Playground Church by Wil Triggs

My grade school was James Garfield Elementary School. St. Lucy’s was the school where the children went who lived next door to Mrs. Robertson's home. Every school day from Kindergarten through grade six, mom took me to Mrs. Robertson's on her way to work at the local community college and picked me up at the end of every workday.

Mrs. Robertson’s neighbors were Mexican. At least that’s what we called them back then. Given current sensibilities, that may not have been entirely accurate, but they spoke Spanish and they looked Mexican. While their actual ethnicity may have not been precisely defined, one thing we knew for sure: they were Roman Catholics.

As a kid, I didn’t understand or appreciate the finer theological points. I heard but didn’t understand the criticism from Protestant adults that Catholics never go to church.

After all, neither did we. Not every week.

Not only that, Catholics confessed their sins to a person. For me, confessing my sins to Jesus in prayer was something I wanted to do, but telling someone else? And then that person somehow had the power to do what only Jesus could do? It shook my fledgling Protestant brain.

They had a pope, who was like the president, only in charge of churches instead of a country. Why did they need that anyway? If you didn’t like something at your church, I thought, you could just go someplace else. Spoken like a good Baptist boy. Even though we didn’t go to church, I was catching on to the Baptist way, or maybe that's an American thing.

As a family, we were not regular churchgoers. But in my head, I knew there was a difference. I knew these neighbors were Catholics and I was a Protestant. I knew that they were wrong (read bad) and that we were right (read good). They went to St. Lucy’s and wore navy and plaid uniforms. I went to Garfield and wore whatever I wanted. Our school was bigger and open to everyone. Their school was small, and you had to be Catholic to go. At least that’s what I thought at the time.

But between the hours of three to five in the afternoon, none of that mattered. That was playtime after I got out of school and before my mom got off work and picked me up. Even though the neighbor kids and I went to different schools, we were free from the schools when the bells rang that told us we were done for the day. And we liked playing together.

One day, I stumbled onto some other differences in this two-hour window where differences fell away and all we wanted to do was play.

It wasn’t a hopscotch or kickball or soccer kind of day. It was time for imaginative play. I don’t remember how this happened, but one day we ended up playing in their backyard and they wanted to play church.

It didn’t sound that fun to me, but they were enthusiastic. They ran inside the house to get what we needed to play church. I didn’t get it. What things did we need?

They came out with a book that looked like a Bible but wasn’t. They had a chrome cross about the size of a piece of notebook paper and Jesus was hanging on it, which seemed creepy, a bag of what looked like confetti, some other trinkets and a goblet.

“Instead of doing a regular church, let’s do a wedding,” announced Deborah, who was a year ahead of me in school. Usually we called her Debbie, but for some reason, she wanted to be Deborah that day. “Mary, you be the bride. Miguel, you can be the groom. And you,” she said, looking at me, “get to be the priest.”

“I’d rather be the groom,” I said. I had a bit of a primary-school crush on Mary, so even if we were playing, maybe it would be ok to be a groom. After all, I knew weddings. I had been the ring bearer at two of my sisters’ weddings and was a pro at the-walking-down-the-aisle part. Whatever went on once you got to the front was, well, boring.

Deborah turned to a specific page in the book and that had exactly what the priest was supposed to say for a wedding. It was like a play. The procession started. I looked over at Miguel and wondered if we shouldn’t have ditched the girls and just found some other guys for a game of soccer. But it was too late.

I was reading along when suddenly the wedding turned into a communion service. Communion only happened once a month at our church, and never at weddings. Deborah explained that they always did it, even at weddings. I’m surprised she didn’t sneak some wine out of the house, but she just filled the goblet with water and some drops of red dye. And then the bag that I thought was confetti turned out to be communion wafers.

I did not like this.

“We can’t do this,” I protested. “This isn’t right. Those are for church,” I said. I started to debate with Deborah. She got frustrated with me and declared a snack time break.

So, we broke file and they offered some of the wafers to me as a snack. “It’s okay,” they said as all three of them took small handfuls of the wafers and shoveled them into their mouths. “It hasn’t been blessed yet.”

I had no idea what that meant.

But I looked at the wafers. Little tissue-paper-thin circles. I put one in my mouth. As soon as it hit my tongue, there was a millisecond of flavor and then it seemed to magically dissolve.

“Take more,” Deborah said, “One isn’t enough for a real snack.”

They started to explain how the priest had to bless the wafer before it became something only the priest could give people. Before that, it was just like any other food.

It didn’t seem like any other food. In fact, it really didn’t seem like food period. A snack for me would be saltines with peanut butter, not something a company made for church communion, Catholic, Protestant or otherwise.

Suddenly, their mom came into the back yard. “What are you doing?” she asked them, seeing all the Catholic items that they had turned into toys. She started to speak to them in Spanish. They ran inside and the mom started to collect the Catholic items from the yard. Then my mom arrived, and it was time to go home.

I didn’t play with them for a while after that.

I asked my mom how the priest could change the wafer into something not quite like food.

“Catholics believe that when the priest blesses the wafer, it turns into Jesus,” she explained. “We don’t believe that. We know it’s just a reminder, a symbol.”

My Garfield School brain was pretty much done with that. I didn’t want to play church anymore. It didn’t matter to me if it was blessed by a priest or not. I felt guilty eating from that bag. It wasn’t right.

The good news for my guilty conscience was that Jesus did break bread and did drink from the cup. It was no play but reality that Jesus’ body was broken, his blood poured out, and my sins—our sins, the sins of the world—were washed away. Behold the Lamb of God.

Something special happens at the Lord’s Table. For us, that's tomorrow morning. It’s not a game. I don’t do it alone, but with the family of God, together. And it’s not only looking back, but also ahead to when the Bridegroom returns and he and the Bride feast together.

And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.” (Revelation 19:9)

From A Pastor Prays for His People by Wendell C. Hawley

Eternal God, everlasting Father,
Great and marvelous are your works.
When we really contemplate you as Creator and sustainer of all things,
we are overawed by your greatness.
The flowers of the field are of greater beauty than Solomon in all his glory,
The sparrow is the recipient of your provision,
the object of your watch and care.
Nations and rulers are in place at your will and by your decree.
Events totally beyond our control
are subject to your purpose and determined will.
And in between sparrows and nations,
you extend your providential care to your children.

You, O God, asked Abraham: "Is anything too hard for the Lord?"
We need to have such truth reinforced in our thinking--
for the enemy of our souls besieges us with doubts
about your involvement in our lives.
We are overwhelmed with contrary circumstances,
and we are sometimes almost drowning in despair.
We confess that we have almost made security and money our idols,
thinking that investments and governments would see us through.
Now we need to realize there is absolutely no security except in you.
You, Father God, are our secure provision.

We need to pray and praise like Mary,
The Lord took notice of his servant and has done great things for me.

May that be our testimony this day.

Amen.