It was at this time that the disciples came to Jesus with the question, "Who is really greatest in the kingdom of Heaven?" Jesus called a little child to his side and set him on his feet in the middle of them all. "Believe me," he said, "unless you change your whole outlook and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven. It is the man who can be as humble as this little child who is greatest in the kingdom of Heaven. "Anyone who welcomes one child like this for my sake is welcoming me. But if anyone leads astray one of these little children who believes in me he would be better off thrown into the depths of the sea with a mill-stone round his neck! Alas for the world with its pitfalls! In the nature of things there must be pitfalls, yet alas for the man who is responsible for them!" Matthew 18:1-7
Notice that the artist has not placed Jesus in the Palestine world of two thousand years ago, but in his own contemporary world. St. Matthew begins by telling us that it is the disciples who ask Jesus the question about greatness. So we may imagine the question was made in good faith and not to trick Jesus. But Jesus doesn't answer immediately with words, instead he calls a little child to his side and stood him up in the middle for everyone to see. This is the moment Fritz von Uhde is depicting. Jesus the mother and child are in light. Jesus has taken the child by the hand.
The painting has been signed which might suggest it is finished, though we might think otherwise. At any rate the men on the right seem by contrast not to be on board with Jesus. They seems to be in a darker world. That doesn't mean they are bad, but simply not understanding. "Be like this child" — and they don't get it. But that's how it is with the teachings of Jesus —- we just don't get it. Even priests complain and write off the pope as naïve when his encyclicals open up the teachings of Jesus in some new way, a way they find hard to accept.
I like how Fritz von Uhde has positioned Jesus as introducing the shy child with his left hand as if to say to these men, "No, really, you need to meet this child. This child has a great deal to teach us about life with God."
Remember, for many years the gospels were simply a collection of Jesus-sayings handed down by word of mouth. When finally it was time to write the gospels (because the original hearers were dying off and the number of believers was increasing and a more handy way of introducing them to the teaching of Jesus was needed) sometimes all the sayings were lumped into one episode. I think that's what's happened here. It's as if everything Jesus ever said about children has been lumped together in one file. The original contexts have been lost and we need to tease out the strands. So we might stay with the first sense — be like children with God. That's doesn't mean stay immature but stay teachable. Be ready to learn. Realize you're little, but desire to be a grown up (matured) before God. "Jesus, grow me up."
This is a good translation: "unless you change your whole outlook." This is perhaps the most terrifying bit, "Change the way you see things, approach things, deal with things." I recently came across and corresponded with a blogger-nun who I soon felt was talking like a trial lawyer. She thought it was her "job" as she put it, to have everyone hear her true way. Lot's of Christians think they've got the whole thing wrapped up and are even ready to clobber those who see it a different way. This is what's so wonderful about children; they are teachable. They want to learn, but they learn by exploring, questioning, imagining, wondering, playing. Religion isn't supposed to suppress or kill that quality.
No one owns Jesus. And so here is a Protestant artist depicting Jesus in a new way. A contemporary Jesus — or we might say a Jesus whose teachings are perennial. Not a dogmatic, clericalized, hierarchical or liturgically correct Jesus but Jesus who brings a small child into the light and asks us to change our outlook and to become teachable before God.
You see the contrast here — there is the fellow on the right wearing his wig and great coat, suggesting his prominence. He's a cultural somebody. Secondly, Jesus features the child (a little ragtag nobody and his drearily dressed mother) and brings them into the center of light. This is the gift of Fritz von Uhde, a Protestant with a new view or insight into Jesus. I'd suggest he was commenting on a whole society, a Christian society, that had failed people. The Catholic Church criticized him for it. Fritz von Uhde, with a Protestant "take" understood Jesus as addressing a culture and Church which had failed people.
There are people who tell the pope to stick to religious/spiritual topics and forget the politics. But bringing in people from the margins to the center — featuring the invisible ones, the negligible ones — this is clearly central to the way of Jesus. Or do we think Jesus was just making polite introductions?
