Clear Glasses – March 15, 2025

Matthew 18: 3-5 – And Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”

We all wear “glasses” through which we view the world. Those glasses filter what we see and color our world based on our assumptions, beliefs, experiences, fears, and what we have learned over our lifetimes. Some see red, some see green, or blue, while others see something darker. Those colors affect our behavior and reactions to the world around us. In other words, they affect the judgements we make about the world and people in it. During a dark period of my life, a close advisor told me that I saw the world through brown (he used a stronger word that I cannot repeat here) colored glasses. You can imagine the judgements and reactions I had seeing things with those glasses. Fortunately, he helped me put on different glasses that, while still colored, allowed me to see a clearer, much brighter world.

I think Jesus calls us to be like children because they see the world through clear glasses, no color. They view the world with awe, as something magical, and as something to explore. They see all the people as soon to be friends, if not more. They haven’t formed assumptions, judgements, and fears. They haven’t learned hate, bigotry, or selfishness. They trust. They haven’t learned sin. An unknown author said, “through the eyes of child, you will see the world as it should be.” Jesus seems to emphasize this point in Matthew 11:25, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children” (Matthew 11:25). The clear glasses of a child. As we grow older, our glasses may never be crystal clear. But as we continue our faithful journey with God, our glasses can become clearer and the world much brighter—as God intended them to be.

Patrick McConnell