"Suffer little children to come unto me"
Knox, 31 July, 2011 © Scott McAndless
Luke 18:15-17, Psalm 148, Acts 10:34-48
On June 2, 1985 a seven year old girl named Melissa Ackerman was abducted by a serial killer on a crime spree while riding her bike with a friend. Her body was found several weeks later. It was one more of the all too many terrible events that take place in this world from time to time. The only good thing that came out of that tragedy was the fact that it finally led to the arrest of her murderer. Her story inspired much anger and rage. But it also inspired some art.
Later that year, rock star Pat Benatar took the sorrow and anger that she felt as an artist and a mother on hearing that story and used it to write a song – a song that started like this:
Sweet Melissa, I often pray for you
I hope your suffering was brief
I hope the angels that watch over all little children
Came for you and took you someplace beautiful and sweet
Aahh… Suffer The Little Children…
The song goes on from there to reflect on all sorts of bad things that happen to innocent children – giving special attention to the problem of child abuse. And that one line “suffer the little children” gets repeated over and over again.
I have noticed that. When people reflect on the bad things that sometimes happen to the most innocent among us, they often are drawn to that phrase which is taken, of course, from the King James Version of the Gospel of Luke: “Suffer little children to come unto me.” I’m sure that many have said it, for example, in reflecting on the fate of Caylee Anthony in the last little while.
Many people read it as a lament – a statement of complaint that it seems that it is the children and the most defenceless who are the ones who are unjustly left to suffer from the sinfulness of the present age. They are neglected, they are abused, they are left to live in poverty and want and it just doesn’t make any sense. The phrase “suffer the little children” becomes a great cry of the heart and a call to create a better world where that kind of thing doesn’t happen anymore. And that is a good thing.
And then there are those who hear that phrase on Jesus lips as permission. “Children are supposed to suffer,” they say, “didn’t Jesus say so?” And then they go about doing their best to make sure that it comes true. And, yes indeed, some vile things have been done in the name of this verse.
Of course, none of that is what Jesus ever actually meant.
If you look up all of the modern translations of this verse you will find none of them use the word suffer there. In the original Greek text, Jesus’ intentions are quite clear. He is saying to his disciples that they should permit the children to come to him. This is another case where, 400 years ago when the King James Version was first published, it was a reasonably accurate translation but the English language changed.
Four hundred years ago the English word, suffer, meant pretty much what it does today: it meant to endure pain or hardship. But there was another sense of the word that was relatively common. If you used the verb to suffer with a direct object – that is, if you said, “He suffered something or someone” – it meant to tolerate or permit that thing. It is a use that persists in the language today in the expression, “He doesn’t suffer fools gladly.” I suppose that it was related to the regular use of the word in the sense that, if you suffered something, you were letting it happen even though it was causing you some pain or hardship.
And it was in that sense of the word that the divine doctors, given the task of translating the Bible by his majesty King James, chose to use that word in this passage. In fact, when you understand that that was the intention, you realize that, with that one word those translators actually did quite a good job of capturing what Jesus was really saying on that occasion.
You see, Jesus understood that it made his disciples suffer at little bit to allow the children to come to him. You’ve got to understand how things worked back then. Somebody like Jesus was a pretty hot commodity. He was a successful healer and a popular preacher who was able to draw big crowds. And his disciples were the ones who managed access to Jesus. That meant that every time they came to a new town all of the important and leading citizens would be clamouring to get some time with Jesus. Like what happens when Kate and Wills come to town! And these were the kinds of people who could do some very nice favours for the disciples, And don’t think that there weren’t promises made or that money didn’t change hands. Of course it happened!
So the disciples had these important people waiting there to meet Jesus. They had made promises and been offered things in exchange and every moment Jesus spent with those children instead of those leading citizens, those important people stood there glaring at the disciples who could feel their promised rewards slipping through their fingertips. Did it hurt the disciples to let the children come to Jesus? You bet it did! So, as long as you remember who is doing the suffering here, “Suffer little children” isn’t really a bad translation at all.
