Wednesday, January 17, 2024

“When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.”  (1 Corinthians 13: 11, New Living Translation)

                I like to tease my friends who are avid, long-suffering Toronto Maple Leaf hockey fans, that even though I was a passionate Leaf fan when I was a kid, now that I am an adult, I have put such childish notions behind me. (Such gall, coming from a miserable fan of the last place Ottawa Senators.)

                But perhaps there is still a little child left in me.  This week, I have begun to build another Lego set. It Is a big, red, British double-decker bus. I hope that it goes better than my last Lego set, a large pirate ship. So many of the pieces were too small for these arthritic hands to handle and get in place. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.) I gave it over to my daughter and seven-year-old grandson, a Lego enthusiast, who finished it. (Oh, the humiliation to be bested by my seven-year old grandson!)

                This Lego set says right on the box that it is meant for 16 years old and plus. I am well into the “plus” category by a wide margin. The age qualification means that this set is designed for “older” folk who have the patience, the ability to carefully read the instructions, the perseverance and intellect, the stamina and persistence to handle such an immense project. (Well, maybe, I don’t qualify after all.) After all, there are thousands of pieces and pain-staking instructions that only a more mature person, supposedly, can understand and follow. Am I adult and mature enough to handle it? We’ll see.

                Paul believes, very strongly, that one’s Christianity needs to grow and mature into an adult faith. “To be perfectly frank, I’m getting exasperated with your childish thinking. How long before you grow up and use your head—your adult head? It’s all right to have a childlike unfamiliarity with evil; a simple no is all that’s needed there. But there’s far more to saying yes to something. Only mature and well-exercised intelligence can save you from falling into gullibility.” (1 Corinthians 14: 20, The Message Bible) This is quite the expansion of the original text, but it makes an excellent point. There comes a time when we must graduate from children’s Sunday School and make into the adult classes. We should never stop learning or growing in our faith but there must be a profounder wisdom, a deeper clarity, a richer understanding as we grow in our faith.

                “This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.” (Ephesians 4: 13, NLT)

                Today, my colleague, friend and pastor, the Rev. Dr. Peter Holmes, Yorkminster Park Baptist Church, wrote his excellent, on-line devotional on Jesus’ words, “For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” (Luke 18: 16 17, NLT) He wrote, “Obviously, none of us can go back to our childhood, but the consensus is that Jesus was affirming both the wonder and the trust that come so naturally to children.” I couldn’t agree more.

                But I don’t think, for a moment, that Jesus is contradicting Paul or visa versa. Rather, I see both ideas as sides of the same coin, of a complete and whole faith. Too often we may think that maturity or adulthood is serious business. As we become older, some of us become more skeptical, even cynical, or others become more rigid and intolerant of changes and differences. Some throw off their faith as being for children, but not for them. Others think that as adults they can do, say, act as they please. This is not what Paul is writing about and it is what Jesus is correcting.

                One can be an adult and mature in our faith and not lose our imaginations, our spirit of wonder, our appreciation of simple joys, our belief in the future. If anything, these seemingly child-like qualities are a sign of an active and lively, mature faith. It means seeing the world through the lens of Jesus’ great and gracious Love.

                “So come on, let’s leave the preschool fingerpainting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ. The basic foundational truths are in place: turning your back on ‘salvation by self-help’ and turning in trust toward God… God helping us, we’ll stay true to all that. But there’s so much more. Let’s get on with it!” (Hebrews 6: 1, TMB)

 Dale