At Play in the City of God

Zechariah 8:1,3-8
The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost 2010
Family Dedication

Nine years ago, when I was being introduced to people in the process of my transition from the role of professor and administrator in the university to the role of servant and leader in the church, I was asked a myriad of questions, one of which caught me completely off guard. “What do you do for play?” someone asked me. “What do you do for play?” “Play?” I thought to myself. "Who has time to play? I have a fulltime job, three children, a house, a yard, and a garage that looks like the Beverly Hillbillies unloaded their truck into it. Who has time to play?” That’s what I thought to myself. But instead of going off on a rant in response to an entirely innocent question, I simply said, “My play time right now is spent with my children.” It was true then, and it’s still true now. Real men play rugby; I play peek-a-boo. But the common denominator in the question I was asked, in my answer, and in rugby and peek-a-boo is “play.”

It turns out that play is very serious business. Believe it or not, play has been studied seriously by psychologists and educators since the 1800s. In 2006, the American Association of Pediatrics released a clinical report titled, “The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds” (http://www.aap.org/pressroom/playFINAL.pdf). It occurs to me that this morning as we dedicate children and families to God and the church and celebrate and honor and remember the positive contributions to our lives that fathers and figure-figures have made, it makes sense to take time to consider “the importance of play in promoting healthy child development and maintaining strong parent-child bonds.”

“Play,” the report begins,

is essential to development because it contributes to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth. Play also offers an ideal opportunity for parents to engage fully with their children.” In describing the benefits of play, the report says this: “Play is important to healthy brain development. It is through play that children at a very early age engage and interact in the world around them. Play allows children to create and explore a world they can master, conquering their fears while practicing adult roles, sometimes in conjunction with other children or adult caregivers. As they master their world, play helps children develop new competencies that lead to enhanced confidence and the resiliency they will need to face future challenges. Undirected play allows children to learn how to work in groups, to share, to negotiate, to resolve conflicts, and to learn self-advocacy skills. When play is allowed to be child driven, children practice decision-making skills, move at their own pace, discover their own areas of interest, and ultimately engage fully in the passions they wish to pursue.

More recently, Dr. Peter Gray, a research professor of psychology at Boston College, wrote this about play: play “is a means by which children develop their physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and moral capacities. It is a means of creating and preserving friendships. It also provides a state of mind that, in adults as well as children, is uniquely suited for high-level reasoning, insightful problem solving, and all sorts of creative endeavors” (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/200811/the-value-play-i-the-definition-play-provides-clues-its-purposes). What he could have added but didn’t is that some psychologists have also suggested that play is an essential component in children’s healthy spiritual development.

In the Old Testament book of Zechariah, the free play of children is featured in a description of God’s redemption of God’s people and the world from suffering and oppression and danger: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of their great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets” (Zechariah 8:4-5). If we had read the entire chapter, we would have seen this picture of the free play of children associated with “a sowing of peace” in v 12 and “seasons of joy and gladness” in v 19 and “the favor of the Lord” in vv 21 and 22 and the active presence of God in v 23. Scripture and psychologists agree that play is serious business!

The book of Ecclesiastes tells us that “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. . . . a time to break down, and a time to build up, a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together (3:1,4). If Ecclesiastes is correct, then being at play in the city of God is the time we spend stacking blocks and knocking them, turning sand into castles and castles into sand, laughing and dancing and skipping stones on the water. Being at play is “a sowing of peace” and “seasons of joy and gladness,” a sign of “the favor of the Lord.”

I remember my paternal grandfather’s example of a passion for his work as a research chemist and a department manager at the DuPont Company’s Chambers Works. But I remember also that he constructed a giant canvas teepee in his back yard for his grandsons one summer and we—grandsons and grandfather alike—played Indians (without any cowboys). Each morning we went out from that teepee to hunt moose on the hill behind his house. Just for the record, there were no moose within, say, 600 miles of his house, but he agreed to go moose hunting every day for a week that summer. I remember my maternal grandfather’s example of extraordinary devotion and pride in his work as a machinist at the DuPont Company’s Experimental Station. He had been retired to Florida for years before the black grit of machine oil and metal filings finally disappeared from the skin around his fingernails. But I also remember his laughter and joy as he told the story of how my grandmother in preparation for a Sunday School teachers’ meeting at their house followed so diligently—and naively—the punch recipe she found in a magazine without realizing that she was spiking it, with the end result that those otherwise tee-totaling teachers finished the meeting with a spirited game of leap-frog in the back yard. I remember that my father was almost never at home in the evenings when I was young and that family vacations were something he found intrusive and inconvenient when he agreed to take them at all. But I remember also the introduction he gave his sons to games and sports and jokes and theater and the arts that were his play. Whenever and wherever we engage in healthy play, we are “sowing peace” and “seasons of joy and gladness” and “a sign of the favor of the Lord.”

