Out of the Mouth of Babes

Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It is written,

‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’;
but you are making it a den of robbers.”

The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became angry and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,

‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies
you have prepared praise for yourself’?”

He left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there. In the morning, when he returned to the city, he was hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the side of the road, he went to it and found nothing at all on it but leaves. Then he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once. When the disciples saw it, they were amazed, saying, “How did the fig tree wither at once?” Jesus answered them, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done. Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.” Matthew 21:12-22 

Out of the Mouth of Babes

They are always curious and ask
they touch and taste and manipulate
they want to understand how it's made
they do not give up without a fight.

We, as children laughed and cried
we stormed and screamed in fury
we sang loud and proud our simple songs
dancing to the music with reckless abandon.

The leadership of little children
is to live honestly and openly
our feelings voiced with loud truth
and our needs proclaimed out loud.

We have learned to con and connive
we have built our kingdoms on lies
yet our Creator sees through our shame
calling to us to be childlike again.