If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. If any part of us gets in the way of that relationship, he's saying, then don't hesitate to get rid of it. I suggest to you that on that list of things to get rid of are self-righteousness, the tendency to think that what works for you works for everyone else, and the assumption that your faith is a closed book. Against self-righteousness, the Hebrew prophets and Jesus put righteousness alone, and they define that as getting in a right relationship with God. That is a process not of our own making in the end, though it takes time and work.
Faith is pure gift.
It comes to those who, as Jesus also said in this chapter, are willing to put self behind and take up the cross. That is, those who are willing to go with something bigger than their own program. Against the tendency to think that what works for you is best, Jesus recommends associating with the intuitive openness of the child. To accept a child is to be protective on the one hand and to be vulnerable on the other. And against the tendency to regard faith as a closed book, I think the whole Christian enterprise asks us to drop the schooling model.