THE ARTICLE BEN ASKED ME TO WRITE

Ben is nearing 13, at that age when he is called both Benjy and Ben, Benjy being the endearing name that goes with being a very little boy. As I find myself saying Benjy less and Ben more I am made to realize that he is growing up. Actually his name is David Benjamin, named both for the great heroes of the Bible that bear those names and Ouida’s brother, who is an aviator in the U. S. Navy. Benjy has been with us all but the first ten months of his life. We found him in a foster home in the Hoosier state, and what a great day that was for us all.

Well, this article is for Ben. He asked me to write it. Reading together as we are through the entire Bible, using just now The Living Bible, Ben is especially impressed with what the scriptures say about Jesus and children.” Daddy, why don’t you write about Jesus and children in Restoration Review?,” he has been insisting. I asked him why he thought I should do so. He replied that since Jesus paid children so much attention and loved them so much that it would have to make a good article. So I am writing this article about Benjy, and about Jesus and children, and I will surprise him when he goes along with me to the printer’s to get this issue of the paper. I’ll have him leaf through it and see his own name in the title. That’s what he gets for being so interested in Restoration Review!

Even though he is constitutionally opposed to work, he sometimes joins us in the mailing of this paper, talking our heads off in the process. If yours arrives individually wrapped (most do not), the chances are Ben wrapped it. And if you live in Broomfield, Colorado or Pittstown, Pennsylvania it is likely that he has asked a bunch of FBI questions about both you and your town while in the process. And he is quite a joker. He doesn’t just tell them; he propounds them.” Daddy, do you know how the man’s horse died?” No. How did the man’s horse die? “He killed him by teaching him how to live without food!” “Daddy, did you ever see a fly cry?” No, have you? “No, but I’ve seen a moth ball.” He is both the loudest and laziest boy in Denton, but along with it he is one of the most lovable.

He and a boy in the block showed up one day with some stuff too expensive for them to buy. A little prying revealed that they came into their possession through shoplifting from a nearby drive-in. Stealing is a good word for it. Being in business ourselves, I explained to Benjy how much more the man would have to sell at no profit just to pay for what he had stolen. He became sufficiently penitent when I registered enough shock and dismay that he would do such a thing. But penitence means to make up for the wrong done, at least two-fold. Not only is the merchandise to be returned, but paid for as well. Furthermore he must go to the man, explain what happened, and assure him that he wants to make it right. I stood aside as he approached the young business man behind the counter. It was real drama.

I can see Benjy even now as he raised his sad, handsome face to the tall man before him, looking him straight in the eye.” I stole two cigarette lighters from you. I’m sorry I took them and I want to make it right,” he said with a tearless, open face, like a real little gentleman. The startled business man responded as if he had been rehearsing all week — exactly right. After assuring Ben that he had played the part of a man, he proceeded to layout some work he could do around the place, a sufficient number of hours to pay for any wrong done. I appreciated the wisdom in his response. He could have patted Benjy on the head and said, “That’s all right, son, and you won’t do it anymore.” But he could see that a father was trying to teach his son a lesson. He wisely mixed judgment with his mercy. And Ben delighted in doing the assigned work. He felt cleansed in doing it. It was the kind of an experience that a boy will remember for life, a memory that will be on the plus side.

I don’t want my children to have memories that some will surely have. One business man told me that while kids will steal things from his store, he will stand at the window and watch them crawl into the back seat of the family car, showing their parents what they got, and then watch in amazement as they drive away.

Well, Benjy is growing up on us. The other day the telephone rang just for him. Ouida whispered to me across the room, “He’s got a girl at school, that’s his girl!” Believing that he must experience what is due every boy that begins such a venture, once he hung up I began the chorus that soon had all the family singing, Benjy’s got a girl, Benjy’s got a girl. Only tonight he got another call, which he took on the upstairs phone! But the razzing is over. He’s launched.

This is the lad that wants me to write about Jesus and children. It impresses me that what impresses Ben about Jesus is that he paid attention to kids. He especially noticed that the disciples, when kids came around, acted like most folk do. They wanted the kids to get lost and not bother the Master, for, after all, he was teaching and doing good and had no time for a bunch of troublesome children. But not Jesus.

This is the way it reads in Ben’s Living Bible, a copy of which he has all his own.

Once when some mothers were bringing their children to Jesus to bless them, the disciples shooed them away, telling them not to bother Him.

But when Jesus saw what was happening He was very much displeased with His disciples and said to them, “Let the children come to me, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as they. Don’t send them away!”

Kids realize that they are always being shooed away. It was no different even with Jesus’ own disciples. And Ben noticed that Jesus was “very much displeased” when children were treated this way. He was different when it came to kids, as he was always different. Even children did not bore him. Busy as he was, he had time for children. Any man says a lot about himself by the way he treats the youngsters that play at his door. But Jesus sees even more in children. The child-likeness that is theirs by nature is made a condition for taking on the divine nature in the kingdom of God. Anyone who refuses to come to God as a little child will never be allowed into His kingdom, is his directive.

Jesus saw in children the stuff of God’s kingdom. Perhaps he saw a child’s innocence as much as anything else. Benjy’s response to his wrong-doing, his eagerness to make the wrong right and to remove my disappointment in him is the poverty of spirit that Jesus valued.

There is the child’s trust. A child seems to be able to keep on believing when others have faltered. His heart is not prepared to see the bad in people, but he is prepared to accept authority and to rely upon his parents. And a child makes friends even with strangers. A famous person has said that his greatest compliment was when a little boy, a stranger to him, came up and asked him to tie his shoelace. It is too bad that our little ones have to grow up to be suspicious of the world. But in their innocent trust we can see something of what Jesus meant when he likened them to the kingdom.

A child is both dependent and obedient, or at least nature inclines him this way. An heir of independence is rare in childhood, as is exhibition. Normally a child not only learns to obey easily, but he wants to be made to obey. And normally he is humble and not given to pretense and shame. When a kid is a showoff it is an indication that something is wrong, however faithful the parents are in their efforts.

As our family read about Jesus and the children, we decided that in laying his hands on them and blessing them Jesus was doing something special for them, not just being friendly and playful. Jewish mothers were eager that their children be blessed by a distinguished rabbi, and Jesus was now so famous that they sought his special blessing for their little ones. We can believe that the children were themselves also attracted to him, that they saw the sunshine in his face and sought the joy and warmth of his presence. Surely when he took a child into his arms and blessed him it made a difference in that child’s life.

It is noteworthy that when the disciples asked Jesus about greatness, he called a little child and placed him in their midst, saying in effect To be great is to be like a child. There is a tradition that the lad Jesus called to him was the one who became the great Ignatius of Antioch, who served Jesus even unto martyrdom. Be that as it may it is certain that it makes a big difference in one’s life when Jesus touches it. This is the point of childlikeness: being open to his blessing, being eager for what he has to offer. This is greatness in God’s kingdom. — the Editor