God gives Ezekiel a message, and then does something strange with it: he tells him to eat it. Before there is anything to say, there is something to swallow. The Gospel says the same thing from the other end — the Kingdom is not entered by those who have understood the most, but by those who have become small enough to receive.
At that time, the disciples approached Jesus and said, "Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?" He called a child over, placed it in their midst, and said, "Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me. See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father. What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost." (Mt 18:1-5, 10, 12-14)
The scene in Ezekiel is almost physical. A hand stretches out holding a scroll, and it unrolls in front of him, written on both sides — "lamentation and wailing and woe". Not a promising text. And the command is not "learn it" or "copy it" or "understand it". It is: "Open your mouth and eat what I shall give you." So he eats it. And then the astonishing detail: "It was as sweet as honey in my mouth."
The message was bitter. The eating was sweet. Both are true, and the prophet is not confused about it. What makes the difference is not the content but the fact that it came from a hand. A word we receive from someone who loves us tastes different from the same word read on a page. Ezekiel is not being told good news. He is being told that God still speaks to him, and that alone is honey.
Then the sending: "Son of man, go now to the house of Israel and speak my words to them." Only now. The order matters, and we get it wrong constantly. We want to speak first and be nourished afterwards, if there is time. We prepare what we will say to our children, our community, our students, and we forget that the Word was meant to pass through us and not merely past us. A message we have not swallowed comes out sounding like a message. A message we have eaten comes out sounding like a person.
This is exactly what Jesus is doing when he puts a child in the middle of the argument. The disciples have asked a question about rank, and he answers it with a body. He does not define humility; he stands a small child where everyone can see. Children in that world had no status, no vote, no legal standing. Jesus does not sentimentalise the child. He points to someone who has nothing to defend, because there is nothing yet to lose.
"Unless you turn and become like children." The verb is a turning, a reversal of direction. We do not become children by growing backwards, but by stopping and going the other way — away from the accumulation of position and towards the freedom of having no position to protect. It is not innocence he asks for. It is the willingness to be small and not humiliated by it.
Then he shifts, and the tenderness in the shift is easy to miss. "See that you do not despise one of these little ones." From "become like them" to "do not look down on them". The same people we are told to imitate are the people we are most likely to overlook. That is the whole trouble in a sentence. The small ones are our teachers and our blind spot at once.
And so the shepherd who cannot count. Ninety-nine safe, one gone, and he leaves the ninety-nine on the hills. No competent manager does this; the maths is against him. But God is not managing a flock, he is loving particular sheep, and love has never been able to do arithmetic. What is unbearable to him is not a percentage. It is a name missing. "It is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost." One.
Clare of Assisi, whom the Church remembers today, understood the connection between eating and becoming. She spent forty-one years in a small house at San Damiano, most of them ill, and what she wrote to Agnes of Prague was not a programme of activity but a way of looking: gaze upon him, consider him, contemplate him, desiring to imitate him. Look long enough at the poor Christ, she says, and you will start to resemble him. That is Ezekiel's scroll in another form. She did not analyse the Word from a distance. She let it into her body until her life had the same shape.
The Missionaries of Bethlehem have always read mission this way round. We do not carry a message we possess to people who lack it. We are fed first, in the smallest and most ordinary way, at the table of the Word and of the Eucharist, and then we go — carrying something that has already changed us and can therefore change someone else. A missionary who has not eaten is a courier. A missionary who has eaten is a witness.
So today has a plain shape. Before we speak to anyone, receive something. Before we count anyone as insignificant, remember that Christ set one of them in the middle of the room as the answer to the question about greatness. And when we find ourselves lost, or far off, or unaccounted for, remember that the shepherd is not up on the hill doing sums. He has left the ninety-nine, and he is out looking, and he will rejoice more over one found than over any tidy total.
Scripture text: Catholic Public Domain Version (CPDV), public domain.
Prayer of the Day
Father, you fed your prophet before you sent him, and you set a child in the middle of an argument about greatness. Give us the honesty to be fed before we speak, and the freedom of those who have nothing to defend. Through the prayer of Saint Clare, who looked so long at your poor Son that she came to resemble him, teach us to receive your Word into our lives and not merely into our memories. And when we are the one who has wandered off, come and find us, as you always do. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
For Meditation
- What word from God have we understood but never swallowed?
- Who are the small ones we are told to imitate and quietly manage to overlook?
- Are we still doing arithmetic where God is doing love — counting the ninety-nine and writing off the one?
