Sunday, October 3 - Godly Play

 This sermon was preached at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Wellesley on Sunday, October 3, 2021. The reading for this sermon is Mark 10:2-16. 

I can’t hear this Gospel proclaimed without thinking of a particular moment in my seminary chapel when it came up in the lectionary to be read. In that sanctuary, the Gospel was proclaimed right in the center of the aisle, in the midst of the students and professors. This particular Thursday night, the reader had just gotten to the part of this passage about the parents bringing their children to Jesus, when a squirmy toddler sprang free of his mother’s arms. And as the line “Let the little children come to me” was read, the just-barely-walking child tripped, tottled, crawled straight up the center aisle toward the reader, reaching, reaching with his little arms toward the speaker of Jesus’ words, shrieking with joy. The escapee was soon snatched up by the back of the overalls by his mother but not before my pewmates and I shared a grin. The Gospel had come to life before us. 

There are many reasons I’m excited about our new church school curriculum, Godly Play. The most important one is the rich theology that undergirds everything about its approach - from the way the space is organized to the carefully chosen words of the stories. In a Godly Play room, nothing is out of bounds for the child to touch and explore. The shelves are all set at child’s height. The foundational stories of the faith are told in simple, yet expansive language with tangible objects the child can physically grasp. The child is only asked open-ended questions, ones with no correct answers that the adults wonder about right alongside the kids. Their wonderings are taken seriously and sacredly. 

The theology of Godly Play declares what Jesus declares in this passage; that children are full people of God. Children already have a relationship with God - they are already reaching for Christ. All they need are the words to explore and express it. 

At baptisms in my first parish - in pre-COVID times of course - all the children of the parish were invited to crowd up around the font and put their hands right into the water as it was blessed. It was messy and loud and we all got wet, and we found that the children paid close attention to what happened with the water after that. When you bring a child up close to the altar just like Adrian will do on the playground this morning - when they are close enough to actually see the bread being broken and the wine sloshing around in the chalice, you’ll notice the child is enraptured. They are caught up in it not because it’s fun or silly or noisy, but because it is sacred and solemn and full of mystery. 

When we bring children to church, when we bring them right up close to the altar and the font, we are inviting them into Jesus’ embrace to be blessed. And they, in turn, bless us. 

At the same time that Godly Play urges us to respect the gravity and authenticity of childhood spirituality, its theology also paradoxically invites us to honor the childishness of our own. The small child inside of ourselves deserves to be blessed as well. When we bring ourselves to church, we are also bringing our fragile, vulnerable parts to be taken up into God’s arms. 

Some of my friends growing up had houses with a really formal room in them. It was a room set aside for special occasions filled with expensive furniture and breakable objects. A part of the house for hushed voices and starched collars and stiff shoes that said to kids this is not a place for you.

The thing was those rooms ended up never being used by anyone, ever. They were so formal, so precious, so perfect, that no one felt comfortable staying in them for long. Too much needed to be left at the door to enter.

When we forget Jesus' invitation to be as children - to be messy and imperfect and curious and clumsy - we can accidentally make church into one of those rooms. Rooms where parts of ourselves are sternly turned away.

Church doesn't have to be a special place where everything is child-sized. That would get uncomfortable for a lot of people super fast. But church can be a place and time designed with every kind of person in mind, where all sorts with all different abilities and ages and backgrounds feel like it's for them. And when that happens, well then all those pieces that make up each person can be welcomed, too. When children are wholeheartedly welcomed, then each of us can also bring our curious, noisy, joyful, interrupting, silly or messy selves, too. That child inside us that is unabashedly crawling, tripping, reaching toward Jesus.

Church is never meant to be an end to itself. When God's house is fashioned as a space for all people, church becomes a place we can trust that we are worthy of blessing however we show up. It becomes the hour or two each week that we practice the skills of welcome, belovedness, and grace so that, so that we may bring these things out into all the other places in our lives as well - and into our relationship with God.

To that end, I'd like us to take a moment now, to ask ourselves some questions. Perh
aps if you're watching from home you might meditate on these during our communion moment.

Is there part of you that you've been taught to hold back from God? Has something or someone or some place kept you from leaping into Jesus’ embrace? Have you ever been snatched up by the overalls before you got too close? 

Does it take courage for you to allow yourself to be blessed, fully blessed, every part of you?

Jesus says, let the little children come to me, do not stop them.

And he takes you up in his arms, lays his hands on you, and blesses you.