|
Many years ago, I was standing outside church when a woman came out with her very young son. She was scolding him, perhaps for misbehaving during the service, and he said, “But it’s no fun”. And the mother replied, “Church isn’t meant to be fun”.
I don’t think I will ever forget that incident, because it reminds me of the way many people view God and the Church: solemn, serious, joyless. And yet I wonder, is that really what God intended when He established His church on earth? Are we really meant to sit around in church with long faces? I think of our regular priest, and the time he said during his sermon, "Yau mo gau chor ah!” Was he making fun of the Catholic religion? I don’t think so. Rather, I feel that he was reaching out to us in a manner that we can understand. Yes, church is not a place to play around or be irreverent but, in my opinion, it is also not a place where we should forget to be joyful. In his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul said, “Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you”
And throughout the Book of Psalms, King David sings his praises to the Lord. “Sing praises to God, sing praises: sing praises unto our King, sing praises” he says (Psalms 47:6). And again, “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, o most high” (Psalms 92:1). But in order for me to rejoice and to sing praises to God, I first need to know something about God. To achieve that, I find it so helpful to have someone explain it to me. In that way, I am like a child. I listen to what the priests say, and I find time to reflect upon it, and when I don’t understand something, I ask. In this day of e-mail, asking someone about a passage in the Bible is just a few clicks away. The answer is there waiting for me. Better still, when I finally think I understand something, I can explain it to my son, and he can then ask me questions that I have no answer to, and together we can go and search for knowledge. And in doing this together, we have fun at home, and we bring that fun, that knowledge with us to church, so that I don’t have to leave the service saying to him, “Church isn’t meant to be fun”. Published: October 2nd, 2005 My Sunday Examiner Articles
|