when they ask

shaping children's faith through story

Category: questions

Mommy, why does she have a wife?

August 27, 2022 /

If I had been asked this question four years ago, I wouldn’t have known what to say. But one day at a playground with friends, another mom asked what I thought about same-sex marriage. I told her I didn’t know. I’d grown up thinking that homosexuality was a sin. But some of my favorite seminary professors taught that we had misinterpreted the Bible, and that consensual gay sex wasn’t wrong. So I really didn’t know what to think. But I was ok with that; I’ve never felt the need to have an opinion on everything. I’d spent the past several years creating a home and raising babies. I was wrestling with sleep training, not sexual identity.

But her question got me thinking. Not having an opinion on social and political issues, or analyzing someone else’s relationship with God, was one thing when talking with adults. But being unprepared for important conversations with my kids felt like quite another. I knew the time was coming when it would be they, and not my married friends, who would be asking these questions. And if I learned anything in seminary, it was that early messages matter. So I began reading and listening, first to straight theologians and pastors, but then to those who have personally wrestled with their sexual and gender identities. They have come to various conclusions as to the Bible’s teaching on sexuality. But all of their stories have been gifts to me, both challenging my assumptions and helping to clarify my understanding of God’s word. And now the time has come for me to actually communicate these convictions to my kids.

In full disclosure, we haven’t had this entire conversation yet. I’ve often heard the advice to keep things simple. So we’ve only talked about bits and pieces of these topics, as they’ve come up. Nevertheless, I know that the new school year will likely bring new questions, so I want to be prepared to communicate well when the time comes. Our kids pick up on our discomfort with hard topics. So my hope is that in really thinking through and articulating these things, now, I can communicate simply and honestly, when it really matters. Because as Stan and Brenna Jones have articulated in How and When to Tell your Kids about Sex, first messages are the most potent.

And so I offer my words to you, friends, that they might spur you on to think through your own responses to these hard questions. For the sake of clarity, I’ve written the child’s questions in bold, with my responses in regular type. Also, I should note that my kids are in the first and second grades. I know that this will be an evolving conversation and will look very different after we’ve talked in more depth about puberty and sexual desire. But prior to having those major conversations about those topics, this is how I will likely respond to their questions now.

Mommy, why does she have a wife?

This is one of those areas where we believe that the Bible teaches something different than what most people in our broader culture believe. In our country, marriage is seen as a special promise between two people who love each other, no matter who they are. That means that anybody can get married, whether they are men or women. We agree that marriage is a special promise, but believe that the Bible describes Christian marriage as a unique relationship bringing together a man and a woman to become a new family.

But why does it have to be a man and a woman? Well, can you remember what the Bible says will happen when Jesus’ returns to the earth on the clouds? He’ll make all things new and be with us forever? That’s right! Jesus’ coming is described as a wedding, and the Church is called “the Bride of Christ.” So the Bible says that human marriage between a man and a woman- taking two people who are fundamentally different, and uniting them together to make a new family- is a picture of how someday God will bring Jesus and the church together. So since this is what marriage represents- God bringing together two things that are completely different- two men or two women don’t reflect that.

But what if I don’t care about representing Jesus? Can I just have a regular marriage? Doesn’t God just want us to love others? Hmmm. Those are really good questions. And the simple answer is yes, when you grow up, you’ll be able to marry whoever you like, whether a man or woman. But here’s the thing. God made our hearts to be most deeply satisfied when we’re following God’s good plans for our lives.

