Jesus Little Ones

Fr.Gus Carter

 10 /1/ 06 

Jesus had a very broad view of who are good people: "Those who are not against you are for you." Most of the population feel that, in general, people are good. We trust most of the persons we deal with every day. We know that individuals slip from their usual goodness and we do have to be careful in our affairs with those we do not know very well. Having grand scale anger and fear of others indicates that a person has been treated badly by others during early stages of life. We should be able to have compassion on such persons. 

In today's Gospel the disciples wanted Jesus to stop those they thought were competing with them. We humans easily have a feeling that others are trying to steal our importance from us. 

The disciples lost sight of the fact that the work of God's kingdom was being done by others. Jesus' ultimate priority was that the kingdom of God become more present and more visible on earth. God's priority for us is that we love one another. It is not the Christian role to exclude others. They will exclude themselves by their actions. 

The kingdom does not belong exclusively to those who call themselves Christians. Those who offer hospitality and perform small acts of kindness are making God's kingdom present on earth, the will of God is being done. The human danger is that in emphasizing our own greatness, we often feel that we make ourselves more important by denying the importance of others. Jesus warned his disciples against "lording it over others." We are not proclaiming the kingdom to make ourselves more important than others. 

Those who are not emphasizing their own importance, but seeking to do God's will, are called His "little ones." Jesus assures us that even though others may ignore them, they will not lose their reward from God. A quiet life of charity creates the kingdom as much as proclamation, teaching, healing and exorcism. This was the message given by God in answering prayers made through St. Therese ofLisieux. By the way, it is her Feast Day today. She was practically unknown during her lifetime. She became the most popular saint in the church because she showed the great importance of small acts of love carried out day be day. That is what is important in God's eyes. 

Those seeking their own greatness do not embrace the least, but by their arrogance try to make them stumble. Jesus uses the rhetoric of disaster to get their attention. Sinking to the bottom of the sea with a millstone tied around the neck is a terrifying fate. Despising God's little ones is a countersign to the Lord's kingdom. Trying to diminish the dignity of those loved by God is a terrible offense against the Lord. The best way to avoid causing scandal is to eliminate the cause of scandal in oneself We must change our consciousness. This is not easy. The drive to be egocentric, to save one's own life to be great, to lord it over others and to harm others in order to be great oneself is the way of the world. Jesus asks us to turn away from these drives so that we will live lives of other-centeredness, losing our life for the Good News, being the least and the servant of all, not harming others. We must realize that it is our eternal life that is at stake. We are asked to do self-surgery, live lives of voluntary sacrifice. If we are to do this, we must be convinced of its necessity. What is at stake is our relationship with God. 

Everything else is really secondary. Staying related to God means life. We must eliminate what breaks that relationship. The paradox of the Gospel is that we are created with inborn greatness. We must be conscious of what and who we really are, children of God. We express this greatness through the power of loving one another. I read recently a newspaper reporter's description of Abraham Lincoln just before he became the president of the United States. The reporter wrote, "On his face I beheld keen intelligence, genuine kindness of heart and the promise of true friendship." Lincoln's compassion marked him as a great man. I maintain that compassion is one of God's greatest gifts to humans. It enables us to understand and relish much of the human condition. We pray for the grace to realize what a beautiful life is open to us. We might ask ourselves, "What shows on my face day by day?"