The Good Old Days and Childhood Creativity (Summer Arts Week 1)

Luke 18:15-17

Pablo Picasso kept his childhood with him.  That picture in the bulletin, that’s Pablo at a young age, with his sister.  I just wanted to prove to you that the famous artist really was a youngster once.  He grew up.  But he didn’t grow sour or stale or get stuck in ruts.  He kept seeing things in new ways.  He imagined shapes and colors and materials in fresh perspectives.

 

“The Bull” on the front of your bulletin is a blockboard cut out, with a few branches bent to it, and a mop handle here and there, with a canvas stretcher for a pinched little face.  It’s not very sophisticated.  It almost looks like the kind of bull a child would construct.

The “Bull’s Head” (on the back side of bulletin) he made with a bicycle seat and handle bars.  A child could have done that.  I have been cleaning out my basement this week.  When I find things like handlebars and bike seats, I throw them away.  Picasso lays them together in a way that any child might do.  But I’m cleaning my basement, I don’t have time to see things like a child.

The “woman with a hat” is not very sophisticated looking.  Your pre-school child wouldn’t use sheet metal.  But if one of your kids brought this thing home and it were made of construction paper, you’d pat them on the head and say, “that’s nice.”  Then you’d whisper to someone, “That’s terrible.  It doesn’t even really look like a woman with a hat.  Everything is out of proportion and misaligned!”

Then there is the sculpture, “The Head of a Woman,” made from a few springs and a salad colander.  If your child built this, you’d say, “Quit messing around with my kitchen utensils.  I need those!”  But Picasso sees things like a child sees them.  He finds things most of us overlook.

Picasso once said, “It takes a long time to learn to become young.”  He was talking about the kind of art he wanted to create.  And looking at some of his art, it really does look like he was trying to make childish art.  But that statement is still rather peculiar.  “It takes a long time to learn to become young.”  Of course he’s not talking about being young the first time.  That doesn’t take long.  Nor does it take much work.  Kids are kids.  But if you want to become the kind of adult who can laugh and play and imagine and create, that will take some effort.  It has to be learned.

Maybe that’s why Jesus said what he said about receiving the kingdom of God like a little child.  Why is it that God’s kingdom belongs to children, and to adults who receive it in a childlike way? 

Jesus doesn’t really explain himself.  Maybe it’s because children still have room in their lives for something new.  They haven’t yet imprisoned themselves in patterns of obligations.  They take each day as it comes.  Only adults greet one another by asking, “Have you been busy lately?”  Or who answer the question, “How have you been?” by saying, “busy.”

Or perhaps children can receive God’s kingdom because they don’t measure and make comparisons in terms of status, or value, or importance.  In the paragraph just before our reading, Jesus told a parable to those “who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else” (18:9).  Generally speaking, you have to teach children to care about titles and resumes.  In their world, you’re either affectionate, fun, and playful, or you’re not.

Or perhaps children can receive God’s kingdom because they don’t have much to lose.  They are not yet addicted to an expensive, consuming way of life that’s full of stuff.  In the paragraph that follows our reading, Jesus asks a wealthy person to sell all his possessions, give the money to the poor, and come and follow him.  The wealthy person went away sad, because he wanted to follow Jesus but keep all his stuff too.  The advantage of being a child or being child-like is that possessions don’t hold much charm.  It’s playfulness, experiences, and relationships you’re after.

One of the real tragedies of life is an adult with no child left in them.  These are people who walk up to the edge of the Grand Canyon with a shrug, because they’re thinking, “Yeah, I’ve seen pictures of this.”  These are people who nurse their learned fears of different kinds and colors of people.  They have to keep fencing people onto some team – black, gay, Mexican, Muslim, transgender, rich, poor, uneducated, whatever – rather than just gladly be with them.  These are people who forget how to make things.  Who forget to play and dance and laugh.  Who forget how to wonder at an ant hill, pretty flowers, and stars overhead.

