It's Time To Get Childish

When I was in the 8-10 year old age range my best friends were some guys in my neighborhood who loved playing superheroes.  We would get together after school or during the summer and play for hours. We would fashion makeshift costumes and we would BECOME the superhero we were pretending to be!  Did you ever do this? Who were your favorite heroes?   (As a side note, I just hope your favorite was not Aquaman. What a waste of a hero...) In my neighborhood, everyone wanted to be Superman.  With a towel fastened around my neck by a safety pin, I was "the Man of Steel."  When I ran with my cape billowing behind me I believed I was flying.  When I lifted a huge rock over my head, I believed it weighed 500 pounds. It was such a thrill to become lost in those moments.  But there came a time when I began to feel silly playing make believe.  I began to understand that "real" games like baseball and basketball were more acceptable for someone my age, and I hung up my cape.  I had come to a great awakening, a time of growing up and moving on with my life.


In retrospect, that "day of enlightenment" was a very sad day for me because it caused me to push part of my self into a corner where it could be hidden away.  Whatever that part was, I know it was the stuff of dreams and imagination- things that are seldom valued in the world we live in.  It was the place where "playing" lived.  And more and more as I grow older still, I have come to realize that it is the same place that God occupies in me.  This childlike place, this place of whimsy, imagination and boundless hope, is my soul.  We are told by Jesus in Matthew 18:2-4 that we should have faith like a child.  And what is it children have that we don't?  They have the ability to play.  They are still in awe and wonder of the things around them.  They have the naivete (also known as faith) to believe that God speaks to them.  They believe in miracles. They believe that Jesus meant what he said and that loving God and loving people is not all that complicated.  And they still believe that Superman can fly!


But we who are older and wiser, we who have careers and families and important things to do- we often feel our souls melting away.  We become cynical.  The things of God no longer astonish and amaze us. In fact, we become bored with our faith.  Episcopal priest Robert Capon once wrote that dullness is the most critical issue facing the church today.  He finished his statement by saying, "Jesus doesn't change people into wild-eyed radicals anymore, because the church is satisfied with nice people."  If we are to continue to promote the Jesus Revolution, then we must rediscover what it means to have faith like a child.  The late Mike Yaconelli wrote that "dullness is the absence of light in our souls."  That light is Jesus.  And Jesus is NEVER dull!  If you find your faith to be dull or lifeless, then you need to connect with the Jesus of the New Testament- the one who turned the world upside down, who inspired people to do remarkable things and who led his disciples on one adventure after another.  Encounters with Jesus are not like warming your hands by a campfire.  Encounters with Jesus are like the burning bush; they consume you without burning you up.  If your problem is dullness, then you may not have met the real Jesus...


So today I encourage each of us to put on our capes and our masks and remember what it is like to truly believe.  Because through Jesus, we all have the power to love.  We all have the power to change the world.  The miraculous becomes possible.  Mountains can be moved.  And maybe, just maybe, Superman will fly again...


Because of Jesus,