August 25, 2024 – Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Zechariah 8.1-8
Mark 10.13-16
Holy Play
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
The Reformer’s Wall – le Mur des réformateurs – in Geneva, Switzerland is a giant granite monolith approximately 300 feet in length and about twenty feet high. It features, in full-bodied relief, four of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation: John Calvin, whose 400th birthday occasioned the sculpting of the monument, William Farel, Theodore Beza and John Knox. Flanking them to the left is a monument dedicated to Martin Luther, and to the right one dedicated to Ulrich Zwingli. If you read our Facebook posts you saw a photo of the Reformer’s Wall on Friday. The four Reformers, robed in their clerical garb, look sternly down upon anyone who stops by the monument, which many do, children in particular. And it is not because the children of Geneva are all staunch Calvinists, but rather because the Reformer’s Wall looks over a delightful and colorful children’s playground. There are swings, monkey bars, see-saws, sliding boards, sandboxes and other offerings irresistible to children. My own daughters frolicked on that playground when we were in the city many years ago, and it still brings a smile to my face to know that in the shadow of the Protestant Church’s founding clergy and theologians and scholars, play a giggling gaggle of little ones inventing games and shouting and laughing simply being kids. The juxtaposition of stern theology and joyful play is more than just ironic, it is holy.
Last Spring I wrote to you of the death of German theologian Jürgen Moltmann. Moltmann was the author of many books on religion and Christianity, one of which he titled A Theology of Play. Basically, Moltmann suggests that “the Christian life is not to be envisioned as a purpose-driven life, but rather as a game of delight in the God who creates and redeems the world.” It is a move away from the so-called Protestant Work Ethic that has so dominated both church and culture, to an ethic of play, of delight, and of savoring the joys and pleasures of exploring and experiencing life as a beloved child of God. Three weeks ago Rev. Toni Smith spoke us about the Presbyterian seminarians studying for their ordination exams, who already know the answer to the first question on the exam, which also happens to be the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, “What is the chief end of humanity?” In other words, for what purpose did God create women and men? The answer: the chief end of humanity is to glorify God, and to enjoy God forever. To glorify God and to enjoy God forever. Note what it does not say: it does not say to fear God or to tremble before God, or to obey God, or to humble ourselves before God, but rather to enjoy God. I think this is what Moltmann was getting at in his Theology of Play, that we can take delight in God, we can have fun in God, that we can find pleasure and happiness and laughter and hope in God.
Now, I know this goes against the traditional Puritan ethic so many New England Congregationalists have grown up with. And it is true the apostle Paul wrote the familiar words to the Corinthian Christians, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned with a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.” But it is also true that Jesus said to his disciples when they complained about being pestered by little ones, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the realm of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the realm of God as a little child will never enter it.” So how will you and I receive and celebrate the realm and presence of God, if not with a healthy dose of childlike joy, with delight, with laughter, and with play? And note, I did not say child-ish, but rather in the spirit of Jesus, child-like. Popular writer Kirk Byron Jones, in his book Holy Play, regards the story of creation as an instance of God’s playfulness, that God was at the most creative when fashioning man and woman, with whom God entered into both covenant and relationship, that we may enjoy one another forever.
Fancy that: playing as an act of holy devotion before the divine.
What brought all of this to mind recently was a question, more a comment several of you made to me on my return from sabbatical last week; it went along the lines of this: I can’t wait to hear what you did on the second half of your sabbatical! And I thought to myself, Gee, I really didn’t do too much, how disappointing my stories are going to be. The first half, the six weeks I took in February and March, were a whirlwind of travel and study: three plus weeks in Hawai’i, a week in New Zealand and ten days in Australia that were packed with visits to churches and historical sites, conversations with clergy and conference executivess, studying the lives of indigenous peoples in all three locations and over twenty thousand miles of travel. Those first six weeks were chock-full of professional research and investigation.
The second six weeks? Well, not so much. Let me see: I sat in my back yard drinking coffee and reading and listening to the birds sing, I tended to my garden, played my violin, took a bunch of bike rides, sat on the beach late in the afternoon, played with my dog Circe, went to church occasionally, listened to a lot of great music around the region, watched the stars come out, and kept my alarm clock off for the duration. We did do a bit of traveling: we floated around in a pontoon boat on a lake in Maine for a few days. We biked the Ashuwillticook trail in northwest Massachusetts and visited the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge where we indulged ourselves in some highbrow art: the illustrated history of Mad Magazine which is the current show at the Rockwell. And we spent a week in Provincetown soaking up the summer sun in the land where the Pilgrims first landed. That’s about as much research as I could muster for a lazy summertime. So you can understand why, when you said to me, “I can’t wait to hear what you did on the second half of your sabbatical,” I was inwardly embarrassed, kind of, because I didn’t really do much, and there is still just enough of that old latent Puritan/Protestant work ethic in me that I felt like I should really have been doing something – anything – more productive. But the fact remains that the last six weeks have been more about those R & Rs, rest and relaxation and recharging and refreshment and renewal than it was any particularly theological pursuit.
Then it occurred to me: that’s OK. That is OK too. There is more to life than keeping your nose to the grindstone and wringing every shekel out of every waking minute in order to say at the end of the day that we have been productive. Zechariah was an Old Testament prophet of hope and restoration. The people of Israel had only recently been released from sixty years captivity, and returned to Jerusalem determined to rebuild the temple that had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. Indeed, much of Jerusalem herself had been destroyed and it fell to the returning remnant to rebuild. Zechariah’s prophecy is a vision of a restored city, of a restored community, and principally a restored and rebuilt temple – remember, the Jerusalem Temple was the holiest site of Israel’s worship life in the years following Solomon’s reign. The passage I read this morning from the eighth chapter of Zechariah is God’s promise of restoration and renewal. (Hmmm, there’s a couple of those Rs again…) Listen again to the heart of that vision: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem… and the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets.”
This is more than just a vision of a restored Jerusalem 2500 years ago. It can also stand as a vision of God’s realm, of a time when all humanity, indeed all creation, is renewed and restored and we live together in the shadow of God’s love and grace. And one image of that hallowed and beloved time, one signal and important image, is the image of children playing in the streets. It will be a time of laughter, it will be a time of joy, it will be a time of glorifying God and enjoying God forever, as those Presbyterian test-takers know so well.
So perhaps there is a certain holiness to those lazy mornings drinking coffee in my back yard listening to the birds sing, and allowing my body and my spirit to take some deep restorative breaths. Perhaps there is a certain holiness to all of us in those times in between getting our chores done and going to work and being responsible productive members of society, which I would be quick to add bears a holiness of its own. Perhaps it is a blessed thing to relax, to unwind, be in the moment even when it is a moment of doing absolutely nothing at all. Both our scripture readings this morning remind us there is a certain holiness to play, to becoming child-like in our approach to life, and to remembering that sometimes, and more often than we allow ourselves to think, there is no greater good than sheer, unrestrained and unadulterated exuberant joy.
Even Calvin – even John Calvin, that Reformer of Reformers, when he needed a break from his studying and teaching and writing, would go out to the local schoolyard playground and sit, and sing, with the children. It is when you and I receive the realm of God as children that we truly enter into it.