“The Gospel in Boardgames: Battleship” Matthew 5: 38-48

What is your first reaction when someone wrongs you? What is the instinct in your gut when you hear that someone has hurt someone you’ve loved? For many of us it is to baton down the hatches. We are going to hurt them like they have hurt us. 

I can already hear the arguments. But Pastor Michelle, I would never do that. Perhaps. But how many times have you told the story of how someone else has hurt you in hopes to get sympathy? How many times have you drawn the circle to say that people are either with you or against you? Or when have you stopped being around certain people until they came over to your side to right the wrong that has been done against you?

The truth is it seems to be human nature to pit people against one another. If we’re honest, we’ve even made it into several board games. I grew up playing Battleship with my dad. We had the original Battleship. Electronic Battleship. StarWars Battleship. We were a Battleship family, friends. For those of you who have never played Battleship - its a game for two players where you have a grid that has both letters and numbers on it. You place your ships somewhere on your grid, in secret, and the other player does so as well. Then you take turns calling out letters and numbers to guess the location of each other’s battleships. If you guess correctly, its pegged as a “hit”. When all of the squares of a ship have been hit, the ship's owner announce the sinking of either the Carrier, the Cruiser, the Submarine, the Destroyer, or the titular Battleship. If all of a player's ships have been sunk, the game is over and their opponent wins.

What I didn’t realize was that this game was first played during World War I, using a pen and a pencil before becoming a Milton Bradly Board game in 1967. 

How does a board game last that long? I think by being more than a guessing game. It’s a game of strategy, but also a game where we seek to outwit and out last the other player, so we can be victorious.

How many of us live our lives like that friends? How many of us enter into conflict wanting to be victorious? Maybe not live in a way that honors God, but we were victorious. 

So what exactly would it look like to honor God even in the midst of conflict? Prior to Jesus’s time, rules were laid out on how to engage people when it came to disagreements. At first glance it seems really harsh - “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” That seems a little extreme doesn’t it? Until you realize that these guidelines were set out as the Israelites were moving into a new land to be the community of God to prevent them from going further. Be humane. Be fair. Prevent harm from escalating to the point of death and wars. 

But Jesus took what they thought was fair and turned it on its head. He didn’t say if someone slapped you on your cheek, to slap them back. No he said give them the other cheek. But here’s the thing about what Jesus was telling his followers to do - it was radical in its own way. If a believer offered to one who struck him the other cheek, the person striking him or her would have to commit a cultural fo-pa - hitting with the demeaning side of the hand or with the lesser dominate hand - which was considered unacceptable. The only other option would be to punch the person with a fist, and punching and slapping are not the same thing. To slap shows power, while to punch affirms someone as an equal. Turning and offering the left cheek resulted in a quandary for the person who originally slapped the individual that would ultimately cause her or his shame, not the person’s being slapped.

Jesus didn’t stop there, however. He went on to say if someone steals your coat, that isn’t an invitation to go and steal one of theirs in return. Instead, give them what’s underneath the coat as well! But this teaching of Jesus was radical as well. Who would be sued for a coat? Probably not a rich person with many coats, but someone on the edge of being destitute, who has lost everything else in life and thus only has one thing worth being brought to court for. The article of clothing that acted as a lifeline, acting as a blanket, shelter, and storage area. And now someone else wants to take it away to repay an impossible debt. Imagine the shame! Yet, Jesus commands that the person being asked for their coat to give their cloak – or undergarment – as well. In other words, you would be naked. This would not be to your shame, as the debtor, but to the one who was suing you, as you handed over your coat and cloak

Of if someone asks you to walk a mile, freely go a second!

Give to everyone who begs from you - don’t refuse people when they want to borrow from you. 

Woah, slow down Jesus. Now its getting personal.

Why? Because Jesus is asking us, at our very heart, to love our enemies. To do well to those who go against you. To do the unthinkable. This is a derivative of loving your neighbor as yourself from Leviticus 19. Or in the translation of one of my seminary professors, “love your neighbor who is like you”. Jesus is reminding us that not only the people we consider to be our neighbors like us, but our enemies as well.  It is easy to love those we like, but it is moving towards perfection when we begin to love those we do not like, those whom we have built a wall between in order to keep ourselves from becoming contaminated in our minds.
How many of us, when we find ourselves in conflict with someone think first and foremost - this person is a beloved child of God and deserves to be treated as such? Or how many of us react first and think later - either insisting that we are right and others are wrong or we don’t communicate well with one another? 

I was interrupted part of the way working through this sermon by my brother John who was kind enough to video me into my Gram being awarded the BPS Women of the Year Award in  Clearfield. As my dad was talking about how my Grandma had served throughout the years, both at home and in the wider community, I was stuck by some of his words. Anyone can be kind. Anyone can serve. But its another thing to have a servant’s heart through Christ. 

Friends, when Christ comes into our lives, it should radically change us. Not just charge us on Sunday. Not just change us when we gather for worship or Sunday School. But change every piece of our lives - even how we engage in conflict. Even how we respond when other people wrong us. Gone are the days, when Christ enters us, when it is about making sure we win first, no matter what the cost. 

No. 

