The Voice of Toyland

The Reverend Seth Ethan Carey

August 5th, 2007

Hosea 11:1-11

First Congregational Church, Glen Ellyn, Illinois

www.firstconge.org

630-469-3096

Introduction to the Scripture:

The Book of Hosea was written in an era marked by helplessness and defeat. The Israelites were living in a kingdom divided—the southern kingdom of Judah, and the northern kingdom of Israel, sometimes called Ephraim. Hosea condemned the kingdom of Israel for turning away from the Lord, worshipping alien gods, and essentially going their own way and forgetting about God. And so Hosea foretold their destruction at the hands of Assyria, the greatest power in the world at that time.

But beyond the condemnation was mercy, and a reminder to Israel that God could not bear to abandon them to their enemies. And it serves to remind us that however big the powers of this world may seem, God is bigger still. And though we are very small, children in the eyes of God—often feeling helpless and lost in circumstances beyond our control—our ultimate fate is in the hands of the most powerful and loving force in the universe…

***

They just don’t make toys like they used to. And it’s a good thing, too, because I’m not referring to the so-called “good old days” of wooden trains, Raggedy-Anne dolls, and tin soldiers. A pop-culture website called Radar Online recently ran a disturbing article entitled, Pray for Coal: The Ten Most Dangerous Toys of All-Time. Some of you may recall—no pun intended— these archaic playthings, toys that spelled trouble for a number of unsuspecting youth of an earlier generation in the days before safety-testing. The list included the Snack time Cabbage Patch Doll, similar to the standard-issue Cabbage-Patch doll in most respects—except for its mechanized mouth, a device that consumed without prejudice, unable to distinguish between plastic carrots and a clump of your hair, should you hold it too close. The box was emblazoned with the ominous message, “Feed Me!” I guess its creators can’t say they didn’t warn us.

Another contender was the 1961 Johnny Reb Cannon, a thirty-inch functioning cannon with a spring-loaded mechanism, draped in a Confederate Flag, capable of firing its payload at a distance of up to 35 feet. And who could forget the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab, released in 1951, bringing the power of radioactive atomic energy to your living room.

As for me, I count myself fortunate to have grown up in the heyday of 1980’s action figures—Transformers and Ninja Turtles are a lot safer than miniature cannons and atomic energy reactors, that much is for sure.

But beyond that, I think action figures are just so much more interesting, I mean, what can you do with a cannon besides shoot holes in the wall? As much fun as that may be, it’s got nothing on action figures. ….They’re like little people. They’ve got personality. I used to think it was fun to put a few random figures together—some good, others of questionable character—and send them on imaginary afternoon adventures to find out how they would react to one another in the face of adversity. Would they form meaningful relationships? Would they turn on one another? Who among them would survive—and what would be left of them in the end?

Playing with action figures is like watching the drama of life unfold on the stage of your bedroom floor. Of course, part of the fun comes from being in absolute control of every situation. If only the real world lives were so simple. The child at play is the ultimate puppet-master, moving her figures about this way and that, every pose-able elbow and knee bending to her will. I always found myself frustrated with inflexible action figures that you couldn’t pose, because I couldn’t manipulate them. It was like they had a stubborn will of their own.

The Jesus action figure is a lot like that, actually. But take that as you will.

We human beings all want to feel like we’ve got things under control. It’s something we all crave. Control over our circumstances, control over others, even control over ourselves. But as those erratic and dangerous toys of the late twentieth century remind us, there are just some things in this life that can’t be controlled.

Now, if you’ll bear with me for awhile and brace your imagination for a whimsical fiction...

***

Duke and Barbie gazed down at the vast expanse beneath them. It was a surreal landscape of cliffs and valleys, and mountains that bore an odd resemblance to oversized furniture. It was as though some terrible giant lived here, and they hoped it didn’t find them before they could get back home. Duke had seen a lot of real action in his action-packed life—he was a GI Joe action figure, after all—but this place was something beyond his experience. He was lost. And even though Barbie stood several inches taller than he—and he was only four inches tall—she could see no end to the bizarre horizon that stretched before them.

“Maybe we should turn back,” Duke suggested.

“Stop your whining,” snapped Strawberry Shortcake, who had already begun to descend the sheer drop by way of a long, dangling shoelace. Ever since she lost the annual pie-baking contest to her nemesis, the Purple Pie Man, her attitude had turned rather sour.

Barbie looked concerned. “We don't have time to turn back,” she sighed. Duke knew that Barbie was very busy, because she was working over fifty jobs, and had an outfit to go with each of them. Several of them were in medicine and law, which really didn't leave much time for adventures.

So Duke nodded, and followed them down the face of the shelf into the strange valley below.

Several hours later, after an unpleasant encounter with a hungry Snack Time Cabbage Patch doll and a narrow escape from a large, wild-eyed Persian cat that nearly made off with Strawberry, the three weary travelers found themselves standing before a giant door. It stretched up towards the plaster sky, towering over them—mocking them. The door was closed.

“That sure is one big door,” said Strawberry Shortcake, removing the last vestiges of cat hair from her bonnet.

“Well that’s just great,” sighed Duke. “How are we ever going to get back home?”

“We’re going to open that door, Duke, that’s how,” replied Barbie. Now, it was no secret that Duke wasn’t the strongest G.I. Joe in the toy chest. He knew his limits. He wasn’t nearly as strong as some of the other Joes, like Roadblock and Captain Grid-Iron, or even his sworn enemy, the evil Cobra Commander. And ever since he lost that arm-wrestling match to Spongebob Squarepants, the smug little sponge wouldn’t let him forget it. Neither would Strawberry Shortcake, who saw the whole thing.

“You…you can’t be serious,” he pleaded with Barbie. He had to look up to meet her gaze. “There’s no way we can open that door. It must weigh a thousand tons!”