And I think it is actually helpful that, when we read the King James translation of this verse, that is the one word that tends to jump out at us: suffer, being the translation of the Greek word for permit. I think that is exactly where our attention should be when we read this verse.
The whole question of children coming to Jesus is a big one in the church these days. Churches everywhere are having a very hard time in terms of attracting children and young people into the life of the church and they are having an even harder time keeping them in the church once they get to a certain age. This is not just happening – I want to be clear – in certain churches or in certain denominations. This is not something that is happening just in liberal churches or just in conservative churches or even just in middle-of-the-road churches. It is happening across the board. And people everywhere are asking the question how do we attract the kids and (maybe more important) how do we get them to stay when they do come?
But this word in this passage from the Gospel of Luke suggests that, if that is how we are thinking, we are looking at it all completely backwards. For the assumption in this verse is that there is no need to force or to push the children to come to Jesus. Jesus doesn’t say make the children come to me or persuade them or bring them. He says let them – they will come to me if you just let them.
And I think that there is a lot of truth in that. There is so much about Jesus and what he represents that is attractive to children. They, in their natural state, are definitely attracted to such a wonderful display of love as we find in Jesus.
But, if children are naturally attracted to Jesus, why do we have a problem? Why are there so many who fail to find their way to him or who later wander away? Well, according to what I see in this verse the problem is not in the children themselves but in those who don’t want them to come to Jesus – who would prevent them. And who are the ones who would prevent them? Well, according to this passage, that would be the disciples. The problem, in other words, is to be found within the Christian community and not, primarily, on the outside.
But how could that be? We want the children. Why would we ever prevent them from coming to Jesus? I mean, sure, we have this tendency to play and sing and listen to music in the church that is completely different from the kind of music that the kids listen to all the time. Could that be a barrier – something that prevents them from coming?
I once heard a there was a transit system in a certain city that was having a problem with young people. They were just loitering in the stations too much and because they were hanging around so much they were getting into mischief. The transit authority just wanted to persuade them to move along. They tried everything – increased lighting, signage, extra security patrols – but nothing stopped the kids from hanging out. So do you know what they did? They started playing music in the troubled stations, and not just any music: classical music. The result was that the young people just didn’t want to hang around there anymore. So there really isn’t any doubt that what kind of music you play can keep young people away.
But it’s not just music, many of the things that we do in the life of the church play a role in keeping people away: holding onto old traditions that are no longer relevant to anyone outside the church, being unwilling to let go of control in order to let some new people exercise some power, or just being resistant to change in general. All of these things create bigger barriers that keep people away from the life of the church than we often realize – and perhaps especially younger people.
And I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “But we can’t change any of that stuff because we can’t deal with that very easily. It might make us feel uncomfortable or sad to lose some of those things that are so familiar and meaningful to us. It may be costly in emotional or other terms. We might even lose some people if we started messing with that stuff.
And I understand that, I really do. I do not deny for a moment that these things could be very costly in many different ways. I do not deny that these things would cause suffering for the church – maybe even deep suffering. And surely nobody wants us to suffer in order to let the children come unto Jesus.
Well, nobody except Jesus, apparently.
With that one word, suffer, I think that the King James translation did capture something of what Jesus was really trying to say. I mean, unfortunately, it is a meaning that only really worked about four hundred years ago when this passage was first translated, and we seem to have spent most of those centuries since misunderstanding it, but the good intent was there.
Of course, what Jesus was saying more than anything else was that the children were important – more important than the disciples and their mundane concerns and more important than the so called leading citizen that they were courting. They were more important because they understood Jesus’ message and the kingdom of God that he proclaimed much better than anyone else. They were more important because faith came more naturally to them, probably because they had not yet caught onto how this world bends and corrupts faith and seeks to use it to pursue purely human goals. And, of course, they were important for the reason that they are always important – because the future belongs to them.
If we could catch Jesus sense of importance and urgency when he implored the disciples to let the children come to him even if it cost them a great deal, I think we would hesitate less to tear down any barriers that get in their way.
Suffer little children. It doesn’t mean what you maybe thought that it meant. But it does underline a priority that is no less urgent for the life of the church.