked down and said "Hi, John, I am delighted to ese you." He looked neither to the right nor the left. His face was set like flint. He narrowed his eyes with the apocalyptic glint of an aimed gun. "Where are the cookies?", he demaned. The kingdom belongs to people who aren't trying to look good or impresss anybody, even themselves. They are not plotting on how they can call attention to themselves, worrying about how their actions will be interpreted or wondering if they will get gold stars for their behavior. Twenty centuries later Jesus speaks poitedly to the preening ascetic trapped in the fatal narcissism of spiritual perfectionism, to those of us caught up in the boasting of our victories in the vineyard, to those of us fretting and flapping about our human weakness and character defects. The child doesn't have to struggle to get himself in a good position for having a relationship with God; he doesn't have to craft ingenious ways of explaining his position to Jesus; he doesn't have to create a pretty face for himself; he doesn't have to achieve any state of spiritual feeling or intellectual understanding. All he has to do is happily accept the cookies: the gift of the kingdom