I’ve gone to several churches in my life, coinciding with house moves, changes in our family, and the evolution of my own faith. While I was growing up God seemed like a confusing entity, and things about the Bible were often taught in an adult language, as if learning about God needed to involve a bit of confusion. The mystery of our Creator didn’t bother me, but the confusion bothered me a lot.
Massachusetts Mutual advertisement, Norman Rockwell
Getting ready for church was pandemonium around our house on Sunday mornings. My mom and dad were, shall we say, overly concerned about how we looked and how the family presented itself when we were marched through the sanctuary. Since most of the clothes for kids in the 1960’s were fifty percent polyester and fifty percent cactus, my whole body twitched and itched while I sat in the pew and tried to pay attention to material way over my pint-size head. If God was all powerful, I wondered, why hadn’t he invented a comfortable fabric for children to wear to his house?
After church, my brother and I snuck back into the sanctuary to play. One of our favorite games involved racing up and down the pews. By laying on our backs and reaching back to grab the next pew, we could pull ourselves along the linoleum floor, sliding all the way to the back door, where we would pop out, swing around, and slide back. Our game of racing ended one Sunday when my brother, in a bid for the pole position in the Little Pew 500, reached for the next pew and grabbed the ankle of an elderly lady quietly praying, perhaps for kids like us.
That was a come-to-Jesus moment for at least two of us, not including the prayerful lady.
I’m often reminded of how receptive Jesus was when children came on the scene, and of the time he rebuked his disciples when they tried to shoo away some kids who were not as serious as his disciples thought they should be. I think Jesus wanted his twelve friends to recognize how important it is to protect our child-like faith wherever we can and admire that same freshness when we see it in children.
Fast forward to my adulthood when I entered church one Sunday to find a grandfather sitting with his grandson. I knew the grandfather because I had gone to school with his son, but I was unprepared for the “child-like freshness” I was about to witness.
Because of several church factors including high humidity and a particularly grueling sermon from Leviticus, the grandfather began nodding off, his head bobbing up and down like a carnival ride, signaling the advent of a long nap. The grandson, Arthur, began to get a bit too warm, having put on his church clothes over his pj’s he’d worn at G’pa’s sleep-over the night before. With G’pa falling asleep during the sermon, Arthur made the inspirational decision to take off his church pants to cool down and let off some steam…you know, get comfortable…kind of bring in the light, so to speak.
Sitting several pews behind, I began to witness an amazing exercise in physical acrobatics, which by themselves presented several challenges for Arthur. First, he had to be very quiet, less he woke his snoring G’pa, a former school principal. Next, he had to pull his pants off over his shoes because that seemed the quickest route to the personal freedom he was seeking. And finally, and most importantly, he had to do all of this while appearing as if he was not stripping down to the bare necessities in the middle of a Methodist worship service. (By the way, pant removal does not fall under the kind of fresh outlook Jesus was hoping for when he spoke about what we can learn from children and their innocence).
Next week…find out what happens when God calls G’pa to act, somewhere between your pew and mine. I think there is a Bible lesson here, but for now try to get Arthur’s dilemma out of your mind. You want to be clear-headed this Sunday when the humidity seeps in and the sermon gets a bit dry.