Can we play with Scripture?
The Rev. Dr. Richard Topping, President and Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Studies in the Reformed at the Vancouver School of Theology (VST), and other curious Christians explored this question and more at Preaching Grace, an annual weekend series that looks at big questions in Christianity. Dr. Topping shares his perspectives on play in scripture, faith and how playfulness can open us up to God in this Q&A. (Get your tickets now here).
What does Scripture: Play and Possibility mean?
Scripture is full of play. There are many examples of playfulness in the Bible. Women become pregnant in their nineties, Jesus talks of impossibilities (it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter Heaven), Eutychus, whose name means lucky, falls asleep while Paul is preaching, drops out a window into the street and is injured, is healed and sent on his way (Lucky indeed). The Bible is God speaking to us. It is a living work, and the playfulness in it opens us up to God and the Holy Spirit.
The nice thing about play, it means that when preachers prepare to preach, or Christians read the Bible, we’re at home with what we’re doing and we’re not so nervous about the right procedures. We’re engaged in taking up a conversation. You can be playful when you know the rules and they are inscribed on your life. To play jazz, you must be classically trained. Otherwise, it’s a mess. When you have been formed – now you can be playful. You can be open to the alternatives that the Bible is offering. You can engage without constantly referring to the right way. It gets written on your life and now you can do improvisation because you know where the keys are.
Being playful means engaging – trying it on for size. Finding delights in the Bible and even with a sense of humour and love. Reading something and thinking – there is a possibility I hadn’t entertained – rather than shutting it down and being realistic. You’re seeing things you had never imagined before.
How do you think about scripture and play?
When I hear the word play, I think of a play – a drama. We do that in church, in a liturgy. We have a script that we follow, and we’re used to it. There is a real sense of movement. People are standing and sitting, scripture is read in a certain pattern. We’re listening to texts that offer us a world that we don’t live in yet.
The disruption of that is incredible. Sometimes in church when a script is read where things are so out of keeping with the way the world is, you look up and you see everybody smile. There’s a kind of delight in this real weirdness in the script we’re reading. An example is Advent. We often read about how sober and alert and awake we should be as Jesus is coming soon – at the same time, people are going to office parties. The disjunction is delightful if you are open to it. It’s outrageous.
Scripture Allows Play Between People of Different Eras, Locations, and Generations
Something that happens when you sit down to read the Bible, whether by yourself or in a group, is that it allows playfulness with others. You never read the Bible alone. Even when you sit by yourself and read it, you read as the person you have become. There is the influence of your parents, communities you may have worshipped in. Sometimes you consult other books which I think of as a communion of the saints. You are always reading together with others who have read this before.
You can read about views and commune with others. When you commune with a Medieval person, such as Bernard of Clairvaux, also known as Saint Bernard. He described the Bible as the wine cellar of the Holy Spirit. He must have found it intoxicating. His view was that this was why people want to spend so much time there. He obviously found joy and delight in the reading of the Bible, not as an artifact from the past, but as a living reality. When you read it, you can commune with Bernard. If you think of the Bible as the wine cellar of the Holy Spirit, you have to ask yourself – OK, so how do I now interact with it? You want to spend your time there. It is all consuming. It leads you to be open to God.
Playfulness in the Bible
The Bible allows you not only to be playful, and playful with others, but shows the playfulness of God and the Holy Spirit. Both are active when we read the Bible and help us see things we cannot see.
When we read, we often place ourselves in different roles. We like to put ourselves in the role of the hero – what some call Cinderella syndrome. This is when you read the Bible and see yourself as always being the good person while others are always the bad person. You might not be the good Samaritan but the person who passes by on the road.
The Holy Spirit makes the point, well, no, let’ s move these parts around. You might be the person who passes by on the other side. When I read the Good Samaritan, I get all playful and think about what I might do as a religious person. Maybe I pass by but when I get to the next town, I start a committee for the homeless and those beaten up by the side of the road, rather than rolling up my sleeves and getting engaged. Put yourself not in the hero’s place but in all the roles.
The difference between what we are and what God is calling us to be can be playful and even humorous. There is a playfulness at work in the Bible with God that shows this is not dead letters but a living written word.
Playfulness is Possible as not Everything is Up to Us
We can be playful when we realize that not everything is up to us – it is in God’ s hands. We can be free to be human knowing God is at work in the world, and we are part of that work. Sometimes, playfulness leads to serious change. We might say something offhand that we instantly forget, but later learn that someone else heard it in a way that profoundly impacted their life. This is God at work.
In the Bible there are many acts of impossibility – Jesus tells the disciples that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to go into heaven. Scholars got into discussing the eye of the needle as a small entrance into Jerusalem – this shows you how Biblical interpretation works. The disciples got it right away. It was impossible – they asked Jesus who they could possibly save. Jesus says you can’ t but God can do it. God can do anything.
About Preaching Grace
Preaching Grace is one weekend with multiple in-person and online sessions, held every year at Grace Presbyterian Church in Calgary, through the generosity of the Montgomery family.
