Kidults of the Kingdom
Sermon at St John The Baptist Felixstowe – Second Sunday before Lent – 4th February 2024
Text: to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God (John 1v12)
God give you peace my sisters and brothers.
Kidults! Have you heard that word before? Last week the BBC reported[1] that it was only a 6% increase of sales of toys to kidults that bucked the overall downturn of 5% in toy sales as a whole over last year. They are obviously a valuable resource whose tastes must be researched out so that sales may increase even further.
A kidult, a conflation of the word ‘kid’ and ‘adult’ is someone who has not grown out of their childhood toy loves and likes, never having read the whole of 1 Corinthians 13, (When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.[2]) they continue to long after – and spend large amounts of cash on cuddly toys, action hero figures, and enormously complicated Lego sets.
Perhaps one day they will grow up and become proper adults like vicars who (being ‘proper’ adults) follow the footsteps of Rev W.V. Awdry, and acquire a penchant for model railway layouts and a tank engine named Thomas….
If we are honest, I suspect there’s a little bit of ‘kidult’ inside each of us. (Personally I still think I am 14 years old and sometimes, worryingly, behave accordingly!).
But there is a difference between being childlike and revelling in the best things of childhood and being childish and revelling in the worst things about being adult.
The consequence of ‘The Word becoming flesh’, becoming a babe at Bethlehem is that we are enabled to imitate Christ and are given ‘power to become children of God’. God looks upon all of us as children and gives us power to become childlike, rather than childish, which is what happens when we choose to give into ‘the ways of the flesh’.[3]
When we are childish we become demanding monsters. Stamping our feet whenever we can’t get our own way and our routine and likes and dislikes are not respected
When we are childlike we become more generous and content within the protection of those who provide for us. The childlike are content to face life day by day.
Childish adults have power and wield it for their own ends regardless of the feelings and consequences to others. The childish have yet to learn to grow up.
To be a Child of God, a Kidult of the Kingdom, is to wield a different kind of power.
Children of God are Welcoming not Rejecting
The childlike seem to have an ability to make friends with everyone and anyone. They throw caution to the winds refusing to check first if their new friend believes in the same things as them, has the same skin colour as them, speaks the same language or comes from the same shaped family as them. Children take people at face value and without prejudice. Which sadly people of ill intent exploit so adults must be aware of the need to Safeguard children.
The Children of God are called to be welcoming not rejecting. Choosing to trust before they suspect. Always, as did Jesus, presuming the good and calling out the best in others and, when they fall and fail, restoring them gently.
Children of God are Healers not Hurters
Starting with their own wounds, which always involves running to an adult with a plea to ‘Kiss it better’. The childlike are naturally healers. They, unaccustomed to life, feel pain intensely and seek to heal the pain and hurt they see in others.
This was brought home to me at a funeral of a young mum who died suddenly. Her ten-year-old daughter (now a young mum herself) stood next to her mother’s coffin and said, ‘My mum liked to give hugs. I would like everyone here to hug the person next to them and help them feel better’. And then, as I was the person next to her, she hugged me…
Childish people do not seem to consider the hurt their actions may cause, deciding that having their own way is paramount. Pushing others out of the way, regardless of the pain they may cause, is like water off a duck’s back and does not affect them at all. The Children of God are healers and take upon themselves the name of Jesus, which means ‘the LORD is my healer’.[4]
Children of God are Givers not Takers
In his novel about a town in Colorado called Centennial[5] James Michener has a matriarch of the town say that in the world there are two sorts of people. ‘the takers and the caretakers’. Those who are childlike are ‘caretakers’, people who give of themselves to ensure that all are cared for. The childish on the other hand are ‘takers’ only involved in things for what they can get without regard to the consequence or cost to others.
It is for this reason that ‘God loves a cheerful giver’[6]. Giving is a demonstration of faith in God’s power and provision at work in our life. Something for each of us to consider as we decide how we support the work of this parish both financially and through acts of service.
Children of God are Hoping not Despairing
It was Little Orphan Annie who reminded Daddy Warbucks and President Roosevelt that ‘The Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow’?
The childlike overflow with hope. They see each new day as the day when the miracle will happen. The day when dreams will come true. The day when tears will not need to be wiped away because no tears will have been shed. The childlike refuse to say ‘no’ to the future for they know the future holds all their hopes. The childish pooh-pooh the future. Filling life with despair they are akin to a meeting of Job’s Comforters[7] in the middle of Bunyan’s Slough of Despond.[8]
Having been through frightening times during Apartheid, (too often I was threatened with violence at the point of a gun and arrested for breaking the law by the authorities), I will always choose to be childlike and look for the dawn because the sun will come up tomorrow! As the beloved Desmond Tutu used to say, ‘We are prisoners of hope’ and there are no other chains worth wearing.
So which will we choose? Being childish or being childlike? A Brat of Beelzebub or a Kidult of the Kingdom?
We already have the power to be childish – and perhaps grasp it far too often and end up following a way of life which leaves us alone and friendless.
But if instead we choose to accept God’s offer to become Children of God we will find a power that surpasses our selfishness and transforms us so that we become those who everyday reveal in our words and deeds Jesus Christ the Child of God.
Lord, today call us to be your children, Kidults of the Kingdom
This blog ‘Kidults of the Kingdom’ is copyright © Andrew Dotchin 2024. It may be reproduced free of charge on condition that the source is acknowledged.
John 1v1-11
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68100465
[2] 1 Corinthians 13v11 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13.11&version=NRSVA
[3] For a short discussion on ‘fleshly’ as opposed to ‘bodily’ follow this link https://www.larryeiss.com/blog/20221029dont-confuse-your-sarx-amp-your-soma
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_(name) – :~:text=In the Panarion of Epiphanius, before they were called Christians.
[5] For a synopsis of the book read: ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_(name)#:~:text=In%20the%20Panarion%20of%20Epiphanius,before%20they%20were%20called%20Christians.
[6] 2 Corinthians 9v7
[7] Taken from the Book of Job https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Job%27s_comforter
[8] A place that Pilgrim endures in his ‘Progress’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pilgrim%27s_Progress
Suffolk Vicar 