Mark 10:13-16, 2 Corinthians 5:16-21
At the beginning of every academic year, some of us hear this question a lot: “So what’s your group all about?” Some of us know the routine. We set up that campus ministry table at the summer orientation sessions. We usually sit there laugh a lot. People walk by, and we take bets on who’s a hard-core Presbyterian – you know, the energizer type. And that big photoboard falls over, like a jillion times! You know what I’m talking about. There’s a routine involved. “So what’s your group all about?” We get that question.
And every year, I find myself thinking, “Well, what is our group about?”
And I know I could answer that a lot of ways. Our group is about worship. So much of who we are emerges from this time together. Our group is about mission – we support a food pantry, and we have so many opportunities to plug into the mission of this congregation. Our group is about community – not just casually gathering together from time to time. Our group is a close-knit group of friends who know what’s going on in each other’s lives. We celebrate and take care of each other here.
And we’re a playing community.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. We play here – in silly conversations or games of foursquare upstairs during Bible Study. We laugh a lot. We enjoy our time together. We’re a playing community.
And I was thinking about this on the retreat we had just two weeks ago. One of my favorite moments of the retreat was Saturday afternoon. I was sitting on the edge of the pool, dangling my feet in the water, and I could not stop laughing. We all kept laughing. Megan, Caleb, Patrick, Alyssa, and Drew were all in a line, jumping into the pool with a running start. They were playing this silly game. Lauron was standing to the side of the pool, and as they began to run, she would yell out a letter. The person jumping would have to shout out a word that began with that letter. You could see their confused expressions as they jumped in – usually coming up with some ridiculous word or with nothing at all. Poor Alyssa, bless her heart, would almost always start laughing before she could get anything out.
And then it got funnier. Lauron started shouting out animals, and the jumpers had to make that animal’s sound before they landed in the pool. Drew was the first to go. “Giraffe!” Lauron yelled. As you can imagine, the noises people came up with as they plummeted into that pool was pretty funny. This was an expression of a playful community. It was funny. I also thought it was beautiful.
Have you ever considered play to be spiritual discipline? We’ve been focusing on spiritual practices together this semester. We’ve been considering how our faith and spirituality weaves into the intricate parts of our daily lives. Prayer, Proclamation, Sabbath, Sacrament, Remembrance – we’ve talked about all of these. Well, what about play? Is that a spiritual discipline too?
Maybe it’s hard for people to think that way. Discipline. That sounds like a hard word – a word of difficulty. Maybe it even sounds like a word of labor. After all, doesn’t it take work to put our spirituality into regular practice? And work sounds like the opposite of play to us.
We live in a world of work. Work everywhere. I know you’re not a stranger to this. Tests and papers pile up into a mountain of stress. There’s homework too. There’s a lot of running around from place to place. There are lot of “have to-s.” I “have to” do this, or I “have to” be here. I “have to” get this done, or I “have to” pay the bills. The truth is that we really do need to do many of these things, but in the process, we can easily feel as if every second of our day is scheduled. And sometimes it feels like our lives are just contracted out – here and there, to that group, and to this project. Are we actually alive to the things we really value, or are we enslaved to the mountain of things we have to do? Perhaps even more dangerous, are we enslaved to some image we need to project – the image of being successful through productivity? Has our culture and media taught us that our worth is wrapped up in what we can produce? Have we bought into this? And do we keep ourselves busy to somehow avoid our true selves – our selves that have intrinsic value, though the world of productivity might never recognize it?
Our scriptures have something to say to us about that tonight. Can you imagine the scene? People were bringing their children to Jesus. He had developed quite a reputation. He was certainly busy, traveling from place to place, speaking from people to people. And it made sense for people to bring their children to him. Children. They represented hope. They were covenant people now, but obvious symbols of the future. People were bringing the embodiment of their hopes to Jesus.
But the disciples weren’t too excited about this. They spoke sternly to the people. I wonder what they might have said. . . We can’t know for sure, but we can imagine. “Look, we can’t stop for this.” “We don’t have time!” “Stop wasting Jesus’ energy. There are other people who need us more right now.” But Jesus stopped all that nonsense, and he didn’t do it lightly. The text says he was indignant.
