“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.