JESUS calls the disciples and (by extension) us “little children”. The diminutive is affectionate (like calling an infant “baba”, rather than “baby”). John, or a follower of his, cherished the term, for it resurfaces seven times in John’s first epistle, always with a tone of affection.
I read a comment on this Gospel passage which delighted me. I want to share its insight, so I am quoting it so that the credit for this insight goes where it should: “The endearing salutation, ‘My little children’, is particularly appropriate if the Last Supper [which soon follows] is thought of as a Passover meal, for [in] the small groups [who ate] the paschal meal, one of the group had to act as a father explaining to his children the significance of what was being done.”
The scholar Raymond Brown wrote that in a commentary that I mentioned a fortnight ago. He helps us to see how our church family and our blood family are tied together, and how the grandest liturgical enactments are rooted in the simplest actions, as the eucharist is rooted in a family’s breaking of bread.
Brown’s words open up a mind-expanding view; for, although we are accustomed to thinking of Jesus as our brother, we are less familiar with the concept of him as a father instructing his children. That God is our Father is a fundamental cornerstone of faith. It gives us a paradigm for what fatherhood should be: guiding, teaching, caring. Then we must open ourselves to the working out of that truth, in the gap between ideal and reality where all of us live the daily life of faith.
Discovering that Jesus, too, is like a father to us opens up a new understanding of what fatherhood most truly means. What is there in Jesus which exemplifies fatherhood? He had no biological children, no wife. It is contested by some whether he even had siblings. His earthly father, Joseph, was adoptive, not biological. So how does he meet the criteria of fatherhood as we most naturally understand them?
In the Roman Catholic Church, and among the more altitudinous sectors of the Church of England, it is customary to address priests as “Father”. I sometimes wonder whether, in the new world created in Christ (Galatians 3.28), the equivalent for female priests would better be “Father” than “Mother”. This would at least make the point that fatherhood is about more than natal sex or biology. But calling anyone who is not a familial father, or God the almighty Father, by that honoured title could be problematic. Some Christians point to Matthew 23.9: “Call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father — the one in heaven.” I would struggle, though, to take that literally with regard to my own earthly father. I hope Jesus meant that as a “hard saying” rather than a literal instruction.
In one respect, it is easy to think of Jesus as our father (as well as — not instead of — our brother). That is, in terms of age. He who called the disciples “little children” was both a human and the eternal Word who was in the beginning, before creation. In this sense, he could be said to share with God the Father in being “ancient of days” (Daniel 7.9).
Yet Jesus Christ is most truly our father because he embodies fatherhood in its essence, not its chronology. At this moment in the drama of salvation, he helps his “little children” to understand what is happening in the world around them: what it means, why it matters. Just as every good parent — from married couples to lone parents being both mother and father to their “little children” — also does.
Like every earthly father — indeed, every parent — he knows that he does not have infinite time for fulfilling this calling. There must come the moment when every parent stops being the guide, teacher, carer. Then they are called to let go, leaving their beloved “little children” to a world that will not always treat them kindly, and in which they will strive and suffer.
With the help of God our Father, and Christ our father, and the support of earthly parents, male and female, biological, foster, and adoptive, we can be strong even in our weakness; for if our Father be for us, who can be against us (cf. Romans 8.31)?