[AI translation] You asked me, dear boys and girls, to tell you about fun. And I mean good fun, Christian fun.I am very glad that the title is worded in this way, because this title also implies that those who claim Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour have a different way of life, a different kind of fun. At least it should be different from those who do not consider Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. So our entertainment should also show that we are, or at least want to be, followers of Christ. So I want to talk about the right kind of Christian entertainment!
Let me start by saying that when you were little children, it was quite natural for you to play. The occupation of a small child is to play. And a healthy child can and should play. Because if a child can't play, there is something wrong. Then it is not healthy, or there is something physically or mentally wrong with the health balance of that child. So it's good for a child to play as much as possible and as much as possible. It's so wonderful when a little girl wraps a corncob around a cloth and sees a beautiful, beautiful baby. Or even a princess. And she really believes it's a princess. Or when a little boy ties a piece of plank or a piece of wood to his side and then he is convinced that he now has a sword. And with this sword he walks about peckishly, as if he really had a sword at his side. Maybe the next moment he will sit on it like a horse and then the sword will turn into a horse underneath. Because the child's imagination colours the game, and he lives in the game. And it's good when it is. And today's toys are designed to engage the child's imagination. There are toys that can be assembled or disassembled, that can be built and assembled. So toys that increase the child's imagination through play and then engage the child. So I say, the occupation of the child is play.
But it is something quite wonderful that this desire to play - at least under healthy conditions - remains with a person in later life. Only perhaps the form changes. Sometimes even that. For example, I have a brother-in-law who is about my age, and I have caught him more than once lying on the ground with the ground covered with little rails, and he is turning the gears here and there, playing like a child. I'm always happy to see him playing like that, because I can tell he's in good spirits.
A man will always be playful. And it's good if he stays that way. There is a Latin expression for it: homo ludens. That is, a playful man. The adult's play is fun. Perhaps here the difference between a child's play and a child's play is that a child's play is his occupation. It is also said that the adult has his own hobby. It has its own pastimes, its own passions. For example, Bandi's father collects stamps. He has a beautiful collection of stamps and he looks at them with such passion that I always envy him; it's not the stamp collection that I envy, but his passion that he can find such a passion for stamp collecting. For me, for example, I have - or rather had - a hobby in photography. I loved taking photos, working them out myself, enlarging them, putting them in albums, admiring them. I have a pastor colleague whose hobby is collecting photographs of old churches. He has travelled all over the country taking pictures of old churches. He had such a collection that the National Museum would probably like to take it over, it was so wonderfully, perfectly collected. Or old Uncle Cross, for example, even a few months before his death, went hiking twice a week in the hills of Buda, whether it was raining, windy or snowing. At the end of the hike he would sit in a restaurant, have a glass of beer and go home. And he was happy. I also remember, not quite a young pastor, when I really wanted to play a game like the one I used to play as a child. On a large sheet of paper were airplane parts, you had to cut them out, glue them together and it made a nice model. I bought one of those and spent an afternoon cutting it out, gluing it together and making it myself, because my children were so small then that they couldn't have played with it. Or you've probably seen it yourself, when grown-up people, perhaps with shedding hair, play ball in the water in the summer at Lake Balaton. They are having fun. And that's the good thing about being an adult. It's a sign of a healthy mood.
Now we're talking about grown-up people. From what I've said, it's clear that fun is something you do in your spare time. It is a pleasant and useful way of spending your free time. Don't think that it is so simple. I could almost say that one of the greatest arts of life is to spend one's leisure time pleasantly and usefully, that is to say: to have fun properly. Two years ago, the last time I was abroad, in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, I was hosted by a pastry chef who told me that the five-day working week was becoming almost a curse on Swiss society. Because now people don't start drinking on Saturday night, they start drinking on Friday night. Now they don't drink for a day and a half, but for two and a half days. Because they simply don't know what to do with their time off. Let this be a warning that it is not so easy to spend your leisure time in a pleasant and useful way!
Perhaps we are even closer to the definition of leisure if I say that it is an occupation that is a break from our other occupations, from the drudgery of everyday life, from work, and an occupation that refreshes, that refreshes, that gives pleasure, that one does to one's heart's content, that is, that which entertains. Of course, work can also be entertainment in this way. For there is work that one does with pleasure. I remember that when I was writing my doctoral dissertation, I could only use my free time, but I did it with such unheard-of passivity that when I finally finished the manuscript and sent it to the printers, I really had nothing to do with my free time. I missed it, I had nothing to do. Well, I found so much joy in this manuscript, in arranging it, in correcting it! I can imagine that even a real scientist does his work almost for fun. Or a turner, an artistic lathe-turner, does the work that comes into his hands with passion. And yet the point of fun is to get out of all this work.
