Pastors, Be the Penguin!
The above video is, at the same time, funny, tragic, illustrative, and instructive.
Of course, the funny part is that the little boy outsmarted the bully groomer in the best way that he could think of.
It’s tragic, however, because children should not be put into such a situation. It is also tragic that the child’s parents allowed him to be part of a nasty experiment in sexualizing propaganda. It is also tragic that he could not answer, “God says so.”
It is illustrative because we see both the groomer and the child intuitively appealing to authority. “Who said?” The man, who makes a mockery of God’s creation, is implying that what he says is authoritative. And in the actual longer video of interactions with many children, he is seeking to normalize what children know to be repulsive. The boy knows the right answer. And he also wants to be able to point to some authority to make the argument. Something inside of him intuitively recognizes the difference between good and evil, between the way things ought to be and the way that things are (that should not be). And so he projects this sense of propriety on the first thing that he can lay eyes on: a penguin.
This video is also instructive. The penguin has become our Gottesdienst mascot. Fritz the Penguin is a whimsical nod to our black and white clerical garb. Penguins are also a bit silly, and represent the reality that we don’t take ourselves seriously. But we do take the holy office that we hold most seriously. The black and white remind us of the reality that there are - in spite of our society’s postmodernism and Gnosticism - clear delineations between good and evil, right and wrong. God did create clear lines of distinction and separation. Some issues are indeed nuanced, but not all. And when the world would bully and compel us to deny those situations when reality is, in fact, binary, we will not comply. We will confess. We will tell the truth.
What this adult is doing to children is wrong. It is sinful. It is evil. And that is the truth that we Christians are obliged to confess. There is no way to put lipstick on this pig.
Moreover, the black and white of the penguin call to mind written words on pages. For God reveals Himself to us in His Holy Word. And that Word is what our liturgy is. It is God’s Word, Holy Scripture, sung and spoken: God’s service to us in the Gospel and Sacraments, and our service back to Him in our joyful response of prayer, praise, and giving thanks. The liturgy is a dialogue between God and man, and between pastor and people. It is a confessional dialogue of God’s Word.
So to that inevitable liberal commenter who is right now getting ready to comment by accusing us of being outside of our wheelhouse (“What does this have to do with liturgy?”), of not sticking with liturgical minutia and esoterica detached from the time and place in which we live, we will only remind you that your boss’s name means “accuser.” We are liturgists, that is, confessors and preachers of God’s Word. We are liturgists. We say the black that is on the white page. We do the red that reminds us of the blood of Christ and of the martyrs. We are also preachers: those who speak with the prophetic voice, declaring and proclaiming God’s Word, applying it, both Law and Gospel, in the times in which we live. It is our wheelhouse, because all of it is God’s wheelhouse.
And indeed, this is a liturgical matter. For every Gottesdienst among us, whether the Mass or the prayer offices, involves speaking or chanting the Lord’s Prayer, which includes the petition: “But deliver us from evil.”
So, pastors, be the penguin!
Be willing to laugh at yourself and your own foibles. But know that your office is no laughing matter. Be willing to speak the prophetic Word without equivocation, without trying to blur the lines between good and evil - even in the name of evangelism. When children seek an authority to turn to when they are being tempted to join evil men in blurring the lines that God left sharp and distinct, when children need someone to point to in order to refute those who would cause these little ones to sin - then be the penguin. Be the preacher who says, “Thus says the Lord.” Be the one who gives voice to Jesus when He makes clear by revelation what we all know by common sense and natural law, letting the children come to Him, and citing the Word of God as the Word of God:
Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate (Matt 19:4-6).
And let us also preach and teach the old and the young, the predator and the prey, declaring and confessing the black and white Word of Jesus, the Word Made Flesh:
Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea (Matt 18:5-6).
Pastors, be the penguin!