I enjoy the work of children’s author Dr. Seuss. While I have been reading his books since I was young, I have gained an even deeper appreciation and respect for them as I read them to my children. In fact, there was a period of time when my children were much younger, that due to the demands of my schedule, that’s all I was able to read.
When I would read Dr. Seuss books with my children, I noticed that they do a few things about the books. They are revolutionary. First, they revolutionized children’s books and how they handled grammar and language. Until Dr. Seuss, children’s books were unimaginative: Dick, Spot and Jane. Go spot go. See Spot run. Run Spot run. Dr. Seuss, who wrote his books in the 1960s and 1970s, changed all that and made reading very fun and imaginative for kids. Where would our culture be without Green eggs and ham? How could we live without Ziffer-Zoffs, Foona Lagonas, Honking Hinkle Horns? And would we be as happy and joyful as a society, if we didn’t know either Thing 1 or Thing 2?
The other thing I noticed was how weighted or heavy the topics of the book were. Seuss revolutionized the subject matter of children books. Before they were about baseball, and mom going grocery shopping, or dad coming home from work. Seuss took on topics like globalization, pollution, the economy, tyranny, marginalization, all through children’s books.
One book, The Sneetches, even tackles racism, materialism, and prejudices. For those who have never read the book, Sneetches are a fictional race of beings in a fictional land. There are two kinds or races of Sneetches—those with stars on their bellies, and those without.
In this fictional world, the reader learns that there is little difference between the two groups. However, that doesn’t stop the Sneetches from distinguishing themselves. The reader is supposed to know that the Sneetches with stars on their bellies were considered generally superior to their non-star-bellied counterparts.
So the Sneetches without stars were on the outside of the society looking in. They longed and longed for stars on their bellies to be on the inside. And not too long after their wishes, along comes a guy named, Slyvester McMonkey McBean who has created a machine to capitalize on their misery. The machine puts stars on Sneetches without stars on their bellies. So the Sneetches without got stars. And they were happy and went to go show off their stars to the ones with stars originally had them. And the ones with stars on their bellies originally, were besides themselves, and so they wished to have no stars to distinguish themselves from the other Sneetches. And so along comes McMonkey McBean and he has a machine to take advantage of those Sneetches too. He sends those Sneetches through that machine as well to take off their stars.
So, as you can imagine, they keep going through the various machines until they all are broke except McBean. But, in this exercise, they realize that they are all the same, and all it cost them was all their money.
Now, in the Biblical context there are plenty examples of people struggling with the same issues as the Sneetches were struggling with, but none quite as clear as the scripture today.
In Acts 3, we find such an example.
The passage begins with Peter and John heading into the Temple for prayers. All pious and worthy Jews could enter the Temple to pray at 3pm. They would enter into the Temple by one of several gates—all of them had adjectives for names: everlasting, Righteous, and so on.
As Peter and John are heading into the Temple to pray, they encounter a man who could not walk from birth at the gate begging for money. What we are supposed to know is that Rev. Peter and John are pious as are the people who are heading into the Temple for prayer. We are also supposed to know that the man is not pious as he is not heading in to pray. In fact, in Ancient Jewish tradition, people with handicaps could not be considered clean or pious and were not allowed to pray in the Temple. However, “pious” people were liberal with there money on the way in the Temple. (How some Christians are good when they come to church but lack that giving spirit in other aspects of their lives.)
So the man was there at the Temple gate called Beautiful asking Peter and Paul for money. There is nothing of interpretive value in the gate being called Beautiful except that we note its irony in the story. Here we have a gate called the adjective beautiful and what was going on, a handicapped, man having to ask for money was not the least bit beautiful.
This must have been his thing though. His thing must have been to ask for money, and get it from people going to the temple, going to pray to ease their conscious. And while he would get money there at the gate, make no mistake, the man was marginalized. He was on the outside looking in like the Sneetches.
But instead of McBean, he gets Peter and John. And he asks them for money. And Peter and John look at the man and force him to look at them in the eyes. Peter says, “Look at us” and then he says “silver and gold I have not, but what I have I give to you.” Then Peter took him by the hand and said “in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” And the man got up and went into the Temple walking, jumping, shouting and praising God. And the people were astonished at this sight.
Peter took a man who was, from birth, disenfranchised and marginalized from the society of Jews who made his living begging and in one turn, he was healed and able to be in the community. He gave him a star on his belly. Made him beautiful.
Naturally, this has salvation undertones. The man’s healing by Peter clearly symbolizes that God’s salvation is available to all, not just those who can walk or look a certain way.
This story means something to us as well. In our society and culture, there are many people and groups on the outside looking in, hoping to get in, hoping to get a piece of the American Dream. Women, handicapped, and the imprisoned know what that feels like. But, the Creator has made us beautiful.
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