Jean Vanier is the founder of L’Arche Communities.  These are residential communities sort of like Tri-Valley, where people with disabilities come to live with caregivers who are called to affirm their dignity.  Vanier told a story that he was once in his office, listening to a man who was bitter and frustrated, complaining about all that was wrong with the world.  And just at that moment, one of the residents of the community opened his office door and danced into the room uninvited.  He was a person with Down’s Syndrome.  He laughed and kept laughing as he entered the room.  He hugged Vanier and then went out laughing.  The man shook his head and said to Vanier, “Isn’t it sad – that he’s so happy and doesn’t even know why.”

God’s kingdom is for people with Down’s Syndrome.  God’s kingdom is for people who find delight in simple things.  The kingdom is for people who don’t need much.  They need friends.  And affection.  But not a lot else.

Now there is no surefire test to see whether you adults still have any child left in you.  But one indicator might be your perspective on the building of forts.  Let’s just say that your children or grandchildren, left to themselves for a few minutes, pull every cushion off the sofas and chairs in your living room.  They drag out quilts and blankets from wherever they find them.  And they lean the cushions this way and that.  They drape the quilts just so.  There’s a roof, and a door flap, and maybe even a lookout hole to keep an eye on the enemy.  Now when you walk back in the room, you’re going to have one of two guttural reactions: either you’ll say, “Let’s put things back where they go.”  OR you’ll say, “Wait, there are more cushions in the bedroom!”

Jesus announces God’s new kingdom of love.  He wants to build a new realm within the old one.  He wants to build a new city within the old one.  He wants to build a backyard fort where everyone can come and play.  And he is looking for people who are still open enough to hear some good news and move in new directions.  He hopes to find people who still believe newness can break into the world and make a difference.  He’s looking for people who can still work in teams of trust and care, even though they know how the world works.

Maria Popova is the genius behind a website and social media feed called “Brain Pickings.”  I’m generally critical of how much time we spend on our phones.  But if you’re reading Maria Popova, you get a pass.  Her goal is to keep alive old wisdom so that we can use it in new ways and in new situations.  So she reads old journals and letters that contain something we’ve forgotten.

She said this in a recent interview, “Critical thinking without hope is cynicism.  But hope without critical thinking is naivete.”  What she meant is that both cynicism and naïve optimism produce a kind of resignation or paralysis - an inability to move forward, solve problems, and make a difference.  To do that, to be a responsible adult, you need a critical awareness of what’s wrong.  But you can’t become so burdened by problems that you can’t get off the couch.  What you need is an open and listening life that can feel the pain around you, combined with a playful confidence that believes in the beauty of small changes.

One of the things that can keep me afloat when I become angry and cynical is a poem by Wendell Berry, entitled Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.  It’s a poem of ferocious honesty combined with the refusal to give up hope.

The ending goes like this:

“As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it.  Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn’t go.  Be like the fox

who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.”

The poem recommends “resurrection,” not as something to believe, but as a cunning and crafty way to live.  The generals and politicos stand for all those fake authorities that manipulate us, market to us, and order us around.  They do this by trying to take up residence in our minds.  When this happens, the cunning thing to do is to “lose” your mind, leave it behind.  Trick them.  Fake right then go left.

This is a poem that could only be written by someone who has grown up.  It’s an adult poem.  And yet a few lines earlier – and this is really the line I wanted you to remember today – we find this line:

“Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts.”

Again, this is a poem for grown ups who can face all the facts.  But facing all the facts can easily leave us suicidal, or at least depressed and paralyzed.  I am glad that the poem did not bid me to be happy.  I’m not all that happy very often, and in fact whenever I meet someone who wants to be happy, I suggest they aim at something else.  And I am glad the poem did not bid me to forget or ignore what I know so that I can be naively and ignorantly optimistic.   The kind of optimism that can’t deal with pain and evil.  No, what the poem asks of us is simply to be “joyful,” though we have considered all the facts.

Now I cannot think of any way of translating this poetry unless we use the language of childhood and children.  Don’t lose your child-like wonder, even when you know how the world works.  Don’t lose your child-like imagination, just because some use their imaginations to harm others or to enrich themselves.  Don’t forget to rest and play, even though there is always more work to be done.   And don’t forget that you are small.  You cannot do everything.  You can only do what happens to fall in your lap.  It’s not all up to you.

As a congregation, let’s keep bring the little children to Jesus.  And let’s make room in our lives for the little children in us to receive this new kingdom with gladness.