There are some things we do early in life that probably ought to stick with us more than they do. They could vary from you to me. But I think anything that fosters playfulness, laughter and awe, and that helps us retain at least a modicum of our childlikeness has got to be good.
I understand that incident with the children in Matthew 19 these days differently than I used to. In the story, the disciples were managing the crowd and facilitating Jesus’ wish to teach things that mattered. Their hearts were in the right place.
But Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” Actually, Matthew brackets the story back-to-back for us with the question posed by the one referred to as the Rich Young Man.
Charles Qualls
In that story, an affluent young man who seems to be acquainted with Jesus by now asks a personal question. One that maybe he had been pondering deep in his own soul. “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”
Again, Jesus ends up talking about conditions of the heart and soul as essential for entry into what he termed “the kingdom of heaven.” In this young man’s case, the answer for him was that he needed to unclutter his life and focus his soul by selling off what he had, giving the proceeds to the poor and then following Jesus.
Compelling to that story is that we do not get a result. If only Matthew had compassion on readers 2,000 years later who encounter this text and say, “I wonder what ever happened with that wealthy young man? Did he really go and sell his stuff? Do you think he followed Jesus?”
I wonder why it is that some of the most essential tasks the kingdom wants us to do demand some of the very best that childlikeness could lend us. In order to believe, or to choose faith through Jesus, we must have enough flexibility and spirit to trust. Let’s be honest, though, trust was easier for most of us when we were younger.
“In order to live peaceably and with fairness, we would do well to borrow from our younger selves whatever allowed us to play well with others.”
In order to have the compassion and empathy to live like Jesus, we would do better to tap into the caring souls so many of us had as children. A time in many of our lives before our culture taught us to mind our business, keep our eyes down and move on.
In order to live peaceably and with fairness, we would do well to borrow from our younger selves whatever allowed us to play well with others. You know, before life taught us we would need to compete all-out in order to get ahead.
One of the childhood games many of us played was Tag. You know, where the object is to elude the other person before they have a chance to touch or “tag” you. In that game, you don’t want to be “it.” This game traditionally has been played by touch. But there are instances of people playing this game in a variety of ways including use of a verbal tag.
A fairly well known movie was released in 2018 about a group of people who went to great lengths to perpetuate a game of tag for years. It’s based on a true story that involved grown adults even traveling in order to play.
I also like the story about two brothers who played a private game of tag for more than 60 years. On his deathbed, one of the brothers motioned for his sibling to lean in closely. Touching his brother’s face, he managed to whisper, “Tag … you’re IT!” The brother was overcome, and in all the hubbub someone finally noticed that the dying man had in fact passed. He’d won the game in the most final of ways.
Personally, though, I have had much joy over a game of tag that I have watched up close between my wife and my mother for some 34 years now. This game of tag brings me a lot of happiness and lends to me a sense of wonder all over again.
Elizabeth Qualls
In our first years married and when Elizabeth and I were off at seminary, a telephone was a lifeline to family. Mobile phones and the internet were only a dream at the time. So a genuine, bona fide landline call at long-distance rates was a big deal.
Often Elizabeth would answer on our end. If it was my mother, they might chat for a few minutes before she would hand the phone off to me. The mother/daughter-in-law relationship can be such a delicate thing in many families. So it always made me happy whenever they had those little phone chats.
As the phone was about to be passed my way, my mother would often say to Elizabeth, “Now you all be careful up there!” Or, for shorthand sometimes it was simply, “Be careful!” Soon, Elizabeth decided it would be fun to say the “be careful” tag before my mom had a chance to. Because she knew it was coming.
We moved a little closer to home after school for our initial church ministry. But still we were far enough away that visits weren’t frequent. A phone continued to be the primary link. They kept on with what was now a funny contest to see who could slip in a “Be careful!” on the other first.
In person or on the phone, by now the contest between them was at least acknowledged. We laughed about the fact that these two had this little game going on. From Milledgeville, Ga., to Greensboro, N.C., and then back to home for a marvelous 16-year tenure in Atlanta near where both of us grew up, the game continued.
Often, I was the middle man in this contest. If I was going to have contact with my parents on a given day, Elizabeth would pass forward a tag: “As soon as you talk with them, be sure to tell your mother I said to be careful.”
She would grin a Cheshire Cat smile, as though getting away with something witty. Of course, the game ran the other way, too. My mother would be on the phone with me and she would say, “When you see Elizabeth, tell her I said to be careful!”
“If we could somehow go back and count up all the smiles, laughs, surprises, caught-off-guards and other delights, the score would add up to a lavish amount of happiness and love.”
Many times Elizabeth would stomp her foot and feign surprise and disappointment when I saw her next and delivered the message. Always, though, the fake frown gave way to both of us laughing. She’d been gotten.
In 2017, we moved northeast up to Virginia. Now, save an occasional trip home, the phone is once again the lifeline. Birthday cards, Thanksgiving cards, Christmas notes and phone calls are all weaponized as delivery methods to surprise the other with those two little words: Be careful.
As I write, I have traveled home once again to visit my mother. She is 97 now and we are celebrating her birthday. A family meal has been grand, with storytelling abounding. Flowers have come her way, as have hand-written cards and notes.
Elizabeth couldn’t make the trip, so she delivered a stack of three greeting cards. In one of them, as she signed it she wrote in big letters “Be careful!”
This game between my wife and my mom has been going on for 34 years now. But if we could somehow go back and count up all the smiles, laughs, surprises, caught-off-guards and other delights, the score would add up to a lavish amount of happiness and love.
Tag is a child’s game. Or is it? Maybe playfulness and humor ought to escape maturity and accompany us through life more often than it does. What happened to so many adults who seem to have forgotten what it was like to be a child?
What happened to so many of us from whom giggling or even the permission to smile have vanished with hardly a trace? What happened to our willingness to include heroes, be surprised or react with awe — all qualities that for some actually seem to have been kidnapped by the years?
If you were thinking I had an application for all this waiting for you at the end, I hope you won’t be disappointed. I have instead a ponder: What truly did Jesus mean when he said to his disciples, “Let the children come to me, and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs”?
Charles Qualls serves as pastor of Franklin Baptist Church in Franklin, Va. He is the author of eight books.