“What’s the matter, Duke?” taunted Strawberry Shortcake sarcastically. “Not man enough for the job? I thought you were supposed to be a masculine action figure!”

He was about to tell Shortcake what he really thought of her when Barbie spoke up. “We have to try, Duke. I just know we can it.” Gazing up into her plastic blue eyes, he knew he couldn’t refuse. He grit his teeth as he strode up to the door, summoning all the strength he could manage. On the count of three, they pushed with all of their might, digging their heels into the carpet and leaning into the gargantuan wooden door, giving it all they had until one by one they collapsed in exhaustion. They got back up and tried again. And again.

The door hadn’t budged an inch.

At last, with his back against it, Duke slid to the ground in defeat. “I can’t do it,” he said. “I can’t do it. Some things are just beyond our control. Some things we have to leave to fate.” He paused for a moment, lost in his thoughts, before he said, “Some things are in the hands of a power greater than our own.”

Strawberry Shortcake didn’t hesitate to antagonize him. “Well, look here, Barbie, we’ve got ourselves a preacher. Will you wrestle with the angels, Duke? You gonna wrestle with God? That’s rich…you couldn’t even wrestle with Spongebob Squarepants.”

But Duke didn’t hear her, because he had already passed out.

**

We all want to feel like we’ve got things under control. When the turkey is in the oven and company is on its way; when the big game is starting, and the whistle is blown and the trophy cup is brimming with possibility; when your the project for work—or school—is due in the morning and midnight has come and gone, we need to feel like we’ve got a handle on things. We need to feel like we’ve got it together.

But in many regards, that control is an illusion. You can decide what time to put the turkey in the oven, but you can’t stop the traffic jam hat delays your guests. You can give it your all on the field, but you can’t control your team mates, or the weather, or the referee’s stressful problems at home—problems that put him in such an unforgiving mood. You can work until three a.m. on that project, but you might not even be able to stay awake until it’s finished.

When we need to get from point A to point B, and the doors are all locked, we often try to break them down. And sometimes feel defeated when we can’t. But that calls to mind an old saying: If you want to hear God laugh, make a plan.

And that isn’t always easy for us to accept. A friend of mine once said that he couldn’t believe in God, because he refused to acknowledge that his life was in the hands of a higher power, that it could be influenced or controlled by anyone other than himself—including God. Especially God. His life, he said, was his and his alone.

Well, God has given all of us free-will— the right to decide our own actions, the right to choose between left and right, paper and plastic, or good and evil. And that may be one of God’s greatest gifts. It makes us more than dolls, more than mere toys in the eyes of God. Some would say that it’s the very thing that makes us human.

But free-will isn’t without its limitations. We can control how we act towards others, or how we react to the way that they treat us. Sometimes, even that feels impossible, when we become overwhelmed by our emotions. And while we can exert some influence on the world around us, we aren’t all-powerful. We can’t always foresee accidents or illnesses, we can’t always fix them, and we can’t really control how other people behave. So it seems we’re left to our own devices. And if that were the end of the story, then I for one would feel very helpless, cast adrift in a chaotic sea, clutching my free-will like a brittle oar among the crashing waves.

But God has the last word here. And God’s proclamation through Hosea is one of reassurance, a promise that we're hurtling towards nothing, aimless and abandoned . It’s a reminder that we have not been abandoned, a promise that we will never be abandoned, not by God.

Still, we struggle through life. Bad things happen. And sometimes, we make bad choices. As Hosea says, “The more I called them, the more they went from me. My people are bent on turning away from me.” Bur God is still there, crying out, “How can I give you up? How can I hand you over? When I call, my children shall come trembling from the west, and I will return them to their homes.”

While we might abandon God—our free-will allows for the possibility—God does not abandon us. Even Jesus felt abandoned on the cross, but God was there. And if we are prepared to answer the call, prepared to trust in God, if we can stop trying to bend the world to our own will, then we will find that God will be there in the midst of the chaos, moving in mysterious ways:

“I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them….”

…But they did not know that I healed them.”

God doesn’t control us; God loves us. We aren’t God’s toys; we are God’s children.

***

Duke awoke to a startling sight. The door was open, only a crack. But it was enough.

As he climbed to his feet, he overheard Barbie and Strawberry Shortcake arguing a few yards away. “I don’t trust it,” hissed Strawberry Shortcake. “Who opened it?”

“I don’t care who opened it, Strawberry,” replied Barbie. “It’s open, that’s all that matters.”

Strawberry glared at her with suspicion. “Look, I don’t know how things work in the Barbie Dream House, but in Strawberryland doors don’t just open by themselves.”

“What are you so afraid of?” interrupted Duke, who had come up behind them.

“I’m not afraid of anything,” Strawberry replied hotly. “But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you can’t rely on anybody but yourself. I certainly can’t rely on you,” she added. “And I’m not going to rely on whatever opened that door.”

Duke thought about this carefully before responding. “There are some things that we can control, Strawberry.” He looked up at Barbie, who towered over him, and at the impossibly tall door behind her. “And there are some things that we can’t. I guess wisdom lies in knowing the difference.”

“Leave it to the preacher to tell us the meaning of life,” Strawberry Shortcake replied bitterly. “Suit yourselves. I’ll find my own way back to Strawberryland.”

And with that, Duke and Barbie watched her leave, nodded at one another, turned, and stepped through the door, guided by the hand of the small child who had opened it. Her mother was calling for dinner, and playtime was over. Carefully putting away her toys in the toy chest, she walked through the door herself, towards trials and adventures of her own, waiting in the years to come. She would have to decide for herself how to live them out.

But, a gentle voice echoed in her mind, and always would, reminding her that she would never be alone.