29 December 2010 – Feast of the Holy Innocents

Psalm 2, 26; Isaiah 49:13-23; Matthew 18:1-14

One of the great joys of my ministry is to hear the noise of children as we celebrate Holy Communion. I know that some find their restlessness bothersome but it is truly wonderful to have children as part of our fellowship. Here, Isaiah envisions a time and the blessing of God such that there are so many children that there is no longer room for them in the land. We live in a time when children are considered either luxuries or nuisances by society, birth rates in western societies are barely at what is known as replacement rates, in other words, there are more deaths than births. We were told to be fruitful and multiply. I have seen childless couples who are very fruitful in their lives, welcoming children, supporting parents and taking joy in the children of their friends. In our tradition we all take responsibility for the spiritual upbringing of the children in our midst. We take a vow at their baptism to ensure that they have all they need in order to allow them to come to faith. It is a delight to see the church take seriously its nature as a family.

Do we know what it means to turn and become like children or humble ourselves like a child? We develop self-reliance early in our lives, a failure to trust, and it is indeed difficult to turn from that to the attitude of a child. Too often we rely on our intellect to teach us everything and we turn from the innocence of childhood when it comes to the things of God. In our day we see a reliance on science, to the extent that we do our best to explain away things of God like miracles, anything that can’t be duplicated or explained by science. Faith is believing that there are rules beyond the rules that govern us and our actions, there are rules only God knows, and He can amaze us sometimes by doing those things only He can do. (Here is a good essay based on CS Lewis’ work on miracles.)

I shall walk in my integrity;
redeem me, and be gracious to me.
My foot stands on level ground;
in the great assembly I will bless the LORD.