One February maybe 20 years ago, we pulled our little pop-up camper to Disney World’s Fort Wilderness, the cleanest campground on earth. Around Christmas, I began digesting the 528 page The Unofficial Guide to Disney World With Kids guidebook. I reread sections and highlighted pages with Post-it notes. We executed the plan; waking up early, packing our gear, catching the first ferry to the Magic Kingdom, arriving each morning before the rope dropped, and then racing off to Buzz Light Years’ Space Ranger Spin. The Magic was real for our preschool children. After lunch we caught the boat back to camp for re-energizing naps before reentering the park until at least the Electric Light Parade! One afternoon, a sleepy Caleb finally woke up from a long nap and joined his older brother Lewis playing with their cars in the loose gravel around our campsite. Connie enjoyed the Florida sunshine while reading her book. I stewed, thinking how NerdWallet calculates that the average family of 4 spends over $1000 a day to be at Disney! Playing in the gravel was not a good investment! We had cars and free gravel at home! Like the scolding disciples in our story, I tried to dislodge my wife from her sunny perch, break up my boys’ peaceful playtime and cajole us all back into the park where we could stand in line and cram in more of the fun we had paid for!
We do not know exactly why the disciples thought Jesus’ time was not well spent chatting and blessing children, but they were scolding the parents and children. Jesus spoke up “Let the children come to me! Don’t forbid them, because the kingdom of heaven belongs to people like these children.” God’s kingdom comes among children playing in the gravel. You might see glimpses of God as they building roads, use pinecones to construct neighborhoods, make palm-fran bridges, or pretend to be space rangers outwitting evil emperor Zurg. They are not rushing to get somewhere, meet a deadline, close the deal, or get in line. Notice how they can invent worlds with pine cones, paper tubes, and old boxes. Dream, imagine, share, create, trust, laugh, play, hope, risk thinking like a child.
Jesus tells us “the kingdom of heaven belongs to people like these children.” Pastor Kate Fields often says “since we are all made in God’s image, then part of God is childlike. I believe that we will not know that childlike part of God unless we learn about that part of God from a child.” Friends, our children are teaching us things about God with each cry, coo, smile, babble, toddle and game. In Matthew 18, Jesus tells us to change and become like children. Stay right there, don’t rush off, enjoy the gravel, see the little bridges they are building, live in this moment.
On NPR’s 1A this week, Marcus du Sautoy, a mathematician who has written Around The World in 80 Games, talked about what makes a game. Games and play reminds me of Jesus’ call to become childlike. Du Sautoy believes that games need about six things: 1) simple rules, 2) to occur outside of the normal patterns of the world, 3) they must be shared with other people, 4) allows everyone the chance to win, 5) contain a nice story, 6) and be unproductive. Does the idea of unproductivity remind you of God’s call to sabbath: “do no work”. (Exodus 20)? Du Sautoy said “a game should be purposeless. There should not be a point to a game. As soon as a game becomes useful it becomes work and by becoming work it is no longer fun.” Sadly so much childhood fun is being turned into work, through highly organized sports and arts programs, not designed to foster enjoyment but to produce outcomes like scholarships or admittance letters. Could some pointless, unproductive, playful sabbath time be the renewing respite our weary souls need?
Like Du Sautoy’s game and play definition perhaps God’s kin-dom: 1)calls us beyond the normal patterns of this world, 2) requires wonder and imagination, 3) need to be shared to be, 4) allows everyone the chance to win, 5) helps connect us to our story, 6 )and values presence over productivity. Where are we imagining new roads, new roles, fresh starts, and new friends? Where do we focus more on being present than being productive?
I sometimes wish Jesus had given us a list of the childlike behaviors we need to try to emulate! That longing for rules is an adult value: not so playful- not requiring us to pay attention to our little ones. But Jesus calls us to pay attention to our beloved little humans. I do think Matthew gives us a clue as to what a childlike faith looks like by positioning a second story right behind Jesus’ call for a childlike faith. The two stories answer the same question- “what is the nature of a spiritual life or a life that will endure beyond this life- an eternal life?”
Jesus taught “Unless you change and become like little children you will not enter the Kingdom of God.” But a young adult approached Jesus and asked, “ What must I do to have eternal life?” Jesus replied, “If you want to enter eternal life, keep the commandments.” The young person asked which ones. Jesus listed some and the young person said, “I’ve kept all these rules: What am I still missing?” Jesus looked deeply into them and said, “If you want to be complete… If you want to be complete, go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor. Then you will have treasure in heaven. And come follow me.” Divest, stop living for earthly treasures and you might find enduring treasure. That is what many might call a naive anti-adult attitude. Our world defines success by productivity, earnings, awards, houses, cars, and money.
At the 2016 Golden Globes, the comedian Jim Carey said: “Thank you, I am two time Golden Globe winner Jim Carrey and know that when I go to sleep at night, I’m not just some guy going to sleep, no I am two time Golden Globe winner, Jim Carrey, going to get some well needed shut eye. And when I dream, I don’t just dream any old dream, no, sir, I dream about being three time Golden Globe winning actor Jim Carrey- because then I would be enough. It would finally be true and I could stop this terrible search that I know ultimately won’t fulfill me.” Then I will be enough…
In two stories, Jesus makes three slightly different statements about success.
- “Unless you change and become like children you will not enter the Kingdom of God.”
- “If you want to enter eternal life, keep the commands-love your neighbor as yourself”
- “If you want to be complete, go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor. Then you will have treasure in heaven. And come follow me.”
These are verses of the same song. The first and last repeat a similar refrain: you will not find completeness through productivity. A third golden globe or Tesla will not bring peace to our souls. Enoughness comes as we offer ourselves to others and to values deeper than titles, treasures and thrones. (Mt 4)
“If you want to be complete, go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor. Then you will have treasure in heaven. And come follow me… you must change and become like children.” The Bavagita puts it like this: “material possessions are the chains of the soul dragging us down into hell”. It sounds childish to “make treasure in heaven” or build “on earth as in heaven”: but maybe we all know somewhere deep down in our souls that completeness will never come through one more golden globe, one more ride on Thunder Mountain Railroad, or that one more ticket to Taylor Swift. What if we stopped chasing our next golden globe? What if sought presence over productivity? What if we dreamed up new bridges, tried on new costumes, and welcomed new friends? What if we risked a little more hope, a little more imagination, a little less achievement, a few less things, a little more sabbath, a little more faith and a little more fun? What might God create in you if you playfully embraced your God-given belovedness?
Jesus invites us down a less traveled road that leads us towards completeness. Let us not be afraid to let go of the things that will never make us complete, so we might live in Chirst’s Kin-dom right now. Amen
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