Innocence

Innocence and Community

Don: From start to finish, Matthew chapter 18 is really all about community. Using parable and declarative statements, Jesus makes the pillars of community come alive. Matthew 18 is a kind of a handbook addressing those pillars. In coming weeks, we will examine them one by one.

In the beginning of the chapter, Jesus is asked by the disciples “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Jesus responds that unless they become like children, they won’t get in.

Since children are relatively innocent, it seems therefore that innocence is one of the pillars of community; it is an essential foundation for community. The question the disciples were really asking—Who is in charge in the kingdom of heaven?—is important, but for procedural rather than foundational reasons. The response that innocence… child-likeness… a sense of emptiness… is in charge is puzzling. In verse 7, Jesus talks in metaphorical terms about what should be the behavior of community. He talks about cutting off your hand and plucking out your eye, etc., if they obstruct your way into the kingdom of heaven. These measures sound extreme, but perhaps they are just metaphor and are not to be taken literally (as some people and churches do.)

He then moves on to the parable of the lost sheep, where another important principle is expressed: namely, that every individual is important; that it is not tolerable for even one individual to become separated from the community.

Later, he emphasizes that point, when he talks about two or three being gathered in his name. If the love which his name stands for is displayed within even such a small community, then it is a true community. It is clear that the community is gathered in the spirit of a very high quality love: Love personified in and by his name.

In verse 15 he goes into a sort of legal description of conflict resolution. He talks about how it should be done: If your brother sins, first try reproving him in private, then if necessary go through several escalating steps culminating in intervention by the church; but if all these fail, ultimately, you must treat your brother with contempt. The sin in this case is not just any kind of sin; it’s not the sin of a new idea, or a differing belief, or a different way of understanding or doing something. Rather, it appears to be some kind of mano-a-mano dispute or disruption; a personal attack. It involves a negative person-to-person reaction.

As the chapter closes, he makes several statements that have been used by the Catholic Church to set up a church hierarchy. Verse 18 (“whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven”) couples with a passage earlier in Matthew where Jesus tells Peter that whatever binds or looses you on earth will bind or loose you in heaven.

Finally, in the parable of the unforgiving  servant, we see that forgiveness is another pillar of community.

Taken together with the pillars of authority and innocence, Jesus’s statement to Nicodemus in John 3 that “unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” seems to imply that some transformation must take place which reverses knowledge, experience, sophistication, worldliness. What is the innocence that we must acquire if we are to be allowed into the community of the kingdom of heaven?

Is free will a factor in all this? How much free will does a newborn baby have? In our effort to get back to the Garden of Eden, how do we regain the innocence that was lost there? Genesis notes that Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed—just like newborn babies—until they ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

How could I become like a baby, and not feel the least bit of embarrassment about running around naked?

Rimon: You could start by having no ulterior motives! That surely is one aspect of innocence.

David: The younger the child, the more selfish it is. The newborn’s relationship with its mother is one of dependence rather than love. The messages in the various passages Don has drawn our attention to are clear and simple, and one does not need a degree to understand them. But acting upon them is another matter. We are told elsewhere in the bible that we ought not to be self-centered and selfish; on the contrary: we should focus on others. But newborns are the opposite. The message that you have to become like a baby is not difficult in itself to understand. Daoism has similar messages:

He who is in harmony with the Tao
is like a new-born child.

and

Other people are excited,
as though they were at a parade.
I alone don’t care,
I alone am expressionless,
like an infant before it can smile.

But it sure is difficult to implement. If the instruction to become like a child is just a metaphor, then perhaps we can accept that there are some aspects of babyhood that don’t apply to his argument.

Jay: A lot of people would have difficulty with how to become like a child. Another spin on the baby’s selfishness is that it is dependent on its mother, and perhaps this dependence is the other side of the coin of innocence. Many of the things we are taught in the bible require us to be dependent—trusting—on and in God.

The innocence of a child is also a form of emptiness. The newborn is totally open to ideas and impressions from the world. It has no prejudices. It is bittersweet, as a parent, to watch one’s child “grow up”—to watch it emerge from its innocent state.

