Summary
When people bring their children to JesusJesus is the Messiah whose life, death, and resurrection are God's saving act for humanity. so he might touch them, his disciples try to stop them. Jesus corrects his disciples and tells all his followers that life in the kingdom of GodThe kingdom (reign) of God is a central theme of Jesus' teaching and parables. According to Jesus this reign of God is a present reality and at the same time is yet to come. When Christians pray the Lord's Prayer, they ask that God's kingdom... entails a different kind of conduct: one in which a person recognizes the inherent worth of all people, no matter how social norms and values might encourage you to diminish a person’s dignity or importance.
Analysis
The disciples’ attempts to keep people from bringing children to Jesus makes more sense when viewed according to ancient cultural assumptions. For the most part, children lacked status in that society, which means there were few rights and privileges they could count on. They were easy to ignore or dismiss. By stopping people from bringing their children to Jesus, presumably so he might bless them, the disciples evidently attempt to guard Jesus’ own sense of honor and respectability. Better to save his time and attention so he can devote himself to people who ostensibly matter more than children, of all people.
Jesus admonishes his disciples (see also MatthewA tax collector who became one of Jesus' 12 disciples. 19:14; Mark 10:14), because the “kingdom” (or “reign”) of God belongs to people “such as these” (compare LukeThe "beloved physician" and companion of Paul. 9:46-48). The disciples have not yet grasped how this “kingdom” sets traditional understandings of value and social order on their head. Jesus urges his followers to embrace humility (see Luke 18:14).
Moreover, Jesus asserts that people who wish to enter God’s “kingdom” must go about it by receiving the kingdom “as a little child.” The meaning of that expression is uncertain; there are various possibilities. Jesus might mean that folks should receive God’s blessings as if they were a child in his world, meaning they do so with the kind of enthusiasm that comes from being transferred from a vulnerable status (like a child) to a secure one. A second possibility is that everyone needs to consider themselves to be similar to a child, someone who is ultimately powerless and can contribute to God’s work only with their own gratitude, not honor. More likely, however, Jesus means a third thing: people have to enter and dwell in God’s “kingdom” in the same way in which they should be hospitable toward a child. In other words, they need to imitate what Jesus does in this scene: ignoring what other norms say about someone’s value but instead embracing everyone and considering no one as “beneath” them.