And Jesus responded, in a way that becomes more and more characteristic as he moves towards his final week, by dramatizing his message. He scoops up a toddler probably playing on the floor, and uses him or her as an example. Jesus wants to make just one point - the child has no power, and no status. In the Greco-Roman world, a child was of little account. In our culture, let's be honest, a child runs the house.
Life revolves around it.
But are we reaching children on their level. Are we taking their real needs into consideration. The story is of a husband and wife who can hardly communicate, a very lonely teenage son who has already tried to commit suicide, and the painful memory they all share but cannot talk about, of the death two years ago of a second son. As the story was unfolding in the movie theater against the backdrop of an affluent, suburban town, a pastor overheard the conversation of the couple next to him. The pastor thought, we're in two worlds, two levels of perception hardly meeting.