Don: Doesn’t this dependence bring back the issue of free will? Must we depend on God for the way back to the Garden? Getting there does not seem to depend on our making the right choices. We have little choice in the matter, just as the Israelites had little say about the way to the Promised Land. The exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land was not the Israelites’ idea and not their plan. They just trusted in, followed, and depended on God’s plan. The metaphor of our making good decisions of our own free will seems very un-childlike. It seems to relate more to the condition after the Fall. Perhaps free will is not divine; it just is, and it may not be a blessing.

Robin: When were we as a community ever childlike? Genesis talks about the blame game that ensued after Adam and Eve became aware and ashamed of their nakedness and hid from God. Adam: “Eve made me do it.” Eve: “The serpent made me do it.” So blaming others is perhaps one characteristic of loss of innocence.

Dr. Singh: Children make mistakes, and we always forgive them, because they are children and can’t be expected to be perfect. Adam and Eve were essentially children before the Fall, so why does God punish them and the whole human race? Why are we all still suffering?

Alice: The first thought that came to my mind when I saw the body of my late husband being carried away was that this condition—death—is what it means to be a child. People can do whatever they want to you. You have no say in the matter—just like a child. I don’t know why I had this thought. But this seems to be exactly what death means—becoming like a child.

Rimon: Every new beginning must have an ending. Jesus is saying that we have to become like a newborn, before one develops “human nature.” He is not talking about becoming like a child who has already begun to acquire knowledge—he is talking about becoming like a newborn baby at the very instant of birth, but hardly a moment thereafter.

Alice: Children begin to accumulate information and knowledge from the moment they are born. Within a few years, they have acquired tons of it, and they have Satan’s gift of free will to use their knowledge in any way they like. The consequences of a lifetime of information and knowledge acquisition are insurmountable; there is no way to undo this acquisition and avoid the consequences except through death, by becoming purified as a spirit. It is the only way to unlearn everything.

Jay: I think Jesus was trying to tell Nicodemus exactly this. The dependence that we have as a newborn just cannot exist naturally in the adult. To regain that dependence, we have to die. It takes great strength to put aside even minimally the prejudices and ideas acquired over a lifetime, and to do it totally is as hard as re-entering the womb. Christianity tries to make it sound like an easy transition, but it’s not. Christianity can help you move in the right direction, but it can’t get you there.

Robin: Maybe it has to do with judgment, also. In the Garden, Adam and Eve used their free will to judge their own nakedness and when they realized God was displeased, they started the blame game—judging others. It’s as we discussed last week: Mrs. Elliot’s 3^rd grade class had no idea that some children in their class community were inferior until the teacher told them so. Once that happened, they used the new “knowledge” that brown eyed children were inferior to blue eyed children, and their free will, to form pretty nasty judgments about others.

Don: Matthew 10:39 says: “He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.” We take that metaphorically, but maybe the message is literal this time.

Jay: There are other scriptural exhortations, such as “pick up your cross and follow me,” or “hate your mother and father and brother,” that are also difficult or impossible for us to do. Jesus is asking us to go to a different level of dependency and a different understanding of what really matters. He is saying that there are things even more important than your mother and father.

David: To what extent do these messages have anything to do with our lives here on earth? The message that the only way ultimately good things can happen is through real death. This is an awe-ful message. It says it doesn’t matter what you do in this life—whatever you do, it won’t stop you being born again in the kingdom of heaven—because everything will be put right upon your death.

Alice: The church has interpreted this message of death as being a metaphor for spiritual death and rebirth, as giving up our old ways and following Jesus to be born again. That works to some extent, and we must try, but we can never become totally innocent however hard we try.

Don: So some of it can be realized partially, depending on the individual and the circumstances. We will continue to work on this and the other pillars over the coming weeks.

 

* * *

Matthew 18

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Rank in the Kingdom

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me; but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

Stumbling Blocks

“Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!

“If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire. If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be cast into the fiery hell.

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven continually see the face of My Father who is in heaven. For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.

Ninety-nine Plus One

“What do you think? If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying? If it turns out that he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray. So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones perish.

Discipline and Prayer

“If your brother sins go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.

“Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”

Forgiveness

Then Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.

“For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he had begun to settle them, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. But since he did not have the means to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made. So the slave fell to the ground and prostrated himself before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you everything.’ And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt. But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and he seized him and began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ So his fellow slave fell to the ground and began to plead with him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you.’ But he was unwilling [aa]and went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed. So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened. Then summoning him, his lord said to him, ‘You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?’ And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.”