When Jesus placed a little child into the midst of the disciples, he was saying “Let this child be your teacher – about how to live and who God is.” In that gesture Jesus is placing before us two central qualities of the spiritual life - and these are powerlessness and beauty.

            First powerlessness. The disciples’ overheard conversation about who was the greatest must have had a rather comical character, as you may imagine. “What do you mean? The master likes me the best. I’ll be at his right hand in heaven, and you won’t! You’ll be out with the garbage!” “What are talking about, you jerk! Everybody knows he likes me the best!” Of course, we all do that: teacher’s pet at school; employees who suck up to the boss, or the winning political candidate. It’s about power. We each want to be somebody. And if we can’t be somebody, at least we can bask in someone else’s reflected glory. Power is influence. And to hold on to power we need strength; and strength, if pushed far enough means a willingness to use force. We hate feeling powerless. Our security is threatened, and we get tough. We do this as individuals. We certainly do it as nations. But, for Jesus, the child becomes the symbol of all that is powerless. The child has no resources of his or her own, other than help from those who love that child.

            Why does Jesus say this is so important? Because power corrupts us – morally and spiritually. Power says, “Hold on to what you have. You are under threat.” God says, “Let go. All you need is me.” Power defends, justifies, makes excuses, re-enforces itself. It will do anything but let go and be helpless.

            Pope Benedict has been dealing with much criticism from the Muslim world about his speech in Germany, in which he quoted a Byzantine Emperor critical of Islam. Now let me say that, as a Protestant, I have no warrant to be critical of him. But, as a fellow Christian in our inter-faith world, I honestly have to wonder. An apology has been demanded of him, and there has been much debate about whether that is necessary and what constitutes a true apology. Some have said that his current response amounts to saying, “I am sorry that you misinterpreted my well-meant remarks,” which, of course, is arguably not an apology at all. Irrespective of the Pope’s original intentions, or problems with his delivery of them, a reluctance to give a generous apology, even if, strictly speaking, it may not be required, leaves us with a kind of unfinished feeling. I wonder what would the Pope lose if he said something like this? “I am shocked and saddened that my words caused many of you pain. That is certainly not what I intended, but I take full responsibility for the outcome. I am so very sorry. In fact, I wish to come to Mecca and throw myself prostrate before your leaders and beg their forgiveness. And then I will sit at their feet and they can teach me all that I don’t know about Islam. I am so eager and ready to learn from you.” Now, would that be excessive and over the top? I suppose so. But think how genuinely disarming that would be?

          And then there is this ugly business of the sending of the innocent Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, to Syria where he was tortured. A Canadian commission has cleared him of all wrong-doing, and has charged the Canadian and American governments with serious misconduct. I think this is a shameful thing. When confronted with these developments last week, U.S. Attorney General Gonzalez said basically, “Well, I just heard about it and haven’t read the report, and it wasn’t us who sent him to Syria, and anyway we didn’t break any of our laws.” What’s wrong with saying, “I can’t comment of this because I don’t know the facts yet, but I intend to find out what happened. And if what you are saying is true, it represents a very grave miscarriage of justice and this man is entitled to an apology. And then we must make amends to him as best we can.” To say something like this must somehow be seen as a sign of weakness, but in fact it would show moral power, greater power.

            Dorothy Day, of the Catholic Worker Movement, a remarkable Christian saint of this last century, loved the writing of Dostoevsky. In reflecting on the powerlessness of Christians in the world she once wrote this about Prince Myshkin, the character in the novel, The Idiot. “(He) is described as entirely passive, (one who) willingly accepts suffering, is easily put upon, answers offense by begging forgiveness, and exaggerates the good in others while constantly overlooking evil.” Dostoevsky, she said, described this “submissiveness” as “the most fearful force that can exist in the world.” That phrase, to “answer offense by begging forgiveness” is absolutely stunning. Why? Because it is the exact and complete opposite of clinging to power – and, because of that, is terrifying to the powers that be. In worldly terms, children are powerless. But Jesus is pointing to a different kind of power – spiritual power.

            Secondly, children are beautiful. How many times do we say, “What a beautiful baby!”? Now, I’ve never before revealed this publicly, but in 1944, when I was one and half years old, I was the winner of a baby-beauty contest. Baby photos were displayed in the lobby of the RKO Palace Theatre in Columbus, Ohio. A clipping in our family photo album reads, “Voting was conducted by the purchasing of bonds and $19,800 in bonds were purchased for Jimmy, amounting to some 78,800 votes.” There is a picture of beaming little Jimmy clutching a handful of war-bond certificates. I am not aware that I did anything to achieve this high honor. And, honestly, I don’t think I look particularly remarkable in that picture. But, yet, I was voted most beautiful! (And, I suppose it helped to have many friends and relatives in town). What is the source of baby’s beauty? After all, babies throw up all over you, and mess their diapers, and keep you up all night, and even cry in church! But when presented with our neighbor’s new-born, we say “What a beautiful baby” (even though the infant might look like Winston Churchill with a hangover). Somehow a baby’s beauty is connected with its helplessness. They can’t do much of anything. They can’t prove anything. They just are. And even as children grow, when they are naughty, their excuses as so transparent, that we often cannot help but be charmed. And their power to impact our lives is enormous.

            Dorothy Day saw this connection between beauty and powerlessness in Dostoevsky. Her favorite quotation from him was, “The World will be saved by beauty.”  Dorothy Day saw beauty in the natural world, in her city-childhood, and especially in the faces of the poor, the oppressed, and the homeless to whom she devoted her life. She wrote:

The world will be saved by beauty, Dostoevsky wrote…I look back on my childhood and remember beauty. The smell of sweet clover in a vacant lot, a hopeful clump of grass growing up through the cracks of a city pavement. A feather dropped from some pigeon. A stalking cat. Ruskin wrote of "the duty of delight," and told us to lift up our heads and see the cloud formations in the sky. I have seen sunrises at the foot of a New York street, coming up over the East River. I have always found a strange beauty in the suffering faces which surround us in the city. Black, brown and grey heads bent over those bowls of food, that so necessary food which is always there at St. Joseph's House on First St., prepared each morning by some of the young volunteers. We all enter into the act of hospitality, one way or another. So many of those who come in to eat return to serve, to become part of the "family."

Jesus says look to the little child if you want to know God and know how to live. Look to lives of powerless and beauty. Look into the faces of the suffering, and you will see the face of God.

            William Shakespeare was a master at portraying the human psyche and most especially the complex interplay of ego, power, and self-delusion. Indeed his plays show us again and again that sound and fury of human struggle, the rise and fall of kings, and the undoing of the great through their own tragic flaws. Did Shakespeare have a message to us in all this, or did he merely hold up a mirror to life? Can helplessness and beauty have any meaning in this drama besides being routinely crushed by power? Critic Harold Goddard ends his celebrated study of Shakespeare by answering this very question with a quotation from the bard himself.

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

He says, “It is a question that contains its own answer.”  

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