My fight or flight response leans heavily toward fight. It’s not usually a “come at you immediately” kind of fight, but one that takes a step back in order to plan how to “come at you” later. My own childhood trauma, from being raised in a religious cult, mostly associates this need to fight within moments in which I feel trapped. I can be stuck at a railroad crossing, sitting in a class, or simply having a conversation, when I feel the sudden need to escape. I always know where the exits are. It’s a lesson I learned that I wish I didn’t have to learn. 

I have a recurring dream where I’m standing in the back of the building where the cult gathered to worship. For years, the overwhelming sense I’ve had in those dreams has been to tell myself I can leave—to tell myself I’m not trapped. I usually find myself wanting the people there to know they can leave if they want to. It usually carries an empathetic sorrow for folks who just can’t see their freedom. 

I had a version of the dream again last night, but there was a shift in what I felt from the people gathered in the building. It’s notable to me that there were fewer people in the building than are typically there in my dreams; but sadly, there were more children. As I engaged reluctantly with the adults in the building, I somehow knew it wasn’t that they couldn’t see it. They saw it. And they didn’t care. 

And that’s what I feel trapped in today. I’m gutted as I contemplate our nation referring to the sanctioned, funded kidnapping of children and their parents as law and order. I’m crushed as they claim their lawless hands are tied to do anything about people having access to assault weapons to massacre our children. They know. They see it. They just don’t care. 

Children’s liberation theologian, Janet Pais, writes, “God entrusted Godself to human adults as a human child in the incarnation, and in some sense God continues to entrust Godself to us in every human child created in the image of God.” It feels unfaithful to even ask for mercy for this cruelty. 

Another children’s liberation theologian, R.L. Stollar, builds with Pais’ in his observation of the judgment described in John’s gospel, “The Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22). One can interpret this to mean that during the end times, it is not God the Parent who will judge humanity but instead God the Child. Judgment will be from the viewpoint of the God-Child. A child, the God-Child who became human and experienced all the wrongs, abuses, and oppressions inherent to human childhood, will scrutinize our adult sins and our adult abuses. As Pais concludes, “The Child will return to judge us all”

A small group gathers each Wednesday to receive the Eucharist together at the church where I serve. We paused yesterday before the meal to remember that the celebration is what was happening while another school shooter—which our society produces with impunity—opened fire on a group of children, faculty, and clergy. As I prayed over the elements, I was simultaneously struck by two conflicting emotions that resided in my own hope for the real presence of Christ to be in the bread and wine. I was grateful Jesus was in the room where the violence occurred. And I was angry that he was in the room while remaining passive in the presence of such an evil act. 

Stollar’s and Pais’ reflections on the child who will return to judge all of this gives me hope. All of this evil, all of this nonsense, all of this indifference, will have to look in the eyes of the God-child and ask for mercy. The day of reckoning will be grounded in the innocence of a child. 

Interpreting that day as an angry father waiting to decide if his creatures are worthy to be called his children is inextricably tied to the metastasizing violence we can’t escape. I’ve got to admit the picture of an angry father sitting passively in the room while violence occurs is beyond what I can worship anymore. But a Father of Mercy handing over judgment to a child plants a seed of hope. 

To the prophet Jeremiah, who argued he couldn’t speak God’s judgment to Israel, God replied, “I appoint you over nations.” This weeping prophet, who pled for his people to choose mercy, justice, love, wept the tears of a child caught up in the politics of their hardened hearts. 

How we receive children is how we receive Christ. To see Christ’s image of a kingdom within his realm of love requires us to see with the eyes of a child. And a child shall lead them. And a child shall judge them. The salvation of our nation, and all of the nations, is to be led by the child judge today. The angry old men have chosen their god of war and are armed with the weapons of that religion. The terrible day—even more terrible than being met with vengeance—will be the terror of looking into the eyes of the children we have sacrificed in Gaza, in our classrooms, and in our churches. 

If I can find the faith to ask for mercy for any of this, it’ll be in the eyes of a child.