The Theological School of My Living Room

My articulate and intellectual preparedness is challenged the moment my kids ask a pointed question. Sometimes the situation calls for a simple explanation, like with, “Daddy, what’s oxygen?” or, “Do cats like to swim?” (You should always follow up on that last one.) Other times the questions dig deeper and leave me feeling incompetent. “Who created God?” “Is Jesus God? And if so, how can he also be his son?” “Does it hurt to die?” “What does it mean to be dead?” “Who will I see in heaven and what will it be like?” These questions usually come seemingly out of thin air as I sit with my defenses down in the living room. The unfiltered and unworried honesty of children forces me to pause and carefully consider what I assume to know.

This year has continually provided opportunities for these pointed conversations. In my work, I have the challenge of listening. Challenge may be an understatement, because the range of thoughts and feelings I hear daily can feel like whiplash. The intensity of differing opinions is a tiring environment within which to minister, a feeling I know you are all aware of. Dialogue and attempts to surface and uproot the embedded dehumanization of racism are already being deflected by some to other things like the act of rioting (a refrain I often hear). The pandemic has moved to the background for some, although for others it is at a boiling point. I’m thinking especially of a recent conversation with a woman almost in tears. She had not seen her declining mom since the lockdown and was desperately afraid of not being there in her last moments. I am experiencing the emotional fatigue of every decision and feel laden with ethical weight. Can you relate? There have been plenty of opportunities for pointed conversations.

I have two little children and a third on the way next month (what a year to welcome someone into the world!). How do I help my kids understand the things occurring around them? How do I guide them forward? These are typical parent questions of any generation, but I want to frame the question this way, because thinking in terms of communicating with kids strips away the safety net of intellectual pretense. When I sit and fumble over words in my living room in front of expectant little ears, I’m reminded about the formative weight of words.

In response to these questions, my thoughts have turned to Christian vocation. There is a prerequisite to remember my vocation before I can pass on anything. What does it mean to pick up that calling? It means to embody the wise builder at the end of the Sermon on the Mount; to live by the commandment of Jesus to love one another to the point of laying down one’s life; to repent of the sin we know is present personally, within our families, and corporately; to confess that Jesus is Lord and believe all that implies in relation to our priorities; to let love be genuine, contribute to the needs of fellow believers, and extend hospitality to strangers; to live by the Spirit to the point that it changes our relationships, and we begin to see others not as competitors but as neighbors; to be clothed in new practices that make it impossible not to see Christ in the person in front of us; to pray for wisdom rather than lean on our own competence and understanding; and to let our religious fidelity be proved by the concern we have for those without protection and support. These are the things I hope to instill in my kids, and what I need to constantly respond to in my own life.

However, I do not want to accidentally reduce vocation to a form of do-goodism. The factor of coherence is the presence of God. Christian vocation is broader and deeper than one stage of life and its respective tasks. The statements above, which you will of course recognize as a sampling of biblical authors, are people who were changed by the presence of God over the course of their lives. Perhaps this is what I want my kids to understand. We humbly and continually develop a posture of pursuing the presence of God knowing that it will cause us to change course.