And I don’t believe that marriage between two men or two women is God’s best plan. So I don’t think that will lead to your deepest joy. I love being married to your dad, but my moments of deepest joy are when I’m feeling close to God. If you, Adam, don’t want to marry a woman, or if you, Lydia, don’t want to marry a man, that tells me that God’s good plan for your lives doesn’t include marriage, at least not then. Can you think of people we know or have read about who have done amazing things without being married? Daniel, Jesus, the apostle Paul in the Bible, and then Corrie Ten Boom, Harriet Tubman, Gladys Allyward, Eric Liddell, Amy Carmichael, Christopher Yuan, and your friends Kathy, Jeni, and Miss Cheryl? Great remembering! And what are some things they’ve been able to do because they weren’t married? (with significant prompting, I imagine!) Daniel served in the royal court of Babylon. Paul traveled around the world telling people about Jesus. Corrie Ten Boom and her sister Betsy hid Jewish people in their secret room. Harriet Tubman led hundreds of slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad. Gladys Allyward traveled around China unbinding little girls’ feet and then led 100 children through the mountains to safety during a war. Eric Liddell won a gold medal in the Olympics and then became a missionary. Amy Carmichael rescued girls from being temple slaves and became their mother. Christopher Yuan travels all over speaking in churches and teaching people how to follow Jesus. Kathy was a college professor who loved her students and helped them believe in themselves. Jeni is a missionary who helps women who used to be slaves. Miss Cheryl shares God’s love with homeless people and wants to tell people about Jesus in jails. That’s right! God does want us to love others. And being married and raising children are one of the main ways many people love and serve one another. But marriage isn’t the only way to love people. And God has made some special people to love and serve others without being married. Sometimes we call this “singleness.” These people often have more energy to love those outside of their own families.

But I love my friends. Does that make me gay? No, loving your friends doesn’t make you gay because there are different kinds of love. My love for pizza is very different than my love for your Daddy! The Bible actually uses 4 different Greek words that are all translated into the English word, “love.” Three of them— “storge,” which is how babies love their mommies, “phillia,” which is the love between good friends, and “agape,” which is the unconditional love of God—are wonderful for boys to feel for other boys, and girls to feel for other girls. In fact, God made us to love each other in these 3 ways! But the 4th kind of love, “eros,” is a different, romantic kind of love that makes grown ups want share their entire bodies with each other, the way God designed people to do in marriage. That’s the kind of love that Daddy and I have only for each other. And that kind of love- eros- should only grow between one man and one woman.

So is God mad at gay people? Absolutely not! But tell me what you mean by “gay people.” That’s a tricky phrase that can mean a couple of different things. I’m meaning people who want to marry someone like themselves- a man who wants to marry another man, or a woman who wants to marry another woman. That’s a great clarification; thank you for explaining what you meant! First of all, it’s not a sin for a man to want to marry another man, or for a woman to want to marry another woman. Wanting something that God says “no” to is a temptation, not a sin. The Bible says that even Jesus was tempted to want things that God said “no” to in the wilderness, and He was the perfect son of God! All of us are tempted to want things that aren’t God’s best for us. At night when you go to bed I’m tempted to make myself a batch of chocolate chip cookies! And is God angry with me for being tempted? No way! Does being tempted show how bad I am? No way! The Bible says that God loves us and is with us, helping us to stand firm when we’re being tempted to want what isn’t God’s best for us.

But what about when I choose to ignore the Holy Spirit’s help, and I don’t stand firm? Is God mad then?  Well, what does the Bible tell us in Psalm 103? The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever. He does not treat us as our sins deserve, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth so great is His love for those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Yeah. The Bible says that it was while we were still separated from God that Jesus died for us. God is love. So even if people are ignoring God, God still loves them.

But aren’t they bad, since they haven’t asked Jesus to forgive them? They may be separated from God, but that doesn’t make them bad. There are still many areas of their lives that beautifully reflect God, because they were created in God’s image. So I believe they bring God glory just by being who God designed them to be! The way they “storge love” and “phillia love” one another, and how they serve one another reflects God. The way they welcome others into their home reflects God. The way they’re caring for children glorifies God. There are many parts of their lives that are very good, because they were made in God’s image. But even though there are many ways in which they do reflect God, I don’t believe their “eros love,” or their marriage, is one of them. But let me ask you a question: We’re created in God’s image, too. But are any of us good enough to be saved without Jesus? No. That’s right. We are all created in the image of God, and we all need Jesus to forgive our sin so that we can be with him forever.

But they’re not followers of Jesus, right? That’s a really tough one. Let me ask you a question. When I was impatient with you, this morning, was that a sin? Yes. And did it stop me from being a Christian? No. What about you, when you got mad and hit me, yesterday, was that a sin? Yes. Were you still a child of God? Yes. Now, when I was impatient with you and when you hit me, were we reflecting Jesus? No. And what were the consequences? We hurt one another and felt lonely. Right. So we can sin, and even have consequences for sin, while still being children of God.

Now, the Bible also says that if we know God’s word and continuously choose to ignore God, that is really serious, because when the Holy Spirit is working in our hearts, God changes us to become more like Jesus. It doesn’t mean that we’re perfect. But it does mean that we’re wanting to become more like Him.

