Published With Thanksgiving

“When I was a baby, I spoke baby-talk, I understood like a baby, even thought like a baby. But when I became an adult, I put my baby stuff away” (1 Corinthians 13.11).

Wouldn’t you love to have the letter from the congregation in Corinth? This place sounds like quite the mess, full of people gorging themselves and jockeying for position at the communion table, and, as part of this passage, arguing about whose spiritual gift is the best.

Traditionally, this passage has been rendered with the word child: I spoke like a child, thought like a child, I put away childish things. So, these past few weeks, I’ve been staring at Paul’s words and wondering how to deal with them. After all, isn’t what he’s saying contradicting this whole idea of remaining childlike in our life and relationship with Jesus?

But let’s back up a bit. As I mentioned, things in Corinth were complicated. If they were an American congregation, they’d probably be on their fourth pastor in three years and be on the verge of splitting into two (or more!) congregations. Their spiritual maturity is lacking. So much so that, early in his letter, Paul comes right out and calls them a bunch of babies.

“It’s milk,” he writes, “that I’ve given you to eat, and not solid food; because, you weren’t able to handle it. Even now, you’re not able” (1 Corinthians 3.2). Yikes. Try not to hold back, Paul. Be more honest with your feelings.

But Paul’s not just being terse, he’s picking up on imagery used throughout the Psalms and other Biblical poetry. Again and again we come across this image of the “weaned child,” one who’s gone from their mother’s milk to solid, grown-up food. Something these Corinthians have failed to do. And this is where we see Paul’s drawing a dichotomy between the childlike life we’ve been discussing and baby thinking.

Being childlike means being swept up by joy, exploring the wilderness, believing the impossible, admitting our vulnerabilities, and learning to play. And these childlike things spring from babyhood when we have no dampening on our joy, when everything is wild, possible and impossible have no distinction, and we are wholly vulnerable without any chores to perform.

But maturity into childhood gives us the language to express and identify our needs, and even helps us balance when we need to wash the dishes and when we should go out and play. It’s what the congregation in Corinth does not have in its bickering about whose gifts are better and their refusal to share and forgetting that they are not the center of everyone else’s existence.

And it challenges me to look at myself and see where I’m still stuck in babyhood. Like when I expect someone to know my needs without asking or would rather read than do some of those tasks I’ve been avoiding. And it makes me ask if I’m ready to move on from milk to solid food in that part of my life.

In other words, when am I going to grow up to and be a child.

Jesus, help me be mature enough to be a child.