Some of you may remember the Children’s Sermon for Children’s Sabbath last October in which Bev delivered to us words from our children she had collected in Sunday School. Among the things the children said to tell us adults were “don’t be so serious all the time” and “play more.” It turns out that those are words of wisdom, the wisdom of psychologists and educators, as well as the wisdom of children, because play “is a means of creating and preserving friendships . . . [and providing] a state of mind that, in adults as well as children, is uniquely suited for high-level reasoning, insightful problem solving, and all sorts of creative endeavors.” If you more serious adults need a reason to play, then consider this: if you play more, you will work more efficiently and effectively and more happily and more well adjustedly, not to mention the fact that whenever and wherever we engage in healthy play, we are “sowing peace” and “seasons of joy and gladness” and “a sign of the favor of the Lord.”

Several years ago, when we introduced our new Sunday School curriculum for preschoolers and elementary-school-aged children, there were some folks who were understandably aghast at its name and the whole concept: “Godly Play,” it is called. In Godly Play, the children don’t just sit and listen passively to Bible stories and look passively at pictures of them; they handle the characters and the elements, they move them around and they act out the story. The children engage in play with the story and in the story; and in the process, as psychologists and educators have been telling us for more than 100 years now, they develop their physical, intellectual, emotional, social, moral and spiritual capacities. First Baptist Greenville has become one of the leading practitioners of this approach to Sunday School in the entire country. You might enjoy observing one of those classes some Sunday morning. Talk to Juli Morrow or Bev Rogers about arranging a visit, and be a fly on the wall. Chances are, the experience will open your eyes to something you have been missing, a kind of interaction with Scripture and God and yourself that is a sowing of peace and seasons of joy and gladness, and a sign of the favor of the Lord.

But before we leave Zechariah 8, I have to tell you that there is something fascinating to me about the idyllic picture it paints of old men and old women sitting securely in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of their great age and the streets of the city full of boys and girls playing safely in its streets. There’s someone missing from the picture, isn’t there? Zechariah left someone out. It’s the generation in the middle, isn’t it? They are sometimes called the “sandwich generation” because they are sandwiched between caring for their children and caring for their parents. They’re the ones with the fulltime job and the three children and the house and the yard and the garage that looks like the Beverly Hillbillies unloaded their truck into it—and a parent with a house and a yard and a garage that looks like the Beverly Hillbillies unloaded their truck into it. While the older and younger generations are sitting and playing, the generation in the middle is working so that the others can sit and so that the others can play.

Not too long ago, one of the wisest mothers in this congregation told me the words of wisdom that her mother told her when she was a mother of young children and one day expressed her frustration that she didn’t have the time to devote to her gardening that she loved. Her mother said, “There will be time for gardening when the children are grown.” There will be time for gardening when the children are grown. And it was so. It is so. But even if it turns out that there is not—as there was not for my father who did not live to see all of his children fully grown, in part because he worked more and played less than he should have—we are still left with no excuse for being so serious all the time and not playing more, as our children have said, even if it’s peek-a-boo instead of rugby, even if it’s a tea party with children instead of a cocktail party with friends, even if it’s a children’s book read with a little one instead of the latest New York Times bestseller read alone or with a book club, even if it’s a back-yard game of catch or kick instead of an organized sporting event, a hike in the mountains, a walk on the beach, a morning at the zoo, an afternoon in the park, a teepee and a moose hunt in the back yard, a game of leap-frog.

Ask the children what they want to do and follow their lead at play. If you do, the children will teach you a thing or two about developing your physical, intellectual, emotional, social, moral and spiritual capacities; about creating and preserving friendships and a state of mind that is uniquely suited for high-level reasoning, insightful problem solving, and all sorts of creative endeavors. And not the least of it all, they will introduce you to “a sowing of peace” and “seasons of joy and gladness” and “a sign of the favor of the Lord.” May it be so. Let it be so. Amen.


This material is Copyrighted © 2010 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeffrogers110@bellsouth.net.