It's a bit like ventilating a stuffy room in winter. Such a pause is fun. It's also a way of saying I'm airing out my head. Well, yes, that's what fun is for. A little fresh air to fill you up. Or perhaps another way of saying it is that fun has as much a place in our lives as a gas station on the highway. What is a petrol station for? It is not for settling down, it is not the purpose of a petrol station, it is for refuelling a vehicle so that it can continue its journey. In other words, entertainment, like the petrol station, is not an end in itself. We are not having fun for the fun of it. Fun is not an activity for its own sake. Entertainment is a subordinate occupation to a main occupation. So it's recharging. To get the wheels turning better afterwards, to get the whole vehicle rolling better and to keep on going where it needs to go.
One of the greatest degenerations of entertainment today is when it becomes a goal in itself. Of course, the entertainment institutions take care of that too. But people are willing to be served by this entertainment industry. And it is becoming a slogan among many young people that I have to get a job in order to have money to have fun. Perhaps it should be the other way round: I have fun so that I can do my job properly. So fun is always a recharge. Obviously, it is not right to have fun if you are so exhausted physically and mentally the next day. A drunken night out, no matter how much fun it may have been, a night of drinking to excess or dancing to the point of exhaustion is certainly not the right kind of fun.
Let me give you one more criterion of fun. Innocent occupation. Innocent, which also means that it is an occupation by which one does not harm oneself or others. Neither physically, nor mentally, but rather: one that benefits oneself and others both physically and mentally. So something that is really fun.
Now, starting from these principles, one could ask the question: can dancing, for example, be fun? I can honestly tell you that it can! It can be, as long as it meets the above criteria. Because I can imagine that a pure-hearted person can dance pure. So you can dance clean. And for young people, dancing is a natural and one of their main pastimes. Young people need movement, jumping, a little grace in their movements. It can be an ennobling kind of entertainment that is useful, that is downright necessary for young people. But I always emphasise that it must be done in a way that meets the aforementioned criteria.
Another question is whether, for example, courtship can be fun? What is fun? Play. It is the play of an adult, and therefore recreation. And it is an activity that does not harm either one or the other, and if fun is really a playful activity, then I would like to say very seriously that courtship cannot be fun. Because courtship is not a game. Courtship is infinitely serious. And if it's a game, it's bad. It harms one and it harms the other. It hurts physically and psychologically. To fool someone and say nice things just for fun is irresponsible in the extreme. Kissing for fun: the worst kind of fun. To spoil the relationship between a man and a woman, to fool around and say nice things just for fun, is the most despicable irresponsibility.
A great degeneration of fun - I don't know if you have heard of it - that is being encountered in Western youth: the Dutch newspapers are increasingly dealing with the problem of so-called provocateurs. Provocos means: provocative youth. They provoke passers-by for fun, they call people names in the street for fun, they knock over a car, they beat a person, they beat a person to death. People who steal a car just for fun, not because they need it, but because they want to have fun with it and after having fun with it, they leave it somewhere and go on their way. Believe me, it is just such empty, meaningless fun to entertain company by playing games. It is not worthy of Christ-following company, such empty, chattering talk.
Once again, then, entertainment is an occupation that takes you out of the ordinary, that gives you pleasure, that soothes you, that enriches you, that refreshes you, that gives you strength to go on working. It entertains myself and others. So let us now listen to this verse. And walk in the ways of your heart and in the vision of your eyes, and know that for all these things God will judge you." I ask you never to forget that Jesus suffered unspeakable agonies so that a smile might come to our lips and our faces. He suffered endlessly in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross so that we might feel good about ourselves. Never forget that our fun has a price, the price of our fun is the divine blood that was shed on the cross. From this awareness comes the appreciation of fun and the sanctification of our part in it. Sanctified, let us have fun.
In this connection, let me give you just one example. I was two years old when an 8 year old brother of mine died. When I started growing up, I saw that among my 8 year old brother's toys was an old magic lantern, a projector. I was dying to have it. When I turned 8, I got it. And I always remembered that the reason I had that projector was because my brother had died. So the fact that I could play with it was actually the price of my brother's death. Now, this beautiful world, with all its beauty and fun, can be ours because Jesus died. Fun is part of the legacy that Jesus left us with his death. So our fun should always somehow include the knowledge that I have received this from Jesus, that I am taking this from the hand of God. So: have fun responsibly! This is what the scripture says, that though you rejoice in your youth, yet know that for all these things God will judge you. We are accountable to God for everything, including our fun.
And that's what separates man from the beast. A sense of responsibility. The consciousness of responsibility before God. To be accountable is to be held accountable. So have fun and choose fun for yourself that you can give thanks to God with a whole, pure heart, that you know you have received from the hand of God. Because Satan can give you fun, too, lots of it and very pleasing and very desirable. But we are told in this verse, "Rejoice in your youth, let your heart cheer you in your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart and the sights of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will judge you."
All the earth rejoice in God,
And sing with a beautiful melody.
Great glory to his holy name
Let all praise it with all the world.
Tell it to the Lord God:
Thy works are wonderful,
Thy strength is great, they fall to thee.
Thy enemies flattering.
(Psalm 66)
Date: 29 October 1967 Youth hour