So I don’t know if they’re followers of Jesus because I don’t know their hearts.

The other tricky thing is that while the Bible is perfectly true, our understanding of it is not. The apostle Paul says it’s like looking through a glass dimly, which always makes me think of a foggy window. And some of the Greek words in the Bible can actually mean different things. It’s like in our book about archeology– scientists take everything that they know- there’s a bone, here, and an arrowhead, here, and spots where the poles were, here, and a burned spot there- and they put together the pieces to show what life was probably like a long time ago. But there’s a chance that they haven’t gotten the pieces together quite right because they weren’t actually there. Now, does their misunderstanding of the truth change what actually happened? No. Well, it can be a little like that when understanding the Bible. God’s word is completely true. God doesn’t change based on what we think. So we do our best to know God by understanding God’s word! And most of the Bible is clear. But since it was written in a different time, language, and culture, there are some things we just don’t understand, yet.

Our church believes that God’s plan for Christian marriage is to be between one man and one woman. But there are other churches that believe differently. I disagree with them, but anyone who says that they love Jesus with all their hearts and whose lives show the evidence of the Holy Spirit’s fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control, sure looks like a follower of Jesus to me! I believe following God’s design for marriage and singleness is very important. But I can’t say that someone else isn’t following Jesus because we disagree about this.

We just can’t know what God is doing in someone else’s life. It’s like in The Horse and His Boy, when Shasta asks Aslan what happened to Aravis. Do you remember how Aslan responds? He says he’s telling Shasta his own story, and that he doesn’t tell anyone anybody’s story except his own. Yeah. It reminds me of the story in the Bible when Jesus is talking to Peter after being raised from the dead. It’s in John 21. Jesus had just told Peter that someday Peter would be killed the way Jesus, himself, had been killed. Peter sees John and asks Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me.” This tells me that it’s usually not our job to figure out what God is doing in someone else’s life or what God wants them to do. But we are responsible to obey what God is saying to us. And we think the Bible says that gay marriage is wrong for followers of Jesus. Our choices are either to marry someone of the opposite sex or to discover all of the good that God has for us in singleness.


Alright, grownups Remember that this is going to be an evolving conversation with many layers. So the way I’ve responded to young elementary kids might be overly simplistic in just a few years. Or this may be way too much for your kids. Nevertheless, I believe these to be important foundations that will both satisfy my kids’ questions and can be later built upon as they grow and encounter new situations. In summary, here are a few of my key convictions that I want to make sure my kids catch.

  • God loves all people. Created in God’s image, all people reflect God’s goodness and are worthy of respect. As a group, straight Christians have too often failed to live out this truth of God’s love for LGBTQ people. So we have a lot of baggage to work through before this love will be easily received. Furthermore, within many evangelical churches our kids will naturally pick up on prejudicial attitudes toward the LGBTQ community unless we are intentional in dismantling both the theology and pride and that can lead to straight people’s feelings of superiority, and same-sex attracted kids’ feelings of shame and inferiority. So this is an area to which we’ll need to give particular attention as our kids grow.
  • Many followers of Jesus experience same-sex attraction. Most people would describe this experience as being gay. Our kids may be among those who love the Lord with their whole hearts, souls, minds, and strength and yet find themselves wrestling with their sexuality (and gender identities).
  • In our country, marriage is seen as a special promise between two people who love each other, no matter who they are. That means that anybody can get married, whether they’re men or women. We agree that marriage is a special promise, but believe that the Bible describes Christian marriage as a unique relationship bringing together a man and a woman to become a new family.
  • If a man doesn’t want to marry a woman, we believe that God has good plans for him as a single man. If a woman doesn’t want to marry a man, we believe that God has good plans for her as a single woman. Though we agree with the broader culture that sexual desire isn’t chosen and insist upon the truth that God loves and accepts gay people just as they are, we disagree with the logic that homosexual desires are therefore worthy of being pursued.
  • The Bible is perfectly true, but our interpretation / understanding of is not. Thus, Christians believe different things about marriage. We are each responsible to God, both for our convictions and our behavior.

