Play describes a way of being in the world that divine grace makes possible—a way that is dynamic and delight-filled, outward-oriented yet faithful. As such, it represents an urgent if tragically undertapped opportunity for Christian witness to a world drowning in dreariness. Those who champion grace might do well to champion play as a response to it. […]
The blessed assurance of grace announces that the high-wire game of proving ourselves is finished. By grace, the lingering threat of judgment has been removed, establishing precisely the sort of safety that Burghardt’s definition requires for a person to play, albeit on a deeper, existential level. What this means is that, when it comes to God, the Christian is set free from the spur of necessity and can enter into a new relation of play. Nigerian theologian Nimi Wariboko connects the dots when he writes, “The logic of grace is the logic of play.”
In more gut-level terms, the key question of the Christian life becomes one of freedom: What would you do, what risk would you take, what would you say if you weren’t afraid? What would you do if you truly believed your standing with God was secure, the ultimate threat of judgment was removed, and you didn’t have to do anything? How would you spend your time and energy if you could undertake something for the sheer joy of doing it rather than any outcome it might produce?
These are scary questions, but I suspect their answers have something to do with exercising the unique gifts God has given each of us. We may even find ourselves free to think of others and their well-being rather than anxiously safeguarding our own.
Fortunately, a theology of play is built on more than the absence of judgment. It also takes seriously Christ’s exalting of children. In Matthew 18:2–3, we read how Jesus “called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’” There are many ways to interpret his words: as an invitation to humility, as a beatitudinal valorization of the least, as a rebuke to the social hierarchies of the day. But certainly an endorsement of childlikeness should make the list. The only thing children do is play. At least, that’s what they do after their immediate needs are provided for—and before extracurriculars get ahold of them. There is no becoming like a child that does not involve play. […]
If play is truly an essential dimension of a Spirit-driven Christian life, a sense of humor is not spiritually negligible. Silliness and self-deprecation become not just virtues but acts of resistance in a world (and a church) that enshrines productivity more with each passing day. You will know them not just by their works of love but by the “useless” laughter that accompanies those works.