Life is Not a Game

My son is really into games, not just video games, but role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons. I remember when he was a teen and people would greet that revelation with concern. Weren't such games of the devil? To which I would reply, "The most diabolical thing about D & D is its marketing strategy, namely, creating games so complicated that a kid needed to buy an encyclopedia's worth of books to play them." (Not to mention numerous hand painted figurines and a ridiculous number of multi-sided dice.) My son never got into the more reckless diversions other teens do in part because he was so wrapped up in playing games. And he has learned a great deal about history and different cultures and moral alignments and obscure ancient weapons. He has developed into a very accomplished storyteller. He and his wife and friends still play, rather like the card parties of my parents' generation.

When I was a kid, I loved to play games: board games, hide and go seek, tag, even games shows. I am less into games today. I enjoy Trivia Pursuit because I have a real chance of winning (unless you ask me sports questions) and 221B, a Sherlock Holmes game where you solve short mystery stories by gathering clues running around a board game version of London. If you're into it for the fun of playing with others, if you aren't so focused on winning that you spoil everyone's evening by being an aggressive jerk or a sore loser, it's a good way to pass the time. But I'm not that into games because the rules are arbitrary and the goals (gaining so many points) are pointless in the real world.

What bothers me is how much people try to approach certain aspects of reality as if it were all a game. Criminal justice, for instance. We all know by now that being found guilty or not guilty in court has a lot to do with how smart your lawyer is at gaming the system by exploiting loopholes and technicalities and getting the other side's evidence thrown out. Truth is not really what either side is trying to establish. They are trying to win in court.

Politics is now played as a game. Filibusters and secret holds and procedural tricks are used to pass or more often, not pass legislation or confirm nominees to important but vacant posts. Each side is trying to score points with voters because it is all about winning elections, not resolving real issues or solving pressing problems or governing a city or county or state or nation.

Wall Street has become a casino for the rich, where all that matters is quarterly earnings, not the quality of a product or service nor the sustainability of a company--just the payout. In the financial meltdown, some companies did very well by betting against the risky financial instruments banks were selling. In fact, some hedge funds actually encouraged banks to create more of the subprime mortgage-backed securities, so that they could bet against them. Nobody cared about responsibly investing other people's money, much less the stability of the world's economy or people's livelihoods. It was, in the words of one insider, just a game of liar's poker.

A lot of people feel religion is nothing but a game. You get brownie points for going to church or making converts or doing good deeds and if you accumulate enough points, you land on the Heaven square and win. They also feel that the rules are arbitrary and the goal, being literally out of this world, is unimportant and uninteresting to them. Sadly a lot of churchgoers seem to know so little about their own faith that they also see Christianity as something like a game with rules you obey just because that's the way it was set up.

Buried in today's reading from 2 Corinthians with all this talk about Moses and veils is the whole purpose of what faith in Jesus is all about. There's nothing arbitrary about it. Paul writes, "And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit."

A lot of people think Jesus just came to tell us to love one another. Others may realize that part of his purpose was to die for our sins. But a smaller number seem to realize that what Jesus came to do was to give us his glory, that is, make us resemble him. Obviously the resemblance is not physical but spiritual, just as the residual glory of God that radiated from Moses' face and the dazzling brightness seen when Jesus is transfigured are facts that function as visual parables, if you will, for the spiritual splendor of God. When someone displays either physical or intellectual or creative or moral excellence, we tell them they dazzled everyone or just really shined at that moment. No literal light shown from their visage. But we all know what is meant. And we are to become more Christ-like, not in the beard and sandals department, but in the way we think, speak and act. In doing so we reflect his glory.

How do we come to mirror Christ's glory, his moral and spiritual excellence? Not by trying ourselves to achieve that pinnacle. You know happens if you try to climb Mount Everest by yourself? You die. The world's highest mountain peak is literally littered with the frozen corpses of those who tried and failed, some 100 years old. At those rarified heights, you need a massive amount of support--guides, gear, oxygen tanks, tents, and a whole support network. Just so, we cannot hope to come close to Christ without the support of the Spirit. And the Lord is the Spirit, Paul reminds us. So God is not only our goal but our guide, our path and our power to reach him.

In role playing games, to construct a character you use a sheet of paper and dice. To make a fighter, you hope to roll high numbers for his strength, his stamina, his healing ability, maybe his agility and strategy. If you go up against a dragon or a vampire or a mind flayer, you hope your fighter's stats are higher. They can be augmented by spells, armor or weapons with additional number values. Then you roll the dice to see who defeats whom and how many damage points you sustain. It all depends on the numbers and chance.