Dear God, thank You for allowing us to have these important conversations with our kids! Thank You for Your word, and thank You for the men and women who have humbly and courageously shared their stories of wrestling with sexual identity. Thank You for the ways in which their testimonies are helping us better understand Your word and are bearing fruit in the lives of our children. Bless them today. Please forgive us and our communities for ways in which we’ve misrepresented You and failed to love our neighbors as ourselves. And bless these parents and their children. We trust you to guide us as we raise our kids to engage their world with Your grace and truth. May we be people who rest in Your love, extend Your welcome, and are excited by Your good plans for our lives. Thank You, Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

What if some grass said to a tree “You’re not a very good tree because people can’t walk on you”? Many members, one body

April 19, 2018 /

The kids and I have recently been talking about God’s design in making us all so different. It all started one day in the van. Earlier that morning I’d been reading Romans 12:4-8 where Paul taught

For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness (emphasis mine).

So while driving I was still thinking about all of this and decided to take advantage of my captive audience. “Adam, would you like to hear what I read in my devotions, this morning?” I know the day will come when he no longer wants to talk with me as much as what he does now, so I’m trying to embrace this season. “Yeah! What was it?!” he asked. “Well,” I explained, “Paul was comparing the church to a person’s body. Just like a knee is different than a hand, and a hand is different than a foot, he said that God made all of us differently so that by all working together we could give God’s love to the world. Adam, what if your mouth said to your eye, ‘you’re not a very good eye because you can’t chew up food’?” He had to think about this for a few seconds before bursting into a fit of laughter. As if on cue, he exclaimed, “Eyes aren’t supposed to chew up food! Eyes are for seeing!” And so I asked, “Well, what if your nose said to your ear, ‘you’re not a good ear because you can’t smell this delicious pizza’?” “Ears aren’t for smelling!” he laughed. “God made ears for hearing!” We soon moved to things we saw out the windows. “What if a car said to a house, ‘you’re not a very good house because people can’t drive you to the grocery store’?” one of us asked. At one point in our “game” I asked, “Adam, what if Mommy said to Daddy, ‘You’re not a very good daddy because you can’t nurse babies!'” Of course, he just thought was hilarious while I was experiencing God’s conviction at the number of times I’ve criticized my husband’s  difficulty in soothing a crying child.

Several days later we were driving when Adam asked me out of the blue, “Hey Mom, what if some grass said to a tree ‘You’re not a very good tree, because people can’t walk on you’?” I chortled in delighted encouragement. We’ve played this game on several occasions since. He, of course, loves the silliness of it all. I love that each time we play my kids are internalizing the biblical truth that we are each God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in a very specific way to do good works which God has prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

This truth has brought me such freedom in the last year. On the day of my grandfather’s funeral, I felt that I was coming up very short next to my older sister. She was playing with a group of kids (mine included) while I bemoaned the fact that I could never be so energetic, silly, and fun. But then I thought about all of Adam’s recent questions about death. I think most would have struggled with impatience, whereas I had easily welcomed them. We’ve always laughed that one of my sister’s early memories was how I drove her crazy by asking “why?” In that moment, I understood that we all have the capacity for giving our children incredible gifts, but that these gifts differ between families. My sister’s kids (as well as my own) have benefited from all of her energy, optimism, and playfulness, whereas I can give mine (and hopefully hers!) the space to think, reflect, ask questions, search out answers, and share what’s on their hearts.

However, we are only able to offer these gifts by choosing to exercise them. My pastor once challenged me to spend more time operating in my strengths than trying to improve my weaknesses. Whenever the apostle Paul addressed diversity in the body, he commanded believers to serve one another by faithfully using their individual gifts so that together they would glorify God (see Ephesians 4:7-16 and 1 Corinthians 12).  In Your Special Gift Max Lucado describes a village of wooden people who are struggling to complete a project because each is trying to do something for which he or she is not equipped. Finally, they decide to seek the help of the woodcarver, who tells them, “Each of you should do the most what you do the best.” I’m not giving my best when I’m focusing on the areas where I feel most inadequate. My gaze is then inward instead of outward. Not only will I  never win the ‘fun aunt award,’ I’m also failing to invest in my nieces and nephews by offering what I do have to give.

