Without question the clowns were the hits of our Vacation Bible School a month or so ago. Fonzie the clown got things off to a rollicking start on Monday night, and the kids cackled at his fright wig and squealed with astonishment at all the wonders of his brown paper bag. Every joke was hilarious, every trick astounding, every quip was exciting, because, you see, the audience were children. And everyone knows that children love clowns.
When Friday night rolled around and another clown made the scene, the reaction from the kids was even more boisterous. Even though Clown Number Two had obviously gone to the same clown school as Clown Number One, so that their tricks were just about the same, the crowd was thrilled. The child part of the crowd was, at least; some of the adults grumbled a little about the noise and other adults said, "Oh, I’ve seen all this before". But the children were on Cloud 9, because, as everyone knows, when you are a child, you love a clown.
Now I had the dubious privilege at one point of getting close to our Friday night clown. I will not comment further on the reason for that. I would not want to report from this pulpit about a pretty pair of paper panties that I was invited to extract from this clown’s bag of tricks. But while I was up on the stage with him, I saw something terrible, something subversive, something so unacceptable that as a card-carrying adult I just have to report it.
Down here on his shirt the Bible School clown was wearing a button, and the button said, bold as you please, "I refuse to grow up!"
Imagine that! What a terrible thing to be suggesting to impressionable young minds: "I refuse to grow up!"
Is that what we’re promoting in church now? Is that what we stand for? Is that a part of our creed? "I refuse to grow up!"
What was that all about anyway? Was Fonzie telling us that he had no intention of getting down to all those responsible things we adults always talk about, like getting a job? Was Fonzie planning to sponge off of Dad or to live off of welfare checks? When I learned that you can make something like $80,000 a year clowning, I knew that wasn’t the message. In fact I began to imagine what I’d look like in an orange wig and baggy britches!
Or was Friday’s clown maybe declaring his independence from the rest of the adult world, telling us that he could get along without being like the rest of us? Was he slapping us in the face somehow, just being arrogant and rude and callous?
Or is there another possibility? Is it possible that this clown, this carrier of joy, this hired hand of happiness, was offering a testament of his conviction? Was he telling us that somewhere in the ways of childhood he had discovered a way of life? Is it just possible that behind this facade of funny, Fonzie had found something very precious, and something that the Lord Jesus Himself was reaching for on that day when the disciples – big, grown up, ambitious disciples – when they asked about the way to greatness:
"The disciples came to Jesus, saying, ’Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them, and said, ‘Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’"
"I refuse to grow up" Suddenly it sounds a little different. Suddenly it sounds a bit like what Jesus Himself might have been saying. Disciples, refuse to grow up. Men and women, you who take pride in being so adult, refuse to grow up. Learn from the children. Adults, big people: take a page from the books written by the little people. I can almost hear the Lord Jesus say it, "I refuse to grow up". Can’t you hear it too? I refuse to get hardened, I refuse to be closed up, I refuse to resist change. I refuse to be captured by tradition, I refuse to settle for second-hand laughter, I refuse to stop expecting wonders and marvels every morning. I refuse to grow up. I can hear Him say that.
The only trouble is that Proverbs Chapter 1 seems to have a very different meaning. I have to tell you that sober-sides Solomon is quite a contrast to the child Jesus who in some measure refuses to grow up. When I read Jesus I read about how I need to become a child. But when I read Solomon, or Proverbs, it seems as though I am reading some pretty heavy stuff. Some stuffy stuff!
The purpose of the Book of Proverbs, solemn Solomon says, is “that men may know wisdom and instruction, understand words of insight, receive instruction in wise dealing, righteousness, justice, and equity; that prudence may be given to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth."
"That prudence may be given to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth” – sounds awfully grown-up, doesn’t it? Sounds like somebody thinks the kids need to learn from us rather than the other way around. Sounds like someone feels that children are kind of dangerous on their own. "Prudence given to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth.”
Which is it going to be for you? I refuse to grow up? Or prudence, knowledge, and discretion? Which is it?
Now the truth is, of course, that we need both. We need both. We do need to be like children -- children who can laugh and play and live for the moment, children who can turn and change and be humble and be open and be trusting.
And we need to be wise too. We need to cultivate wisdom and prudence and knowledge and discretion. Somber and serious as it seems, Solomon’s saying is also sound. You can refuse to grow up if you want to and you can be one of Christ’s little ones, but when you do so, you need to take a heaping dose of wisdom with you.
You blend the immediacy of Jesus and the canniness of Solomon and you have wisdom as a way of life. You blend the childlike trust that Jesus taught and the sharpened intellect and well-honed perception that the Book of Proverbs teaches, and you get wisdom as a way of life.
