Saturday of Week 19 in Ordinary Time - Matt 19: 13-15

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Matthew 19: 13-15 - 'Do not stop the little children coming to me.'

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Episode Transcript

(00:10):
Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode
of daily gospel exegesis. Our goal is to help you
understand the literal sense of scripture.
What do these words mean in their original context?
So we're doing an analysis of the literal sense of scripture,
which is where we should start as Catholics.
That is Catholic, teaching always start.
The literal sense. So, let's go through verse by

(00:32):
verse from The Gospel reading from today's mass.
So if you go to mass today, you'll hear from this short
reading, Matthew chapter 19 verses 13 to 15 people brought
little children to Jesus for himto lay his hands on them, and
say a prayer, the disciples turned them away.
But Jesus said, let the little children alone and do not stop

(00:55):
them. Coming to me for it, is to such
as these that the kingdom of Of Heaven belongs.
Then he laid his hands on them and went on his way.
So, that's the reading for today.
A short one here from Matthew, 19.
Probably, many of you have heardthis before, it appears in all
three synoptic gospels. So they're quite quite a famous

(01:15):
scene here. What's the context?
So, Jesus has begun his journey to Jerusalem From Galilee.
So he's on the road here. He's in a big crowd of pilgrims
traveling to Jerusalem for Passover, getting towards the
end of his life, and it looks like they're moving towards the
region of perea before they get to Judy, a certainly, they're on
their way to Jerusalem. Before this, Jesus has given the

(01:37):
difficult teaching on divorce and remarriage.
So then we get to verse 13, people brought little children
to Jesus. Now keep in mind the scene here.
So they're all walking up to pass over.
There will be huge crowds taken a pilgrimage to Passover.
So there's probably whole families, traveling up to
Jerusalem. There's kids in the crowd and

(01:59):
probably the parents of these kids have heard that Jesus is in
the crowd, so they send their children to Jesus.
And what's the reason it says here?
They brought little children to Jesus for him to lay his hands
on them and say a prayer. Notice the what the purpose of
sending the children to Jesus is.
I'm sure you've often seen pictures of this where Jesus is

(02:21):
playing with the children. There might be an element of
that going on. But what's the purpose?
What's the main reason? They're there with Jesus?
It's not, they didn't send theirchildren to hang out with Jesus.
They wanted Jesus to bless theirchildren, they wanted Jesus to
place his hands on them, bless them and pray for them.
That's what they want Jesus to do for those children

(02:41):
interestingly, these are apparently not sick children.
It just normal children and the parents recognize that Jesus is
a holy man and they want a blessing from him, which makes
sense, because there is certainly a Biblical precedent
for the father of the family laying his hands on the
children, giving them a blessing.
So the parents here perceive that Jesus is kind of like a

(03:03):
father, a holy man who can give his children a holy blessing.
An aspect of this, which is quite shocking, but important to
keep in mind is it's believed that at this time period in
Israel, probably less than half of children, reached the age of
five. The survival rate was really not
good. So maybe an element of why the

(03:24):
parents brought their children to Jesus is if if they can get
Jesus to bless their children, maybe they'll kind of have a
special Grace to keep living. That's an interesting aspect of
this too. Notice the physicality of what
Jesus does for them. They want him to lay his hands
on them and say a prayer. So this is a Biblical practice.
Usually it's done by the father.If you look in Genesis chapter

(03:46):
27 and there's other places in the Old Testament as well, the
father would lay his hands on the children and give them a
blessing. And, of course, that tradition
is continued in the Catholic church today.
When the priest physically lays his hand on people, and does a
special blessing, it's the same idea, the father of the people
gives the blessing and we Believe as Catholics that
something Supernatural can happen when the laying on of

(04:09):
hands and blessing happens because that's exactly what
Jesus did. He did Supernatural Blessings by
laying his hands on it so it's not something we should
disparage. It certainly biblical and Jesus
did it and the apostles did it laying on of hands is a very
biblical way of giving a supernatural blessing, but the
disciples turned the children away more literally what it says

(04:30):
there is the disciples rebuked the people.
So the disciple is a Into the parents, and telling the
parents, take your kids away. Why are they doing this?
Maybe they think Jesus is too busy to have to deal with
children. They're certainly they're doing
it out of a good motive. They want to protect Jesus or
maybe they feel that such small matters or children are not
worthy of Jesus time and certainly it was true that in

(04:52):
that Society children had littleto no status.
So maybe they're like Jesus is these children are not worthy of
Jesus because they're not real people that would certainly be a
common view of the time having Isaid that though the disciples
should know better than this. There's been several times
already. When Jesus has dealt with
children and he's always been quite tender with them.
So the disciple should have known better verse 14.

