The Theology of Children's Games

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 As I do most weeks, I was preparing this week's Children's Worship lesson which consists (when wer'e not doing our liturgy curric.) of a Bible story and then some type of craft or game to follow it up. I try to vary the activity, and I'm not very crafty. So, this can be a challenge on my best days.

This week, I thought a game would go particularly well with our lesson on Jesus the Good Shepherd from John 10:11-18. Some type of tag or chasing game seemed to fit perfectly. The hired hand doesn't stay to defend the sheep when the wolf comes; he runs away. But Jesus is the Good Shepherd who rescues the sheep. You see my point...right?

Anyway, I started to write the game down, but as soon as I came up with something I would subsequently realize that my idea was heresy. It gets complicated, you know? I started with a pretty straightforward tag game where there's a Jesus and a wolf. Everyone else is a sheep. The wolf can tag the sheep, but Jesus can un-tag them and they re-join the game. However, the heresy is that in this game, where the players simply re-join the fray, the wolf can easily re-tag them. This can't be since Jesus doesn't lose any of those who are his (John 10:28).

Perhaps a jailbreak-type game would work better. The wolf tags the sheep who go to jail, then Jesus rescues the sheep from jail. From here, they could either move to Jesus' 'fold' or join Jesus in catching the wolf and releasing sheep from the jail(oooh...missions!). Turns out this way isn't very fun because it's obvious Jesus is going to win. Theologically correct, but just not very fun.

We could tweak it a bit more and make Jesus a 'base' where as long as the sheep are touching him they can't be tagged by the wolf. Once you've run to Jesus and touched him, you could then run out and un-tag anyone the wolf has tagged. This way they could get to Jesus too! Still, everyone's just going to run to touch Jesus to avoid being tagged (not very fun) and it's obvious Jesus is going to win (everyone can get un-tagged eventually). Plus, running away from Jesus to un-tag sheep doesn't seem real strong theologically.

There has to be some chance that the wolf can win in order for the game to be fun. At least it has to take Jesus a while to win so that it feels like a real fight. So we'll go with a freeze-tag style game where the wolf tags the sheep who stay frozen until Jesus un-tags them. They then rejoin the game. However, Jesus can immediately win the game by tagging the wolf. So, the wolf can't run tagging without a care in the world. He must worry about being tagged himself. The sheep may be tagged, un-tagged, and re-tagged again, but there is no realistic chance that the wolf will win. 

This way Jesus defends the sheep though they need constant defending, the wolf is on the run, and though there be a struggle Jesus will surely prevail. 

Does this give the wolf too much of a chance to be consistent theologically? Is God taking a risk in letting him run so freely, thereby opening the door to inferred open theism? Or is there a chance Jesus could fail? Does this lead us down the long argument concerning Jesus' nature and whether he was capable of sin or not? Posse non pecare or non posse pecare?

I don't think so. The wolf thinks he has a chance. Jesus knows the wolf doesn't have a chance. Jesus allows the wolf to fight, people run around like sheep trying not to die, and their only hope is for Jesus to tag them. In the end, Jesus wins. After all, it's just a children's game...right?