So in our home, this has meant that I’ve been prioritizing an after breakfast routine where the kids work on a craft or do something tactile (like play dough or slime) while I drink a cappuccino and read from one of their Bible storybooks. It’s also during this time that we work on guarding our hearts through Scripture memorization. The kids look forward it as an anchor point in our mornings. Then throughout the day I invite them into most of my work around the house. Our family produces a lot of our own food so our kids are intimately involved in both growing and preparing what ends up on our dinner table. They love helping me unload the dishwasher, do laundry, and grocery shop. I love having them involved… But I outsource play. That’s a bit tongue and cheek, but not completely; I’m very happy to encourage friendships and look for babysitters who are especially imaginative and playful!

For some of my friends this has meant establishing a lot of purposeful structure. Others go on adventures most days. Some parents love homeschooling. Other families thrive when the kids are in more traditional school settings. One of my friends is particularly encouraging of her children. Several are natural teachers. One is really good at offering consistency in her discipline. Yet another is known for choosing a pace that allows her to really see people, and in so doing she’s teaching her children to do the same. My family has benefited from each of these women’s influence in my life. What aspects of parenting do you most enjoy? What comes most naturally to you? Doing more of it will be a gift not only to your own children but also to your faith community and to the world.

Comparing myself to others has held me back for so long. It is for this reason, especially, that I get excited about celebrating the unique gifts of my young children. But for now, Adam just thinks we’re being silly.

How will Jesus get Grandad’s body out of the ground?

April 12, 2018 /

The single event that has had the greatest impact on our family’s conversations was probably my grandfather’s death. Adam had just turned 3. We live on a small farm and only weeks before had brought home 8 piglets in order to process them in the fall. For this reason we’d begun talking about how when living things die their bodies feed other living things. We had also just hatched out 15 baby chicks, one of which ended up dying. When my son asked if we were going to eat her I explained that no, Daddy had buried her body in the ground. He was rightfully confused by this, so I described how we had covered the chick’s body with soil so that it could give life to the worms and bugs.

Thus, one of his first questions upon hearing of Grandad’s death was “Who is going to eat him? Will it be the worms and the bugs?” Praying for wisdom, I explained that Grandad’s spirit was now alive with Jesus, but that we were going to put his body in a special box called a coffin that would be lowered into the ground, buried, and left there. I then proceeded to share how someday Jesus will return to make all things new. When that happens, he will make Grandad’s body alive, again!*

Outside of this very particular context, I probably wouldn’t have talked with my three year old about death, heaven, and the promised restoration of all things. But I think we were simply walking out Deuteronomy 6:4-9, which instructs parents to talk with their kids about the Lord as they go about their daily lives. Adam continued to ask a lot of questions, especially about the burial. Thankfully, my mom is a retired school counselor so I was able to check in with her when I felt insecure about our responses.

That summer and fall a lot of Adam’s play had to do with death. He would put a stuffed animal into a box and then ask me to attach strings onto the corners so that we could lower it into a “grave.” But we would also pretend that we were seeing Jesus returning on the clouds. He still asks when each of us is going to die. I tell him that most people die when they’re really old, like his great-grandpa. He then asks when he’ll be really old, and I explain that he will likely grow up to become a teenager, and then a young man. He might then get married and become a daddy, and then a grandpa, and then a great grandpa. I often conclude by smiling and widening my eyes, a bit, before saying something like, “and then when it’s time for our bodies to die, our spirits will get to be with Jesus until he returns to make all things new! And then, everyone who loves him will come alive, again, to be with him forever!” My goal is always to hold in tension the need to relieve his anxiety, while also refusing to promise things that could leave him feeling blindsided should tragedy occur. I also want him to internalize the truth that our physical deaths are not the end of our stories.

One of my son’s recurring questions has been how Jesus will get Grandad’s body out of the ground. “Will he dig him up?” Adam wonders. I typically respond by slowing down, widening my eyes, and whispering with a mixture of excitement and wonder, “We don’t know how God’s going to do it; that’s one of the mysteries! We just know that the Bible says God will.”

One deficit of our modern, technological, post-enlightenment culture is that we don’t leave room for much of the mystery that the human spirit intuitively respects. Lately I have been learning to express confidence in God while articulating all that I don’t yet understand. We do ourselves a disservice when we either claim to know more than what we do, or when we believe our lack of understanding is necessarily a problem to be solved. The apostle Paul claimed that “now we see in a mirror dimly, but [someday we shall see] face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12). I was recently struck by Paul’s outburst at the end of Romans 11: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” Whereas we tend to see God’s inscrutability  as a barrier for faith, Paul indicated that our lack of understanding (coupled with confidence in God’s goodness) could actually inspire faith! All of that is to say that I’m very careful to say “I don’t know” when I don’t know. But I try to communicate delight in these mysteries, as opposed to resignation.

