Holy Play
Psalm 146
Psalm 33:1-12
If you haven’t noticed yet, I love to laugh. I have noticed that many of you do too. Linda Morin’s laugh comes right from the depths of her soul. Hank’s laugh goes so deep that sometimes you can’t even hear it. Laughter is so much fun. It is contagious and spontaneous. It makes me smile just to hear it. I have laughed with many of you, at Morning Prayer, at committee meetings, over meals, over tea, before worship, after worship and even at the post office. According to scientists, human beings may be "tuned" for laughter much in the same way that songbirds are "tuned" for song. We are created to laugh and therefore we can say that laughing is a holy activity. But I suspect that if we were to compile a list of important things we do together as a church, laughing might not be included. It’s not that any of us are against laughing, but perhaps we wouldn’t think to include it as an important way to be nurtured together as brothers and sisters in Christ. But I wonder why that is. It seems to me that having fun together is absolutely essential as people of faith.
I am sure that most of us wouldn’t put our Holy Bible in the category of fun. We read of light-hearted times, of family stories, of humor for sure. But you may not be surprised to learn that the word “fun” does not even come up once in the Bible. We do find the word “play” mentioned a number of times and we read of the word “laugh” a few times. The word “happy” gets quite a few hits. In fact happy is even the very first word of the Psalter and we read in the Gospel of Matthew that those who take on the commitment of following Jesus will be blessed and happy. Both of our Psalms for today tell us that we will be happy, full of joy, when we are connected to our God. They are full of singing and praising, rejoicing and playing instruments, they say, “…happy is the nation whose God is the Lord…” We are to be joyful, to have fun when we follow our God. Play is indeed holy. But why is that play, that having plain old fun together is not always included as an essential element in Christian discipleship?
We know Jesus did it. We don’t read it anywhere, but we know he did it. Surely before his cousin John ran off into the desert and wore animal skins and ate locusts and wild honey, he and Jesus played together. Before he turned water into wine and fed five thousands, we know he played. He probably even played during the time we read about in the Gospels. I can imagine him chasing sheep or playing hide and seek using whatever scrub brush or desert grass he could find. But why is that most of us wouldn’t put play at the top of our discipleship “to do” list? We certainly wouldn’t say that being faithful excludes the possibility of having fun together. Our Craft Fair was fun, although a lot of work for most of you, our friendship dinners, our walking group, our book group are all fun. And anyone who was here last night at our ham and bean supper knows that we have a ton of fun together. Alma shot to her feet at the sight and sound of the tambourines. Last night I saw us laugh and move in ways that surprised me, we are a fun group! And it seems to me that having fun together as a church is essential to our life as Christian disciples. Perhaps it is our history as pious Methodists and Puritans that might make us laugh a bit at the prospect of including having fun on our disciple “to do” list. Or maybe it is that we aim to be a place that is counter to the hedonistic focus of the dominant culture.
In a recent article in the Christian Century, Ellen Charry argues that while fun and happiness are deeply rooted in the Christian tradition, many Christians are suspicious of the pursuit of happiness because Western culture defines it primarily in terms of what makes us feel good. She argues that happiness of the Christian sort comes as a result of loving well. She writes, “A happy life, then, requires a strong and healthy enough personality, formed by the love of God… Happiness is a life nourished by the love and goodness of God that contributes to the flourishing of creation.” But even her definition of happiness doesn’t seem, well playful. If happiness is a life nourished by the goodness of God, I wonder if part of the way that we are nourished; part of the way that we can grow in faith together is by playing together- by being together for no other reason than for fun.
Technically play can mean any activity for amusement. But the kind of play that is the most nourishing for the human body is the unstructured, unplanned, spontaneous kind. In his book, The Power of Play, David Elkind explores the loss of play in the lives of our children. He asserts that over the last twenty years children have lost twelve hours of free time a week, and eight of those lost hours were once spent in unstructured play and outdoor activities. And during that same time period, the amount of time children spend in organized sports has doubled, and the number of minutes children devoted to passive spectator leisure, not counting television, but including watching sports, has increased five-fold from 30 minutes to over three hours. Of course this dramatic drop in play has contributed to a dramatic rise in physical ailments including childhood obesity and diabetes, but what is most especially intriguing are the psychological consequences of virtually eliminating play. When children spend so much time in front of the television and in organized, rule-based activities, the mental development of fantasy, imagination and creativity are decreased. And of course, these are the mental tools required for success in other disciplines including higher-level math and science. Play, it seems trains us to be flexible and adaptable. Certainly, these findings while focused on our children are for us also. Playing together is a way for us to unleash our creativity and perhaps to be equipped to think outside the box when it comes to following our God.
In the 1950’s Jungian psychologist Dora Kalff developed the therapeutic technique of sand play. Through free, creative play, unconscious processes are made visible and people are able to think and radically different ways. Of course, psychologists learned that allowing adults to play in the sand was a way to disengage the ego and to open the mind to new possibilities.
And I would contend that part of being a faithful disciple is learning to be creative and adaptable so we are able to follow wherever God calls us- even if it is places we have never before seen. The vision team met this week as this group has been tasked with the wonderful and wild goal of imagining new ways of being church together. Mainline congregations across the country are working to deal with what it means to be a Christian church in a post-Christendom era. We are all dealing with difficulty recruiting people for boards and committees and yet an increased interest in life-giving, small group experiences. It seems that people just might want to have fun in church and at the same time serve God and accomplish the work of the church. Friends, we have fun here, we play here and I can’t help but to wonder if our play, if our experiences of plain old fun together are preparing us to follow God in new and unimaginable ways. If our call as Christian disciples is to follow God wherever God may lead us, we have to be creative and adaptable, flexible and open, malleable as God changes us and prepares us for the ministries ahead. And maybe one of the ways we do this together, as a Christian community is by playing together- having fun and being open to the Spirit of God. And I wonder what new ways we can play together- how can we have fun with those who are new among us? How can we have fun with those in the community? How can we have fun with those who have a hard time getting here? How can we have fun across age ranges? Because friends, God has something very special in mind for us, God is pulling us somewhere together and we want to be ready. And maybe playing together, having plain old fun together is one way to open our minds, to open our hearts and to prepare our spirits for the vision of our God. Let’s play together, holy play that equips us to follow our God. Amen.
David Elkind, The Power of Play (Da Capo Lifelong Books 2007)