Robert Barron - The Ladder Doesn't Matter
Peace be with you. Friends, why was the story of Jesus with the little children so vividly remembered by the first Christians? Verses of it appear in the three synoptic gospels and it's our gospel for this weekend. I think somehow they intuited, it got very close to the heart of Jesus' teaching, the heart of His whole manner of life, and so it behooves us to take it with some seriousness. The way this story is set up in the Gospel of Mark, I think is frankly funny, and it's an example of the disciples completely missing the point of everything. Here's how it begins. So Jesus' disciples are on this journey through Galilee. He was teaching His disciples and telling them, "The son of man is to be handed over to men and they will kill Him, and three days after His death, the son of man will rise".
So that's quite a mouthful. I mean, He's laying out the whole Paschal Mystery to them and what's the reaction? They didn't understand what he was saying. So was like, "Well, yeah, He's going on about He's going to die and He's going to rise again and I don't know. I don't know what He's talking about". So here's the most important thing in the world Jesus is talking about and they're just kind of indifferent to it. But what are they talking about? So on the one hand, the most important thing imaginable. What are they talking about? Well, they get to where they're going and Jesus said, "Hey, what were you discussing on the way"? "They remain silent because they've been discussing among themselves who was the greatest".
So again, look at the juxtaposition, the Paschal Mystery, the gospel, the saving message being laid out in its detail and they're talking about who's the greatest among them. The disciples are presented consistently as kind of a bunch of ne'er-do-wells, and they're fighting about, "Who of us ne'er-do-wells is the greatest"? But I submit to you fellow sinners, look into almost any human congregation. I'm talking about a political organization, a community organization, a family, a seminary, a parish, a country, a culture, anytime human beings congregate, what's one of the things that we waste a lot of our time arguing about is, "Who is greatest"?
What do we waste a lot of time worrying about which one of us is on top? Which one of us is getting the most attention? Which one of us is being honored? Just think again, fellow sinners and be honest. Be honest as you examine your conscience, how much time do you spend fussing over these matters? Like, "Look what I've done in my life, but the attention that guy gets, everyone overlooks what I've done and they're giving that guy an honor"? We are very preoccupied with this question. Remember, I've shared with you many times the Aquinas, the big four distractions from God: wealth, pleasure, power, and honor. Honor is one of the things that we seek and that's what they're wasting their time talking about.
It's one of the tragedies of life is think of those big four that we spend so much time and energy fussing about and none of them in the grand scheme of things matters. So what does Jesus do now to counteract this obsession with honor? He sat down with the 12 and He said, "If anyone wishes to be first..." Yeah, that's what we all want. Of course, I want to be first. I want to be best, highest, most honored. Sure. If you want that. "He shall be the last of all and the servant of all". "Then taking a child, He placed it in their midst and putting His arms around it. He said to them, 'Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me.'"
So get the image in your mind. The disciples bickering about who's number one, Jesus takes this little child and he puts His arms around him, it says like He's identifying himself with him. "Unless you change and become like one of these". Here's the first thing to see, and we're going to miss this in the measure that we are post-Dekensians. By that I mean we tend to be kind of sentimental about children. Think of Dickens as novels and the role that children play. Think of the way children are often treated in our society in a very sort of sentimental way.
The point is, in Jesus' time, they were not treated that way. A child was a nobody. A child didn't make any difference. A child wasn't even on the lowest rung of the social ladder. Jesus' society was one that was very preoccupied with power, relationships and who's up and who's down. But a child wasn't even on the ladder. Nobody, nothing. Jesus takes a child and puts him in their midst. That means He's taking someone who's nobody and making him everything. What's the point? The point is we waste our time fussing about that stupid ladder, the rungs of it. "Who's up? Who's down, who's rising, who's falling"? Look at how much of our gossip and our public life is preoccupied with that question. "Who's on the rise? Who's falling? What happened to him? Yeah, he was a big deal. Look at him now".
