The Scariest Verse in the Bible for Youth Workers

[The following is an extract from Chapter 6 of Rebooted]

The scariest and most challenging verse in the Bible for me as a youth worker is Matthew 19:14, ‘Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”’

What a wimp right?

I mean, this is a relatively tame verse as far as scary verses go. What about Deut. 28:53 which talks about eating children, or Mal. 2:3 where we’re told that dung will be spread on our faces? (If you don’t believe me, go find them yourself!) What about Ez. 20:26, which says that God fills us with horror? ‘Let the little children come to me is adorable, right?’ That’s why we have it painted on our Sunday School walls and crossed-stitched on pillows.

Speaking of which, in my first full-time ministry position, there was a stained-glass window set that contained this ‘adorable’ verse. In the central pane was Jesus, looking very white and middle-class, complete with perfectly straightened brown hair, a cool soul-patch, and blue birds twittering around his head. Pudgy blonde children and respectful looking teenagers surrounded him, running around his legs, clutching onto his fingers, and playing with toy aeroplanes and yo-yos.

In the left pane were the children’s parents, sharing photos from their wallets of their other children and happily looking on as this strange single man played with their kids. The right pane depicted the disciples, watching pleasantly like they were learning an important lesson.

Are you kidding?

If you are a parent or have done any children’s work you might imagine a more accurate version of this scene: bedlam. Screaming, freaked out children with goo dripping from their faces being manhandled by their parents away from the strange man, while other ‘helicopter’ parents soared in to get a magic blessing from the miracle worker for their little Beatrice. All the while the disciples – in black bow ties and florescent vests – took on the role of bouncers, forming a cordon to keep them away.

In the middle of this chaos, Jesus effectively yells “Shut up! Get out of the way, and let them come!”

This scares me for two reasons. First, Jesus says “let them come.” He doesn’t say make, bribe, force, trick, coerce, pay, or dope up on sugar. They just needed to be allowed to come. I’ve never actually met a young person who didn’t express interest when told about Jesus. They might turn off at the first mention of religion, church, or the idea of being a Christian – but Jesus fascinates them.

There is something naturally attractive to a young person about Jesus. My belief is that if Jesus was walking the streets today, young people would follow Him. They might not fully embrace, or totally give their lives over to Him – but they would totally check Him out.

The problem, of course, is that Jesus is walking the streets today – at least technically speaking. The physical embodiment of Jesus today is His church! 1 Cor. 12 calls the church the body of Christ. We are His witnesses, called to display His character and goodness to the world. If we truly are supposed to look like Jesus, then where are the young people? Why are they not breaking down our doors to figure Him out? Of course, one answer to that is our doors are often locked. Even aside from that though, if the church today truly looks like Jesus in the 1 Cor. 12 sense, then why are young people not flocking in to find out more?

When first reading that last paragraph, my wife said to me ‘you don’t have your lovely baritone voice or your outraged eyes to help you here. You need it to punch us in the guts!’ I’m hoping the idea itself is scary enough though, so please, read that last line again and consider yourself gut-punched!

The second reason this verse scares me is contained in Jesus’ second clause, “do not hinder them.” Another way of translating this might be Get out of the way!

The idea that we could get in-between young people and the Author of Life is terrifying! That our practices, attitudes, traditions and sometimes our plain rudeness to young people could actually stop them meeting Jesus is terrifying. Hungry, needy, desperate young people are looking for a direct way to Jesus – but if we are standing in the middle of that road, as bouncers or security guards, then those young people remain hungry, needy and desperate.

If the disciples, who knew Jesus best, could get this so horribly wrong, then I know that I certainly could too.

We could easily distill this down to one golden rule for church-based youth work: Point people to Jesus and get out of the way. It sounds good – and it’s a great start – but it’s not the whole story.