I wanted to write this post not so much to share about my grandpa’s death, as much as to give you context for so many of our recent conversations. If you do know children who are walking through personal grief The Dougy Center, Centering Corporation, and Compassion Books all provide age-appropriate resources for bereaved families. Local Hospice organizations often offer support groups for kids and would know of other local resources. Please do not use this post about worldview to gloss over a young child’s very real experiences of grief and loss!

May God bless you with sensitivity, grace, and wisdom as you experience the brokenness of this world with the little disciples God has entrusted into your care!

 

* My theology of heaven, Jesus’ return, and the earth’s future has been largely shaped by NT Wright’s Surprised by Hope. I will warn you that it is fairly academic. John Eldridge has recently written a book entitled All Things New that presents a similar theological perspective in an entirely different style. If you are interested in either of these, you may want to read reviews to determine which would be a better fit. I would say Wright is thorough and systematic whereas Eldridge is more emotive and imaginitive (much of the book is quotations from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series and Lewis’ Narnia books).

Why did they put thorns around Jesus’ head? Easter and shame

March 23, 2018 /

Last year I had tried to avoid teaching my two year old about the crucifixion, even talking with his Sunday School teachers before Palm Sunday and Easter in order to learn what would be covered in their lessons. My son discovered the illustrations from his children’s Bible on his own.

To quote Daniel Tiger, “I have mixed up feelings” in regards to celebrating Easter with little ones. My questions center around two concerns. First, most toddlers have had few experiences with death. Given their struggle to understand its finality, it seems confusing to introduce the concept using the story of a man who dies only to rise three days later. Second, I am uncomfortable teaching young children about personal sin, guilt, and substitutionary atonement during a developmental phase characterized by a growing awareness of shame and a yet emerging sense of self.

I know that sin has left humanity deeply flawed and in desperate need of salvation. Yet the very first thing the Bible tells us about people is that God described Adam and Eve as “very good.” So I want my children to be deeply rooted in their identity as beloved and created in the image of God before being taught that their personal sinfulness demanded Jesus’ suffering. I have wrestled with  shame my entire life. I can’t help but wonder if some of this wasn’t exacerbated by an early understanding that my sin was responsible for putting Jesus on the cross.

So how does our family do Holy Week? Last year we emphasized Easter as being when we celebrate God bringing new life. We wore new clothes,  celebrated new buds and flowers, and generally just tried to exude inordinate amounts of energy and joy. This year will be very different. In June my grandfather died. Someday I’ll write a post on that [update 2/18/18: How will Jesus get Grandad’s body out of the ground?], but its relevance to Easter is that death and resurrection have been prominent topics of conversation in our home, these last 9 months.  Several days ago I’d mentioned that strawberry season was coming up in June and my three year old asked if June is when Jesus will come back to make all things new!

In Surprised by Hope NT Wright shares the early Church’s understanding that “God was going to do for the whole cosmos what he had done for Jesus at Easter” (93). This has been our emphasis for the past year; someday Jesus is going to come back to make all things new. And when he does, those who loved Jesus (like my grandpa) will come alive again to be with him forever. We have been putting the crucifixion in this context. God created a perfect world; people chose to believe Satan’s lie instead of trusting God, ushering in brokenness, pain, and death; Jesus came to rescue us by trusting God where Adam and Eve failed; the leaders didn’t believe that Jesus was king and so they killed him; God made Jesus alive again; many of Jesus’ friends continue being imprisoned and killed because people still don’t believe that Jesus is king; someday Jesus will return to make all things new.