Maybe that stupid ladder doesn't matter. Maybe that's not at all what's important. By taking a child, someone not on the ladder and putting the child in the middle, He's saying, "Stop worrying about the ladder". Maybe life is about something completely different than the rat race for honors, than the struggle to get to the top of the greasy pole, whatever image you want to use. And that's true of Politicians, but that's true in almost every walk of life from the most complicated to the most simple. People are preoccupied with stupid ladders. Maybe it's about something totally different. And what might that be? Well, now look at a child from a different angle, not so much the one who's not on the ladder, but now think of this: that a child is able to enter into life without self preoccupation.
Let me say that again because as I read the Masters in the Spiritual Life, it's a fundamental principle. They're able to enter into life, into the world, into reality without constant reference to themselves. They don't look at the world through the distorting lens of their own egotism. Think of a little kid… before, by the way, we beat this out of them. We do. We move them out of this framework pretty early. But think of a little kid utterly unselfconscious, playing with the simplest toys like a ball. And a little kid can spend hours just completely involved with a ball. Think of a little kid with his dog and can just spend hours in sort of easy communion, easy play indeed. We call it appropriately. It's not something sought for another purpose. It's simply good in itself. Think of kids, if they're not preoccupied with who's up and who's down, who can play a game with each other effortlessly for hours. They're not preoccupied with their own egos.
Now see, here's what happens, pretty early on we teach them about the ladder. We teach them, "Hey, it's very important that you're respected and honored and that you're number one and you're better than that one and you better resent it when that one's getting the best of you". They get very preoccupied with that. Then what happens? Inevitably, inevitably what happens is they lose the immediacy of their contact with the world. They can't get lost in the world anymore because they're preoccupied with the stupid ladder. That's why, see, the kingdom of God, everybody, belongs to such as these.
What does God want for us? God wants us to be alive. He wants us to be joyful, and the way we get that is by shedding the cloak of our egotism, forgetting this distorting lens of status and position and just surrendering to reality. Even the simplest thing. That's why the really great spiritual people in a sunset, in a sunrise, in a serene pond, in the movement of an animal can find extraordinary joy. What a waste of time. Aren't you trying to climb that ladder? No. You know what? I kind of gave up on the ladder?
I don't care about the ladder. I care about this simple thing in front of me, this beautiful or good or true thing. The waste of time spiritually. That's what gets you, and I think that's a reason why he puts this little child, this unselfconscious person in their midst. In this way, a child, this is going to sound sentimental. I don't mean it sentimentally, but a child is like a flower or an animal or a planet. Now what I mean is those things, they are what God intends them to be just by being themselves. Does that make sense?
Think of a flower. God has made it this way, and by being a flower simply and purely, it gives glory to God. Think of an animal, in its simplicity it is what God intended it to be, and simply by being an animal, it gives glory to God. A child has something of it, or the planet Jupiter just by being itself gives glory to its creator. A child in his innocence has something of that quality. Not trying to impress anybody, not trying to accomplish some goal for himself just is what God wants him to be. See, that's the humble person. It's the glory and the challenge of human life is because we have intellect and will because we have imagination and freedom, we can choose to be the person God wants us to be or we can choose otherwise.
What's God wants us to be? Joyful in His presence, people of love, joy, effervescence. We can choose that, or we can choose the ladder, L-A-D-D-E-R. We can choose that stupid latter and spend our time fussing about it. The humble person is not someone of childish simplicity, but of childlike simplicity. My great hero, St.Thomas Aquinas, the most brilliant theologian in the Christian tradition, a man of startling sophistication. The other term that was used most often to describe him was childlike.
Pick up any of his writings and you'll never ever think you're dealing with someone childish, simplistic on the contrary, but yet the great Aquinas was described again and again as childlike. It's because he was the person God meant him to be. He wasn't worrying about the ladder. He was offered the bishop's job several times, turned it down. He wasn't interested in that. He became the person God wanted him to be, and in that he became a citizen of the kingdom of God. That's why next time you find yourself like the apostles fussing about who's number one, stop yourself and hold this image in your mind of Jesus' arms around a little child. "The one who welcomes him," meaning the one who takes on the quality of this child, "Welcomes me". And God bless you.