Jesus said: “Verily, I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3
As a father of two young boys, I have the privilege of exploring with them all kinds things that are made for children. Sometimes they are things that are familiar to me, like, say, an episode of Mister Rogers Neighborhood, or the delight of popping bubble wrap. But most of the time, the boys are much more interested in things which are new. New books. New toys. New shows. New playgrounds. For them, the world is an incessant experience of newness and novelty. So it is a great joy to be with them when things are new for me as well. When we discover something together, I get to share with them that bright experience of enchanting epiphany which is traditionally associated with children. But, of course, a sort of second childhood is always available to the brave and tender hearted.
The latest mutual discovery with the boys is the wide world of Lego. Now, when I was a child, I wasn’t interested at all in the toy. It didn’t spark my imagination in the least. It seemed too rudimentary. But, these days, the variety and possibilities of design that you will find with Lego sets has grown to fantastic levels. I’ve spent countless hours with the boys hunched over a sea of colorful bricks, working to create anything from fire stations to spaceships to the moon.
What fascinates me most is the principle of “systematic creativity” that Lego embodies. Whether it’s a new Star Wars set or a simple add-on pack of wheels and gears, each piece is designed to be interoperable, or able to fit with all of the others in some way, thanks to a feature known as “clutch power” (that satisfying “click” with every connection). This design was introduced Godtfred Kirk Kristiansen in 1958, and it is just remarkable that Lego sets produced today remain compatible with those dating back to that time, offering endless possibilities for interconnection and mixing and matching. Lego allows you to explore the original designs, while also giving shape to the designs in your own heart and mind.
Although the brick sets are completely planned out for you by professional designers, with Ikea-style plans for their construction, there is a personal investment in everything you build. You might participate in building a unicorn on a rainbow cloud. You might invest your time into making a goofy robot. And whether you follow the plan provided, or not, each person has a share in what takes shape. Playing with Lego gives anyone the power to become a “creator.” And this style of play has the power to make a jumble of inert blocks come to life. When my Lego robot meets your Lego truck that each of us have made, there is a quality that certainly more lively than the sum of the provided parts.
And if you become a “creator,” in playing with Lego, especially with rambunctious children, you discover the emotional rollercoaster that comes with having your creation collapse or shatter. There are times when hours of work are destroyed in an instant. And the dismay can be so acute. But the bricks themselves are so fantastically durable and strong (and painful to step on in the dark) that the bricks themselves are never broken. They simply become disassembled and scattered. Despite catastrophic failure, their potential to be picked up and reconfigured afresh is never extinguished.
Perhaps you can see where I am going with this? I recall the metaphor from the first letter of Peter which referred to us as “lively stones” which are build up into a “spiritual house” which is made to offer spiritual offering to God. And this image is expanded upon in the letter of the Ephesians: “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself, being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly framed together growth unto an holy temple in the Lord.” Isn’t it marvelous that Scriptures have found it fitting to think of our lives in Christ as part of a system not that much different than Lego bricks. Like the Legos and their “clutch power,” we “lively stones” of the kingdom are readily “fitly framed together” not only with the people in our lives today, but also with all the saints who have gone before us, even the apostles who lived with Christ, and the centuries of prophets who spoke and sang of His coming. We are somehow built into a spiritual household that transcends time and space and the boundaries of all nations and heaven and earth because of the way that we all fit together. I think of that “fit” as the power of the Holy Spirit to bind us together in the love and mercy and fellowship of God which passes all understanding. And I also can’t help but reflect on another aspect of this household of God that we find ourselves built into. Unlike the creator of Lego, Mr. Kristiansen, the Creator of all of the bricks of the Kingdom of God, also became a brick himself, so to speak. Not only did He become a brick, He was even destroyed. Yet even after falling apart, He remains able to serve as the “chief cornerstone” or the foundation stone upon which all of the rest of the bricks find their stability and connection to the bedrock of true existence itself.
How this image has helped me, is to reflect on how I am not only just one “lively stone” in this spiritual structure. I can’t help but insist that am not one brick, but many. I am a collection of bricks that include all of my memories and skills and relationships (with both the living and the dead). These bricks also are the fruit of all of my experiences of joy, mercy, and steadfast love. Each one is a part of me, a part of history, and each one is practically indestructible. And in times of great change, God makes possible a new configuration of all of these colorful pieces. In fact, there are many possible configurations, all authentic. Every season of our lives is an occasion to gain more pieces into our collection. And every person we meet is another occasion to “click” together in the Spirit. And every move to another place, or new chapter, or new community we join is the chance to reconfigure the pieces of our lives and, with God’s help, create ourselves into something new, but still the same person. Even upon the occasion of broken relationships or personal failures, even when the structures of our lives fall apart, the pieces remain. And we have the God-endowed freedom and creativity to build anew, day by day, often in ways that we couldn’t have imagined before. Our present church building is a testament to this reality, for it was constructed out of the ashes of the previous structure, perhaps better than before (but I am biased!). Indeed, the Resurrection reveals to us that even death itself does not constrain the momentum of God’s life or the promise of lively reconfiguration in the power of the Spirit, even in the desolate places.
And so, I hope that every time you see a Lego piece, or even just one of those ubiquitous yellow Lego shopping bags that you will find in our neighborhood, that such an encounter will spur a meditation on how God is ever ready to join with us to not only build us up, but to rebuild us up when the need arises, “builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:22)
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Resources
“Lego: a toy of infinite possibility”“The same set of Lego pieces can be built into many different forms of life.”
“With Lego, even this disaster can be rebuilt.”
