Simple and Elemental

‘I like you.’

In the middle of a busy day, surrounded by children and all their accompanying noise, a three year old boy said these words to me and it made me stop in my tracks.

I mean, how often does anyone say that to you?

What can you do but smile? It’s so disarming.

His simple, transparent honesty was incredibly endearing. A heart-warming moment that could easily have been missed. Isn’t it far too easy to get caught up with organising and cleaning and disciplining and teaching little people? The frustrations, the push-your-button moments, and the unbelievable mess they are capable of making in an unbelievably short space of time, driving you to the brink of sanity and then…………….

‘I like you.’

And suddenly all that other maddening stuff, just melts away.

It’s not something we big people say. It’s not something we do.  We don’t retain the straightforward relational simplicity of childhood. Conversations take a sharp turn into awkward, self-conscious territory. We shift uncomfortably and don’t quite know how to respond.

Jesus said, ‘Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom.’ (Matthew 18:3 Msg)

He said it to the disciples who are asking about rank order in God’s Kingdom. Messy competitiveness, jealousy, a jostling for position, fraying of friendships and fracturing relationships. Anything but simple!

Jesus answers by calling a child over to stand amongst them and tells them all to go back to square one.

As that small child stood, perhaps shyly, in the midst of all those adults, what did he or she see in their faces when those words were spoken?

Puzzlement? Incomprehension? Shame?

The flat ground in square one puts everyone on the level.

The only person who can and does stand above us, taking the highest honour in God’s kingdom, is the only person who knows best how to live with a child’s fresh, simplicity of heart. It is anything but a slight thing, when he loves us.

It is the most profoundly moving and life transformative moment when we stop and actually listen to him telling us,

‘I like you’

‘I made you, you are mine’

‘You are precious to me.’

‘You are my child.’

‘I love you’.

We are disarmed.

Become.

So there we stood. One big person. One little person. Thirty eight years my junior and he was doing a much better job of being present in the moment, speaking simply and honestly. A disciple being pulled up short and humbled. Back to square one it is.

I imagine the conversation changed as the disciples all moved off. When we hear Jesus say words like that to us, how does the process of becoming begin?

Do we become more able to face each other and speak with sincerity without the need to dissemble?

Do we become more able to turn to the person beside us and speak words of love, encouragement and affection?

Do we experience moments of true personal connection because we are deeply and personally connected to Jesus?

The letters of the New Testament give evidence that yes we do. Those first disciples experienced and went through the process of becoming simple and elemental again. They rank high in the kingdom of God.

Children looking up at the face of Jesus.