Jesus Loves Me, So I'm Told...

     As a child, I loved going to Sunday school. It was a weekly break from everyday life and activities that provided me a chance to sing fun and meaningful songs, hear stories that were wildly imaginative about a God who made the world and everything in it in seven days with his bare hands, or a guy named Jesus that turned water into wine so everyone at the wedding he was attending could continue drinking. Jesus was a favorite among the characters that I was told about. I sang songs mostly about him and how he loves me. The song, "Jesus Loves Me" became a standard in my mental repertoire. My grandfather used to take me along on Sunday afternoon drives to visit his parents, and other friends. I would always be called upon to sing for everyone and usually "Jesus Loves Me" was the selection of choice that caused the old folks to "oooh and ahhh" over my cherubic vocal styling. It was a good song. Affirming. Faith-filled and full of assurance that my position was Bible-based. Yes, I LOVED this song. And I loved Jesus, too! Who wouldn't? After all... "Jesus Loves the Little Children!" and "Jesus Loves Me!" I believed it with no wavering.
     However, at about the age of five I began to get a better grasp on the relational dynamics of my church, and the expectations and commitment to certain standards they firmly believed must be followed if I was to remain in good standing with them AND God... AND Jesus. It doesn't take a small child long by over-hearing adult conversations to fully grasp the context of all they are speaking about. It became clear that partaking in such things as smoking, drinking alcohol, dancing, movies, TV, card games, immodest clothing, too much make-up and other such classified "worldliness" would quickly find any participant on the slippery slope to hell and out of fellowship with those who were already too sanctified to be tempted. And, at age five, I found myself in a moral and spiritual and mental dilemma. Something was different. I was facing a new paradigm. "Jesus Loves Me, So I'm Told..." had become the unspoken mantra and the ending "...This I Know!" had lost its ability to remain unshakable in light of the unfolding understanding of all it takes to maintain good standing.
     So, here it goes. My maternal grandfather ran a small tavern in a little town about two miles from our home. There were times that my mother would take an afternoon and go to her dad's business and help out to allow him a rest. Grandma had passed away a little over four years prior and life was hard. Not only did grandpa own the business and work there, he lived in a small apartment in the back. I loved going there. It was a fun place. Not much to look at from the outside, just a small, flat-roofed building sided with wavy "tin roofing" and therefore called, "The Tin Building." But inside it housed a bar, stage, hardwood dance floor and a juke-box. When mom went to help grandpa, he would pour me a Coke in a glass of ice and give me a handful of nickels to plug the juke-box. This kept me out of trouble and from bothering him or my mom when she was tending bar. It was cool. All my favorite songs were on his juke-box. The ones I loved to dance to. So, I'd spend time drinking my Coke, playing the juke-box and dancing by myself in front of the lighted machine on a real hardwood dance floor. Heaven...
     The dilemma came when, by listening to the conversation of those given to my oversight at church, I discovered that much of the activity going on in "The Tin Building" was not merely questionable, or suspect, but bold-faced, blatant and willful SIN. I came to understand that virtually ALL of the above quoted "sins" except for movies and TV could be found being shamelessly committed within those four walls. I take that back, Grandpa DID have a TV in the apartment. What's a five year old to do when, after singing, "Oh Be Careful Little Feet Where You Go!" on Sunday, only to be told a few days later, "C'mon, get in the car! We're going to Grandpa's!"
Surely my mother was in some kind of misinformed darkness about it all. I never spoke to her about any of this. She went to church on Sunday and worked in grandpa's tavern during the week, there was a serious disconnect somewhere. Certainly she heard the same list of rules that I had. No, I couldn't take this matter up with her. Some other and more authoritative voice would have to be consulted. I decided to ask my beloved Sunday school teacher, Churchie, about it all. She'd be straight-forward about it all with me. That's what she was there for. (Her real name was Mrs. Church. But I thought it had something to do with her personal uprightness, thereby being bestowed the honorary name, "Churchie.")
     The next Sunday I gingerly approached the saintly old matriarch, tugged on her skirt and said, "Churchie!"
"Yes?" she replied.
"Will Jesus go with me to the grocery store?" I asked innocently.
"Why, of course he will!" she answered.
"Will Jesus go with me to school?" I further inquired.
"Yes he will, sweetheart." she cooed lovingly. But I think she could see something else was behind my searching. You know, the trick question. The stumper.
"Will Jesus go with me to a TAVERN?" I blurted out with emphasis on the last word.
Churchie recoiled in horror as the blood drained out of her face, along with all former expression of love and kindness toward my questions. Her backbone became rigid as righteous indignation caused her to stiffen before taking on a more serious and holy position.
"ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!!" she exclaimed with the best authoritarian sound she could muster without causing too much disturbance among the rest.
"Oh... OK..." I said sheepishly, as I spun around and proceeded into my designated classroom.
     Therein was my dilemma. What is a five year old to do when he loves singing about Jesus, hearing the lessons and coloring the pictures of Noah's Arc, and his mother tells him to we're going to a den of iniquity for the afternoon? I could feel the flames of hell licking at my feet while Satan laughed with glee over the possibility of securing a new victim. I worried for days. Then came the testing of my faith.
     Later that week, when mom called me to get in the car to go to Grandpa's, I was ready to face the situation head-on. I had a plan. Considered all the options. It had to work. We arrived at The Tin Building, parked the car and got out, mom walking ahead of me. As she opened the old screen door and went inside I gave her a minute before following. When I got both feet on the step, I stopped, turned around, looked up to the sky and pointed my little index finger toward heaven and said, "Jesus... you wait right here and I'll be back in just a little while!" Then I spun around and proceeded to walk through the door with assurance that everything would be just fine. He either really loved me or he didn't. Life went on.
     At the early age of five, I learned several things from this experience. First of all, if I was going to continue to be in fellowship with church people who disagreed or disapproved of things I would be doing, I would have to live a life of pretense and be one way in their presence and another elsewhere when necessary. Or simply lie about my activities. The second thing I came to understand instinctively is that I would have to TRUST that, in spite of my inability to live by all the church rules, Jesus would love me anyway.
     The song, "Jesus Loves Me" can be presented to little ones as a solid eternal reality, and yet adults unwittingly complicate and confuse the simple truth by adding conditions and prerequisites that steal the song's foundational message from their minds and hearts. It becomes more like "Jesus Loves Me... So I'm Told" leaving the matter of keeping Jesus' love secured is based solely on our behavior and the vices from which we abstain. The truth that so desperately needs to be proclaimed in this day to children of all ages is the Good News that embraces God's provision of unmerited favor and grace to whosoever will, leaving the hearer with no response other than to believe and proclaim with absolute assurance... "Jesus Loves Me, THIS I KNOW!"

Drink deeply...