(05:14):
Jesus says these famous words, let the children alone and do
not stop them coming to me or more.
Literally, let the children cometo me and do not hinder them.
Now, Marx version of this tells us that Jesus at this point is
actually quite indignant at the disciples here.
He's quite frustrated with the disciples.

(05:35):
Clearly to Jesus children are not a bother, some distraction.
God has come to bring all peopleinto the kingdom, including the
youngest and the smallest. The Kingdom of Heaven is open to
children. That is certainly a clear
teaching of Jesus here. And many scholars think there's
probably profound theological significance here in terms of
infant baptism, and there's a few reasons for that.

(05:56):
But particularly, because the word hinder that's used do not
hinder, the children, the Greek word therefore, hinder is used
all throughout the New Testament, particularly in the
book of Acts in terms of candidates, for baptism.
So it's this idea that if someone is eligible to be
baptized and there appear to be genuine then, no one is to
hinder them from being baptized.So for Jesus, here to use the

(06:17):
word hinder, it sort of implies that, he's saying no one should
stop them from entering the kingdom.
In other words, no one should stop them from baptism that way.
Certainly, the way hinder was used in the book of Acts which
is interesting. Jesus goes on for it is to such
as these, that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs, what does this
mean? There's a few different
interpretations. Maybe Jesus is just saying it's

(06:40):
two children, the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to Children more
likely, though, if we balance this, with other things, Jesus
says, Jesus is teaching that theKingdom of Heaven belongs to
people who are in some sense like children.
So Jesus is saying that if you want to be part of the Kingdom,
there's a sense in which you have to be like children.
In fact, marks version of the same story.

(07:03):
Jesus says, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God, like
a child will not enter it. So, Jesus is pretty clear on
this. You have to be like a child to
enter the kingdom. Now, what does that mean?
We'll certainly Christians understand Jesus, to be teaching
here. The Christians are called to be
childlike, not childish, and that's certainly true.
But in what sense them are Christians to be like, children.

(07:27):
What does it mean? It looks like the kod here is
that Jesus teaching is the Christians.
Those who want to enter the kingdom, need to completely
trust their father. In the same way that children
completely trust their fathers. Or maybe it's this idea that the
kingdom is for those who have marginal status to those who are
marginalized in society, which is certainly the case with

(07:48):
children. So either of those
interpretations might be right. Verse 15, then he laid his hands
on them and went on his way. So Jesus puts his hand on them
and He blesses them and according to Marx version, he
actually Embraces them. He puts his arm around them in
this tender Embrace. Why does he bless them?
Will he wants them to continue to grow in God's grace and then

(08:09):
he continues on his journey to Jerusalem.
That's the end of the story. There's some interesting aspects
of this think about it. Jesus is blessing.
These little children and presumably.
These are quite young children for many of these children.
They probably were not yet what at what we would call the age of
accountability, so they can't yet actively cooperate with
God's grace. They have not yet got a moral

(08:31):
awareness but Jesus blesses them.
Anyway, think about that, that in itself is strong support for
infant baptism. One of the problems that some
questions have with infant baptism, is this Idea that the
child can't make a decision for them.
Self will hear Jesus blesses. The children gives them a
supernatural blessing and these children probably did not really

(08:52):
have a choice in it. Their children, their parents
sent them to get the blessing and they probably were not aware
of what's going on. They couldn't consent to what's
happening to them and yet Jesus doesn't anyway.
So it's a very strong biblical hint that infant baptism is
acceptable and indeed desirable by Jesus.
Now, on top of that, we know that house where Jesus says in

(09:14):
John chapter 3, he says that baptism is required for entrance
into the kingdom. Well here Jesus says that
children are eligible for the kingdom, the kingdom belongs to
children. So if you put those two together
it would seem that Jesus overallteaching is that children should
be baptized infant baptism. Makes sense.
That if you put all of this together, Now, some have

(09:36):
actually made a connection here with the previous incident, the
very the thing that came just before this was Jesus,
addressing divorce and remarriage.
And so, if you put those two together, you could say there's
a connection Jesus has a practical concern for children
and in the previous scene he wasemphasizing the importance of
marriage and staying together. So maybe an aspect of that is
Jesus wants people to stay together in marriage for the

(09:58):
sake of children, because he cares about children and he
wants to ensure that they're raised in good Godly homes.
With access to the kingdom, basically.
So that's an interesting connection between the two
stories, so that's all for today.
There's no catechism references for us to look at.
I hope you've learned something new.
From this passage, I certainly did when I was doing my study
and preparation for this episode.

(10:20):
If you're enjoying the approach that this podcast has every
single day, we look at the gospel readings, we don't dive
into controversial issues in thechurch.
Today were just purely looking at the text letting the text
speak for itself, helping you understand what it meant.
In its original context and in doing so it can bring us closer
to the kingdom of God. Please keep telling other people

(10:41):
about this ministry and will hopefully see you again
tomorrow.