My
eldest son loved computer games when he was growing up. He's a successful professor
of computer science today, so parents, take heart—gamers can end up with
interesting careers! Anyway, he loved computer games so much that he would
invent new games and draw them out with a pencil and paper when his
"screen time" was up. Actually, many a church bulletin ended up full
of little people running around and jumping over obstacles or collecting
jewels.
Today, I invite the children among us to
draw two computer games for us during the service. You can use your bulletin,
or the paper that's in your worship bag. First, I want you to draw, as a
computer game, the story that Jesus tells us in our Gospel lesson. It totally reminds me of the games my sons
used to play. In Jesus' story, the game creator first sets up his world, his
"lands," choosing what the playing field will look like and what
buildings and people and defenses it will contain. Here, the world is a vineyard,
a place where they grow grapes to make wine. The creator gives it everything
you need for making great wine, including lots of skillful workers who live
there. Once the land is all set up, people from the outside start arriving to
collect the harvest for the landowner. This is an opportunity for the little workers
inside to start running around and squashing the outsiders with a variety of weapons.
They feel like they have to protect what's theirs at all cost, until all of
their lives are used up. The creator sends in more and more of his agents, and
those get attacked, too. Finally, he sends in his top weapon, his own son, the
boss with the most lives and power. But the determined workers even kill the
son. The creator is going to have to come up with something even more powerful
to win this game.
This is a game based on violence. It's
a game based on keeping others out, on keeping everything good for yourself, on
the survival of the fittest. It sounds like so many of our computer games.
Sadly, it sounds so much like our world. Already in Matthew's day, Christians saw
the Jewish people as the violent workers, and they put themselves on the side
of the divine landowner. They turned Jesus' story into a story about vengeance.
Later Christians used this text to justify their own violence against the
Jews. And these days … these days … I
don't know about you, but I'm O so tired of violence. I'm O so tired of a world
of walls and defenses and threats and looking out for number one.
I think we need to join in another
kind of game. Children, I'd like you to draw it for us. This game is going to
be harder to draw, though, because it's a lot less familiar to us. To imagine
this game, we have to look again at the Creator who set up the game. How the
Creator loves the world that he has created! He provides it with all the best tools
and buildings and plants, and he puts workers there with the capacity to give
it the best of care. Even when the workers forget his loving care and turn
violent, he keeps reaching out to them in peace, again and again. He even sends
his own Son and heir to them. And when they kill his Son, does he really rain
down violence upon them? No, not our Creator. As Christians, we know that the Son,
crucified and dying, prays to the Creator, "Father forgive them, for they
know not what they do." And the Creator gives us resurrection, new life in
the place of death, and forgiveness in the place of vengeance and violence.
Children, the Creator in God's new game
loves each game character like the dogs who sit with us today in church love
us. The one who makes the rules in this game is always ready to run to us like
a puppy, wagging his tail with joy whenever we come through the door, even if
we have been gone forever. He brings us the ball to play with him, over and
over again. He licks the tears from our cheeks when we cry and reads the
sadness in our hearts before we ever say a word. He will bark and bark until he
gets our attention. He would even jump in an ocean full of sharks to pull us to
safety, and he would walk a thousand miles to find us if we were lost. Children,
can you set up a game for us where the rules follow from this kind of powerful love?
St. Francis, whom we remember today by
bringing our pets to church for a blessing, would be a great model character to
include in our new kind of game. Francis believed in a God of peace. During the
Crusades, Francis went on a peace mission to Egypt. The Crusades were a low point
in Christian history. European Christians were sending wave after wave of
soldiers into the Middle East to convince Muslims to convert or die. Francis
thought that by talking to the Muslim leader, he could perhaps convert him to
Christ in a non-violent way and stop the fighting. What happened was that
humble, bare-footed Francis and the powerful Muslim Sultan made friends.
Talking and spending time together, they came to understand and respect one
another. The Sultan didn't convert, but he and Francis drew up a peace treaty,
and both pledged to put an end to the violence. Unfortunately, the Christian
war-makers didn't want peace, and they condemned Francis and his new game, and
he was forced to flee.
That didn't stop Francis from playing
his new game of peace, however. You perhaps know the story of Francis and the
wolf of Gubbio? The villagers of Gubbio were at war with a big, mean wolf who
prowled around their town, killing their sheep and frightening their children.
Like the workers in the vineyard story, the villagers only knew to use threats
and violence to chase the wolf away, but he just kept coming back. So Francis
headed out barefoot into the forest to talk with the wolf and to find out what
was really going on. What Francis found out was that the thin, shaggy-haired wolf
just didn't have enough food to eat. He was starving, in fact. So Francis promised
the wolf that the people of the village would leave some food out for him every
night. And he made the wolf promise not to bother the villager's sheep or scare
their children any more. The wolf and the people of Gubbio became friends, and
they took care of one another from then on.[1]
Children, we adults long for a game
where people work together to solve problems. Where they tear down walls and
build trust. Where the characters give away riches that never run out. Where
they help one another to open a treasure chest brimming with peace. We long for
the game that the barefooted Son was carrying into the vineyard when they
killed him. We long for the game that St. Francis played so faithfully. The one
where the 3 main rules are to console, to understand, and to love. The one where
winning lies in giving, and living lies in dying to self, and forgiveness lies
in forgiving. Please, draw that game for us, and teach us how to play.
Image found at http://nightflight.com/an-animated-one-tin-soldier-remembering-an-early-70s-anti-war-hit/
[1]
The idea of using these two stories together comes from Don Richter's book, Mission Trips that Matter (Nashville:
Upper Room Books, 2008), 101-103.