Instead, Christ us invites us to a radically different way of living. Marked by love and justice. Signs of a servants heart and peace. Does that mean its easy work? Certainly not. Does that mean we will always get it right all the time? Probably not. But Christ keeps inviting us to it again and again and again as we move on towards perfection. Has your heart been changed? Amen.

“The Gospel in Boardgames: The Game of Life” Luke 9:24 Luke 12: 15

I grew up playing games with my family and friends. I learned my colors and numbers playing UNO. When I traveled to Russia in college, I re-learned the same things in Russia playing that same game (but don’t ask me what they are now!) I learned how to count money with Monopoly. And we not too long ago sat down with my niece to play the game of Memory to work on matching skills. Games were a huge part of my childhood. 

With that in mind, as our children and teens are preparing to go back to school in the not too distant future, I thought we would have a sermon series based off of boardgames. For the past few years in the summer we have been having sermon series about seeing the Gospel message in the world around us. We’ve looked at the cartoon strip Peanuts. At Disney movies. At children’s books. And just with all of those sermon series, I want to kick us off with the same statement - I am not saying that Board Games are the Gospel. Instead, I am saying that we can use things around us to teach everyone, but most especially with this sermon series, the young people in our lives about the message of Jesus in Scripture. We have tools all around us, even board games, that can help us point to eternal truths about Jesus’s will and way. 

The Game of Life has an interesting past. It was first released in 1860 by Milton Bradly under the title ‘The Checkered Game of Life’ and was the first popular Parlor Game, or indoor game played by a group. In 1960 the game got a face lift and became similar to what we know it as now. It has been re-released every few years with updates and changes, with the most recent revision coming in 2018. It is also earned a place in the National Toy Hall of Fame.

For those unfamiliar with the game, it goes something like this. You are given a person who rides around the game board in a plastic car and you slowly travel through life, making decisions about jobs, education, children, houses, retirement, etc. You go to the bank, you pay fees, all of the components of modern “adulting” found in a safe game for two to six players. 

Your ultimate goal is to collect life tiles and have the largest amount of money at your disposal at the end of the game.

And oh friends, how many people live their very lives like this? Making decisions based off of how much money it will make them or how they can retire with the most assets, or some folks even how they can die with the most possessions. What the Game of Life misses is that old important adage, “You can’t take it with you.”

Enter Jesus in today’s scripture lesson. In the ninth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, we find Jesus on the move. He prepares his disciples for the mission before them, he fed the five thousand, and now he is trying to teach his disciples in private moment about his upcoming death and resurrection.

He is both telling them what is to come for him - “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” And he is telling them what lies ahead for those who take-up the mantle of his leadership. Verse 24 is found inside the larger context of Jesus telling them what it really means to be his disciples. It isn’t about the perks, or what you get out of it - its about what you give - denying ourselves and picking up the cross of Jesus daily. Why? For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.

On one hand it seems like a type of math equation, right? If I want to get life-eternal, that means I have to give up something here in this life. But it isn’t about an equation of how we get what we ultimately want out of Jesus! Instead, it is Jesus trying to teach his disciples, and us, about what really matters. 

See, its not about the game of Life, for Jesus. It’s not about who can walk away with the most stuff or money. Its about being willing to lose it all for the sake of the Gospel.

A few months ago I was listening to a program called “Get Your Spirit in Shape” that is put out by the United Methodist Church. The guest on the program was Rudy Rasmus, who is a well known pastor from the Huston area. Rudy was sharing his call story and experience with God and essentially said this - when God got ahold of his heart and he became saved, everything had to change. He couldn’t keep the job he had. He couldn’t keep chasing after money. Jesus became the center of all he was and that meant all of his decisions and living had to point back to Jesus. 

That’s what it looks like friends, to be willing to lose your life. To disregard that which your life prior to Jesus focused on, in order to point people towards the truth and light of Jesus Christ. 

Fast forward to chapter twelve of the Gospel of Luke. Jesus is teaching again, but this time its in a much more public venue, and all of a sudden someone in the crowd wants Jesus to break into a dispute that is happening in their family, as they cry out, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But Jesus wasn’t having it. Instead, he tells this parable, or story, of the Rich Fool. There was a rich man who had a really good year with crops, and as a result he had more than his barns could hold. So he had this idea to rip down his barns in order to build bigger ones. Only God shows up, calls him a fool, and tells him that he was going to die that very night, and then all of this wasn’t going to matter. 

Jesus said, be on your guard. Because this life is about so much more than what we try to make it about. 

Friends, there are so many of us that are living our lives like they are a board game instead of looking to God’s Word. We try to get as much as we can, while moving as fast as we can, so we can get to this place where we can simply rest in all that we have done and all that we have accumulated. But God’s Word tells us that isn’t the point. 

It’s not about how much you can store up. It’s not about moving on to the biggest and the best thing. It’s not about how you compare yourself when you look around at your neighbors. Instead, its about how you are sharing the love of Jesus. It’s about setting aside all that the world tries to use to distract us, in order to put Jesus front and center. 

Rudy Rasmus went on in the program I was listening to, to say this: “Money is a god to a lot of people. And to de-prioritize money as god and to begin to prioritize good as God, that became my work”.

Church, what is truly our priority and can people tell that by the way we live our lives? What is the purpose of how we live our life? Because our singular life, right here, right now, is not a game. Amen.