From the Rector: Becoming like a child to enter the kingdom of heaven

Dear friends,

This week, I have been thinking a great deal about our ministries to children, youth, and their families. Our Sunday School has begun in full force, and our Open House was well attended last Sunday particularly by some of our newer families. Our Youth Group Open House event takes place this coming Sunday as our program year gets underway. And I find myself beginning to organize my Confirmation Class curriculum for the new year. Our work with younger generations and the intergenerational dimension of our parish’s life has, then, been very much on my mind over the last few days. Indeed, our Gospel reading this Sunday features one of the moments when Jesus draws his disciples’ attention to the children in their community. He says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” (Mark 9.37)

In relation to this, one person who has also been very much in my prayers is a man named Jerome Berryman. For those who are not familiar, The Rev. Dr. Jerome Berryman was an Episcopal priest who created the pedagogy and indeed church movement that we now call Godly Play. Berryman created Godly Play in the early nineties, following many years of research in theology, education theory, child psychology, and the Montessori teaching method which focuses intently on creative play and experiential learning. As Berryman and his wife Thea developed their own method, it quickly grew into an international foundation and is now one of the most widely used childhood spirituality curricula in the world. It is also used with adults, and, following recent research, with persons experiencing mental health and special educational needs.

In a typical Godly Play lesson, children enter a small, often custom designed chapel, where they sit in a circle, and a teacher uses sensory objects to tell a Biblical story. Instead of simply reading from the Bible or preaching to the children, the teacher “unpacks” the story in front of the group and asks “wondering questions” about the characters and elements of the narrative. “I wonder who these people are?” “I wonder what they thought they were looking for.” “I wonder where you are in this story.” Following the story and reflection, there are then activities, and a feast (as the lesson is reminiscent of the Eucharist), after which the children receive a blessing before departing. The next time you find yourself walking around our Sunday School classrooms, you will notice many such stories placed on the shelves lining each room. Many churches adapt the lessons and the method to cater to the needs of their own community. And Godly Play is one part of our curriculum at St. John’s, too.

Jerome Berryman passed away this summer, on August 6, at the age of 87. He was a wonderful human being. Over the last few years, I got to know him a little when I was serving as a school chaplain and conducting research in the theology and spirituality of childhood. One of the things Berryman would often say was that childhood was not simply an early stage of life, but a way of looking at reality at any stage of our life. Even as an adult, Berryman was someone who had a “child-like” quality about him: he would always talk to you, somewhat disarmingly, on equal terms (even if you were newer to researching the field, like me); he was curious, enthusiastic, and thoughtful; he asked probing questions, and if he discovered something he didn’t understand he wouldn’t let go of it. In many ways, his life, research, teaching, and ministry were all of a piece. He both taught and embodied a way of life where childhood was not understood simply as a specific period of time, but a way of being in the world, a form of perception, a kind of logic or sense of the world that is, in many ways, timeless.

Essentially, then, “becoming like a child to enter the kingdom of heaven,” as Jesus teaches elsewhere (Matthew 18.3-5), is not about going back in time or becoming nostalgic but learning to look at reality as it is right now and engaging with it authentically and openly. This, I think, is something we can all learn from, wherever we may be on our own spiritual journey. And as we move further into this new year together and find ourselves reorienting ourselves to life as a Christian community, how we tell our own stories, engage in wonder, and understand the way we look at the world is essential. It is vital for living into our relationships with one another and with God. I wonder what this looks like for you?

With every prayer and blessing,

Ed.

From the Rector: Rediscovering Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dear friends,

This week, I found myself rediscovering the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. As many of you will know, Bonhoeffer was one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. He was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian who came to prominence during the Second World War and was a key member of the Confessing Church: a movement within Protestant Germany to oppose Nazism. A widely known activist and teacher, Bonhoeffer was eventually imprisoned for his involvement in a plot against Hitler. He was sent to Tegal Prison, and then Flossenbürg concentration camp where he was executed on 9th April 1945, days before the camp’s liberation.

Bonhoeffer’s writing came up at our Wednesday Group this past week. During our discussion, Fr. Robert, our Rector Emeritus, cited one of Bonhoeffer’s most famous books, The Cost of Discipleship, and in particular the difference between cheap and costly grace. Cheap grace, for example, makes no demands on us, and so prevents us from fully engaging with complexity and truth. It is a way of thinking about grace as something which comes easily and doesn’t require us to change anything about our lives or habits. Costly grace, on the other hand, makes demands on us; it is a form of grace which requires us to reckon with those things which prevent us living more fully into our relationship with God. This means being okay with making mistakes, making sacrifices, and accepting our calling even when it's tough.

While this may seem an intense way to start a weekly email, I find that there is also something very subtle, familiar, and reassuring to note in these ideas. Indeed, the difference between cheap and costly grace can also be found in Bonhoeffer’s less intense though equally profound book, Life Together. I first read this book as a student in theological college, and it has guided much of my thinking about faith ever since. In this book, Bonhoeffer considers what it means for everyday Christian communities, such as parishes and religious houses, to be places of true spiritual transformation. He argues that it is the Church, globally but also locally, which is the focal point of Christian ethics and the heart of the Body of Christ. Thus, it is in the very fabric of our lives, as we live together, and then interweave our experience with scripture and worship, that we encounter God in our midst. In academic circles, theologians often refer to this kind of thinking as “narrative theology,” where the very threading of stories and scripture in the context of community shapes our Christian life.

This may, in the end, seem like a simple thing to note at the start of a new week, and it is something which, in my mere two months here, I have spoken about quite a lot already. But I find myself repeatedly coming back to this idea in these early days with you. For I think that what makes a parish church community one of the most profound places to be is that, as Bonhoeffer notes, it is a place where we are constantly reminded to avoid that all-too-easy option to “pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.”

When I said last week that I want you to share whatever is important to you, I meant it. It’s the only way we learn and build trust, and the only way we learn what it means to experience grace.

Thank you for reading!

Yours in Christ,

Father Ed.