“Let the children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom belongs. Truly, I tell you, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” We’ve probably heard that message before, but when you think about it, it’s astounding. The Kingdom of God – the ultimate message that Jesus was speaking about -- belongs to little children, little children who have worth not for what they can produce or what they can do but for Whose they are. I imagine that Jesus might have gestured toward a particular child in his arms. This one, these ones are people who partake in the kingdom.
I’ve heard this text many times in my life, and I’ve always thought Jesus was saying this: Whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God in the way a child does, will never enter it. That may very well be true. But if we emphasize the words differently, another meaning emerges. Whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child – will never enter it. In other words, whoever does not receive this child, is missing the Kingdom of God. This child – this person of worth, this person of hope and future, this person who has been elected in a covenant – embodies the Kingdom of God. This child demonstrates God’s love. We need to receive people like that. We need to receive their intrinsic worth because the Kingdom of God resides there. It isn’t about work or earning or even image-making. It is about recognizing that we are made in God’s image.
We’re not made in the image of our work.
We’re not made in the image of what we can produce.
So what can this say to us about play in a world of work? Well, we all know that we like to play. We all like to take time away from the rat race to enjoy ourselves. We like to laugh. We like to enjoy company with one another. We like the way that it unburdens us for a while.
But maybe there’s a problem in this set-up. It unburdens us for a while. We think about play as recreation, only to jump right back into the race. In fact, it’s often in service to the race. “Well, I’ll take a day off. That will make me more productive for the days that follow.” If play is temporary recreation in service to work (which is the thing that really matters?) we’re still enslaved to a rat-race of production. Even our play becomes scheduled. It’s only there to make us better producers.
What we need is a paradigm shift all together. Maybe play isn’t the opposite of work. Maybe it isn’t that brief suspension of productivity, just to plunge right back into it. Maybe it’s a state of mind that recognizes we are children – beloved children of God who have intrinsic worth – no matter where we go and no matter what we do. And in that way, we aren’t slaves to our work or to the image-making projections we create through our work. As we do our work, we know we are children who are exploring God’s creation. We’re learning. We’re sharing. We’re serving. We’re discovering. We’re playing. We can do all of these things in our work. If play is a state of mind and a way of acting out of that truth, we can play even there. We have worth as children of God. We don’t need to gain it through our work. We just need to live as the children we are!
We don’t need moments of recreation – brief spaces of time which suspend the burden of work. What we need is re-creation. We need play to teach us that we are new creations – the old has passed away! All things have become new! We play, knowing that we are valuable. We take time to recognize that truth – and to let it transform everything, including how we think about our work!
I believe we do that here. We are a playing community. When I watched the game in the pool, I thought, “There are so many people in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and older who would give anything to play a game like that.” But unfortunately as we age, we sometimes buy into what our culture tells us. We put up more inhibitions. We tell ourselves that it isn’t mature to play. Well, that’s absurd. It’s inhuman to stop our play. It’s just part of who we were created to be.
Have you ever considered that there’s a ministry to being young? As I look around the room tonight, I recognize that many of us would be labeled in the “young” category. There is a ministry of age as well, of course. We need the wisdom, maturity, and nurture of those who are older. But young people add something as well. We play – we explore – we ask new questions, questions that other generations might have stopped asking. And when Austin Agape plays, we do a service to this entire congregation. We demonstrate humanity and invite others to be the Children of God they are.
So be yourselves, Austin Agape.
Live forth in a ministry of being young.
Be a playing community within this church.
Know that you are of infinite worth.
Live in a spirit of re-creation.
And play as the Children of God you are.
Amen.
- Renée Roederer, Campus Minister
To me Taize worship is finding the quiet center of my soul and resting there in the assurance of God's love. It is being together with others sharing meditative songs, scripture, bread and wine, silence. It is a time to quiet the noise of our busy lives and world and re-connect with "the still small voice" of God's presence. In short, Taize is good for my soul!
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