The Bible story book that we used first to tell the story of Easter was Read Aloud Bible Stories. I loved this one because all it says about the crucifixion is “What a sad day! Bad men didn’t like Jesus. They put him on a cross. And he died.” The rest of the story is about the resurrection. After that we used My First Bible by Good Books. It has since been republished as Lion First Bible. This one is much more involved, but doesn’t yet connect Jesus’ death with the children’s sinfulness. Finally, The Jesus Storybook Bible feels the heaviest of the three we’ve used, but I think it is excellent. It is the first to really mention the crucifixion’s role in God’s plan of redemption, but it is explained in its universal context as opposed to an individualistic one. After tracing sin’s destruction throughout the entire story of the Bible Jones comes to the point of Jesus’ death and explains, “The full force of the storm of God’s fierce anger at sin was coming down. On his own Son. Instead of his people. It was the only way God could destroy sin, and not destroy his children whose hearts were filled with sin” (307).

Of course this is just my opinion and our approach. This year when Adam asks “why” in reference to the particulars of the story (“Why did they put thorns around Jesus’ head? Why did they want him to die?”), I am generally responding with historical and political reasons, rather than theologically interpreted ones (“They were worried that people would start obeying Jesus instead of Caesar,” vs. “Jesus had to take the punishment for our sin.”). Next year will probably be completely different. Just in the last few weeks we’ve started identifying some of his behaviors and attitudes with “sin.” So by next year we may totally feel ready to discuss Jesus’ death in these terms. But for now we’re holding off. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section!

Will I keep people from becoming slaves?

March 15, 2018 /

This morning we read the biblical story of little David defeating the giant, Goliath. For the last week or two, a lot of my son’s play has centered around Pharaoh’s army being engulfed in the Red Sea. My three year old son is really into fighting. The first several times I noticed this I tried to discourage it, simply explaining that we don’t fight but rather love people. Having recently turned three, he was absolutely captivated by the story of David and Goliath. I do not know how many times I heard, “Send someone over hear to FIGHT ME!” It didn’t take me long to question my approach.

My parenting changed the day my son happily shared that his highlight had been teaming up with his best buddy in Sunday School to shoot the other kids in their class.  Having completely shielded him from all violence (outside of his children’s Bible) up until this point, I actually ordered Saint George and the Dragon that afternoon. Now instead of discouraging my son’s interest in fighting, I  look for opportunities to celebrate people who use their courage and strength to protect others. Since then we’ve played David and Goliath with play dough. We’ve played David and Goliath using balloons as stones. We’ve played David and Goliath with nothing but our imaginations. You get the picture. Lots of David and Goliath

So back to this morning. We were back to the story of David and Goliath (this time out of The Jesus Storybook Bible ). This particular telling includes the aspect of Goliath’s challenge that if he were to win the Israelites would become the Philistines’ slaves. After reading and discussing a Bible story, we usually end our time by praying. This time I felt stirred to pray specifically for my son. So I got up, placed my hands on those little boy shoulders and prayed that God would continue shaping him into a man after God’s own heart. After we said amen, my three and a half year old asked if he, too, would keep people from becoming slaves. I began my explanation by stumbling around the tragedy of modern-day slavery and oppression before wisely responding, “Hmmm. Give me a minute to think about that.” As soon as I honored my need for quiet, a verse came to mind. “The Bible says that when we choose to disobey God, we become slaves of sin,” I explained. We then talked about how Satan is the great deceiver and his goal is to steal, kill, and destroy. We recalled the serpent’s promise to Adam and Eve in the garden and how Satan tells us us that we’ll be happier if we disobey God, but that it’s a lie only meant to and drag us into slavery and ultimately death. We then returned to the topic of spiritual armor (remember, this kid is really into fighting!) and role played different ways the enemy might try to trick us or those we love and how we can respond with the sword of God’s word that we’ve been hiding in our hearts. It was the coolest few minutes.

I don’t know what God has in store for this kid, but I’ve determined that so long as he continues asking me questions I’ll continue tuning in to the voice of our Shepherd so as to respond to them as faithfully as I can.* What an honor and privilege is mine!

 

*This is not to say that I must give him information beyond my better judgment. One of my “strategies” has been to respond to what is at the heart of a question, as opposed to what he actually asked. For example, his first question after learning that my grandpa had died was “Who is going to eat him? Will it be the worms and the bugs?” I responded by explaining that we’d put Grandad’s body in a special box to be buried in the ground, but then with Jesus’ glorious promise that when he comes back to make all things new, those who love God will come alive again just like Jesus did. I don’t feel that I was being dishonest about the physical process of decomposition, but felt completely justified in responding to a different question than the one he had asked. I’ve written more about this, here.



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