They
thought that they were doing the right thing.
Jesus was busy. He had important
things to do and important people to see.
No one asked these people to bring their children to Jesus, so the
disciples let them know that they were not welcome. In fact, the Bible says that they “rebuked”
the parents. “Rebuke” is one of the
harshest words used in the word of God. The
“Merriam-Webster” dictionary says that it means “to criticize sharply”. However, Jesus turned and said, “Let the
little children come to me and do not hinder them” (Luke 18:16).
Later on,
as they were entering the town of Jericho, a blind man began calling out to
Jesus. Again, it says that the disciples
“rebuked him”. In those days, people
believed that physical problems were the result of sin. Therefore, either this man or his parents had
done something that caused God to punish him, so what right did a “sinner” have
to call out to Jesus? However, “Jesus stopped
and ordered the man to be brought to him” (Luke 18:40) and he healed him.
Another
time, John said, “Master, we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we
tried to stop him, because he was not one of us” (Luke 9:49). Jesus replied, “Do not stop him for whoever
is not against you is for you” (verse 50).
In each of
these cases (and several more), the disciples had the wrong picture. They thought that they were to be
“gatekeepers”. They thought it was their
job to make sure that only the “right people” got in and that the rest were
kept out. Jesus, though, does the exact
opposite. Instead of keeping people out,
he constantly invited them in.
In Matthew
13, Jesus tells two stories that apply here.
In the first, a farmer sows a field, but an enemy sows weeds in it. The servants want to pull the weeds as soon
as they show up, but the farmer says, “No! Let them grow and we will sort them
out at the harvest when we can tell which plant is really a weed and which is
the wheat”. In the second story, a
fisherman throws his net in the water and catches all kinds of fish. Then he goes back to the shore and he sorts
the good from the bad. The sorting is
not attempted until the end.
The
point: We are not gatekeepers that keep
people out of the kingdom. It is not our
job to sort the “good” from the “bad”. Our
job is simply to say “Come”.
God will do
the sorting at the appropriate time.
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