Let me illustrate:
I
"I refuse to grow up". I refuse to grow up and become dull and colorless and careful and bland. I refuse to grow up and become a quiet little mouse, afraid to try anything new. Why? Because I follow Jesus, who always found the most colorful and dramatic way to do things, who found a coin in the mouth of a fish to teach a lesson, who overturned moneygrubbers’ tables. I refuse to grow up because I follow the Jesus who teaches me, "Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
But if I am to make wisdom a way of life, at the same time I will learn from Solomon’s Proverbs instruction in what he calls "righteousness, justice, and equity.” "Righteousness, justice, and equity." It is not enough to be colorfully opposed to something; you must also become involved in making a difference. You see, the sin is in being passive; the sin is in just letting it go because you’ve gotten too old to care any more. The sin is in giving up. "Unless you turn and become like children … righteousness, justice, and equity."
You know, the truth is that the older I get the more playful I become. As the years go by, I find myself becoming more willing to be at least a little outrageous, but I hope it is for the Kingdom. I hope it is in order to get something done, to make a difference. I find myself more playful when it comes to preaching, for example; and if you think preaching in a bathrobe or passing a scarlet thread through the congregation was outrageous, just wait until the Sunday in August when my topic is "Wacky Wall Walkers"! But if I have heard Proverbs and its wisdom as well as the Gospel of freedom, what I am doing is designed to make a difference. Wisdom as a way of life.
II
Or again, “I refuse to grow up". I refuse to grow up and settle down and never be open to new truth any more. I refuse to think that I know all there is to know. I refuse to take the posture of the British university professor who stated, "I am the master of this college; and what I don’t know isn’t knowledge." I refuse to think that this old dog cannot learn any new tricks. I refuse to grow up into deafness, dumbness and blindness. Why? Because I follow a Jesus who put a child into our midst and said, "Unless you become like him – turning, humble, open, ready – you will not enter the kingdom." I follow a Jesus who tells me that He is the truth, and who was awfully fond of saying, "You have heard that it has been said … but I say to you."
But, again, if I can also hear the Book of Proverbs, it will remind me that in my eagerness to embrace new truth I ought not to ignore the old truths. Proverbs prays that “prudence be given to the simple and knowledge to the youth." So I can be the child who joyfully follows Jesus into all kinds of new truths only if I have the knowledge and the wisdom to remember the good things I’ve already learned.
The sin, again, is in being passive. The sin is in not using our minds. The sin is in not loving God with heart and soul and mind and strength. The sin is in turning off the brain and ignoring both new truths and old truths. "Unless you turn and become like children – humble, teachable – you cannot enter; prudence to the simple, knowledge to the youth"
III
I refuse to grow up into blandness. I refuse to grow up into a closed mind.
And, most of all, I refuse to grow up and become cynical. I refuse to grow up and become callous. I refuse to grow up to be suspicious of everyone’s motives and wary of everyone’s feelings. I refuse to grow up and be fearful and negative and suspicious. Why? Because I follow a Jesus who put a child in front of me and said, "Be like this". Have this kind of faith. Have this kind of trust. Just let yourself love and be loved. I follow a Jesus whose great commandment was "Love one another", not "Be suspicious of one another."
I’ll be candid with you. My nightmare vision of growing older is that I see some older people who are suspicious of everybody. They suspect that the younger generation is incompetent; they fear that their own children or grandchildren are out to do them harm. They feel so vulnerable and so alone and so frail; they feel very unsure about trusting themselves and their world to mere children.
I have to tell you that I can understand the issue here. A few weeks ago I was working with one of you through an extended stay at a nearby hospital. I asked one day to see the physician, and when they brought him to me, honestly, he looked like something right out of Coolidge High School! And so I went down the hall to talk with the social worker; when this little slip of a girl in braces stepped out of the office, I couldn’t believe it! Why are they trusting the world to mere children?
But I hear again the Lord Jesus, "Unless you become like children” – able to turn around, humble, trusting, faithing, loving … I pray God I do not spend my last years wallowing in self-pity, suspicion, and cynicism. I pray God I will follow a Jesus who puts a child in front of me and says, "Be like this"; a Jesus who puts childlikeness within me and says, "Get knowledge and prudence and discretion", so that you will know what to do with your feelings for others. But most of all, get wisdom. Wisdom as a way of life.
You see, on that Friday night at the close of our Vacation Bible School, almost despite themselves, a good many of our adults were laughing too. Despite the adult responsibilities they carried, despite the cares of the world of jobs and money and family, despite the reality that it’s too late to win the Nobel Prize or travel to the moon or be a millionaire, despite everything in our culture that tells us adults to be sober and solemn, we too laughed. Who knows? There might be hope for us yet, if we just refuse to grow up.