That's not how Christian character is constructed. It is not by chance but by God's design that we are given our abilities and talents. We are to use them and hone them but there is no yardstick by which to measure them. C. S. Lewis said that becoming more Christ-like is like painting a portrait. When you look at a budding artist, you can see how they are progressing but you can't score their use of color, shapes, shading, and composition. You just can tell how well they are capturing their subject. When they have achieved it, the portrait doesn't look awkward or forced or unnatural. You say, "That's him! You've captured his essence!"

Bean counters really hate the lack of metrics. Which is why churches are often seen as successful or not by the numbers of people who attend or who are baptized or how much money they raise. It's not that those things are unimportant but they don't necessarily indicate spiritual health or maturity. Einstein supposedly said that not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted. We don't have to look good on paper or be externally impressive to become more Christ-like. Jesus said that in the kingdom many who are first will be last and the last shall be first. For all we know the most Christ-like person in heaven might turn out to be an obscure janitor or a nail technician or a slave or an ordinary housewife.

Unlike a game, there are no extra rolls of the dice or double word score squares to advance you in reaching our goal of becoming more Christ-like. You do so by living each day of your life, taking the opportunities given you, or discerning opportunities when none are apparent. Jesus talked about how serving him meant feeding the hungry, visiting the sick and imprisoned and other things that take long-term commitment. The primary command is to love and that is something that must be built up and nurtured over time.

In checkers any piece that makes it to the opponent's home row is "kinged" and suddenly transformed into a much more powerful piece. In real life such transformation is never that sudden. People may decide to turn their lives around in a moment of clarity but it takes a long time to shed old habits and take up new and better ones. I love Dickens' story "A Christmas Carol" where miserly Ebenezer Scrooge becomes a new man overnight but a more realistic picture of how long it takes is to change is to be found, believe it or not, in the fantasy movie, "Groundhog's Day." In a recent web article, a self-confessed geek tried to figure out how long Bill Murray's character Phil is trapped repeating the same day in February. Or, as I like to think of it, how long does it take him to change from the self-centered jerk he is at the beginning of the film to the caring, beloved community hero he is by the end of the movie. Using not only the repeated scenes from the film, but references to unseen events, plus estimates of how long it would take to learn ice sculpting and to play the piano expertly, the writer figured Phil was caught in his own Twilight Zone for more than 8 years. The film's director replied it would take much longer.
 
They are right. You can change direction in an instant but changing your attitudes and behaviors, conquering your fears, learning the difference between harmful desires and healthy ones, and developing your God-given talents takes a lot longer. And so Paul says we are transformed into the glorious image of Christ degree by degree. Like creating a masterpiece, it is a slow and painstaking process, one that doesn't have a shortcut. There is no paint by numbers version. It is a matter of observing, trying, and evaluating. In Christian parlance, reading God's word, emulating Jesus, and praying. And just like an artist has to be responsive to the inspiration of his or her muse, the work of becoming more Christ-like always involves responding to the Spirit of God. It is he who keeps us from slanting or exaggerating or underemphasizing certain features the way a bad artist does.

The point of the Christian life isn't keeping score on how good or how bad we do, much less on how other people are doing at it. We need to treat our mistakes the way an artist does--learn from them. Learn what doesn't work and what does. Learn what works in certain media. Painting is different with oils than it is with watercolors. Carving wood is different from carving stone. Showing God's love is different with different people and in different situations. Some people or situations need a soft touch; others need a firmer hand. Discerning which will work in a particular instance is a matter of experience and sensitivity to the Spirit.

As we become more Christ-like, another way in which faith is not like a game occurs to us. In a game, there is only one winner or one winning team. The point of points is keeping track of who's ahead. Being a good sport or being ruthless and taking advantage of others are equally good strategies if they lead you to victory. There are games where you can choose to hurt another player by making his card hand worse by trading cards with him or piling cards on him when the object is to rid yourself of them. In some sports, you can literally harm an opponent. You win by making others lose.

But for Christians you "win," so to speak, by making others into winners. You let anyone on your team who wants to join and follow the 2 main rules: love God with everything you've got  and love others as Christ loves you. So you can't throw others under the bus to benefit yourself. Jesus sure didn't look like a winner at the end of his mortal life. He looked like the biggest loser of all. But his self-sacrifice made it possible that no one need lose.

The world looks for winners and losers. It even admires winners if they were clever enough to game the system. But not in God's kingdom. God does not judge by who has the most points or the most money or the most toys or the most power. He judges by looking at the heart. He judges by whether you are becoming more Christ-like. Not more than others but whether you're more Christ-like than you were when you started out and if you are continuing that process. And it doesn't depend on your efforts so much as letting the Spirit work on you and in you.

Remember those parables where the people are left out of the wedding banquet because the bridegroom says, "I don't know you." He doesn't recognize them because they have let the image of God in them become totally effaced. But everyone who lets the Spirit restore that image is becoming more and more recognizable as the loving and lovable person God created them to be.

It's not a game. It's love. And in love, if you do it right, everyone wins.