Jesus teaches us that the rich find it difficult to enter the kingdom of heaven while little children enter it quite naturally. We tend to misunderstand both why the rich find it hard to enter the kingdom and why little children enter it more easily.
Why do little children enter the kingdom quite naturally? In answering this we tend to idealize the innocence of little children, which can indeed be striking. But that’s not what Jesus is holding up as an ideal here, an ideal of innocence which for us adults is impossible in any case. It’s not the innocence of children that Jesus praises; rather it’s the fact that children have no illusion of self-sufficiency. Children have no choice but to know their dependence. They’re not self-sufficient and know that they cannot provide for themselves. If someone doesn’t feed them they go hungry. They need to say, and to say it often: “Help me!”
It’s generally the opposite for adults, especially if we’re strong, talented, and blessed with sufficient wealth. We easily nurse the illusion of self-sufficiency. In our strength we more naturally forget that we need others, that we’re not self-reliant.
The lesson here isn’t that riches are bad. Riches, be that money, talent, intelligence, health, good looks, leadership skills, or flat-out strength, are gifts from God. They’re good. It’s not riches that block us from entering the kingdom. Rather it’s the danger that, having them, we will more easily also have the illusion that we’re self-sufficient. We aren’t.
As Thomas Aquinas points out by the very way he defines God (as Esse Subsistens – Self-sufficient Being) only God does not needs anyone or anything else. The rest of us do, and little children more easily grasp this than do adults, especially strong and gifted adults.
From the time we learn to tie our own shoelaces until the various diminishments of life begin to strip away the illusion of self-sufficiency, riches of all kinds constitute a danger. We must never unlearn the words: “Help me!”
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