In today’s gospel Jesus once again turns our ideas on their heads. He calls his listeners to step back from their challenging, complex and uncertain lives and discover a new way of being. His alternative is a surprise, even a shock for his listeners.
He doesn’t tell them to pay attention to the learned and the clever, the experts and politicians. Instead he tells them that the mysteries of the kingdom are revealed to children:
“I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children.”
As so often happens with the gospel we have become so familiar with this text that we no longer hear the initial surprise at must have caused. Very few people, then or now, really look at children as bearers of wisdom.
The gospel calls us to examine that view. It invites us ask what Jesus saw in the children that he didn’t find in those learned and clever adults, and to look at what we can learn from them.
Children have the capacity for openness and attentiveness that we seem to lose as we grow. When they are involved in some activity they give it their whole attention, it absorbs them completely. To watch that is a delight and a challenge.
We can only ever do one thing at a time, yet we prize multitasking, convincing ourselves that this is a good way to deal with the many things that we have to cope with in any day.
The challenge of today’s gospel is to allow seeking the kingdom to absorb as completely, to give it our whole and complete attention.
Where is Christ calling you to give him your whole attention today?
