Play and Theology

I was alerted to this quote by Robert Jenson on the Inhabitatio Dei blog, which is run by Halden Doerge. Jenson is coming to Dunedin as the University of Otago’s Burns Lecturer, and will lead a half-day seminar at the Knox Centre on the subject of the Eucharistic Church being a Missional Church on the 13th March, 2009.

Play is meaningful action that does not need to seek its meaning in some achievement exterior to itself. It is what we do because we do not have to. It is action to which the future opens as gift rather than as burden. The life of the Trinity is sheer play. As play with the Trinity, liturgy is anticipation of life in the Fulfillment–the closest we get to freedom. It must be admitted that liturgy-as-play is a rather rare occurrence in America’s recognized churches.

Robert W. Jenson, Story and Promise: A Brief Theology of the Gospel about Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1973) pg 184.