{"id":20332,"date":"2019-09-09T13:34:16","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T20:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=20332"},"modified":"2019-09-09T13:34:25","modified_gmt":"2019-09-09T20:34:25","slug":"jesus-wasnt-a-zero-sum-game-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/jesus-wasnt-a-zero-sum-game-player\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesus wasn’t a Zero-Sum Game Player"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Rev. Paul Graves<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI win, you lose!\u201d or \u201cI lose, you win!\u201d That\u2019s the essential message in the Zero-sum Game. The term comes from the worlds of competitive games, economics, politics, neighborhood relationships, or even family dynamics. Persons compete for the same resources, so whatever I win (or lose), you lose (or win). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From benign bicyclists ignoring stop signs to increasingly toxic shoving matches to the horrors of mass shootings, zero-sum games are played every day. Violence in all of its escalated forms testifies to the bully\u2019s illusion that whoever wins the zero-sum game is a real winner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our religious doctrines are pock-marked with winner\/loser theologies \u2014 a zero-sum game on steroids. Yet along comes Jesus effectively saying, \u201cGod won\u2019t play your zero-sum game of scarcity. Neither will I!\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus knew that God\u2019s immense plan for the world was based on abundance, not scarcity. Scarcity encourages hoarding. Abundance encourages sharing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Rev. Paul Graves<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Every one of us has played a zero-sum game in our personal lives, on the streets and stories in our communities, in the complexities of local, state, and national politics, or in the sanctuaries and kitchens of our religious centers. Each time we play \u201cwin\/lose,\u201d we pay homage to the idol of scarcity. Abundance is a faint memory at best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Luke 12:23-34, we see Jesus encouraging his disciples not to worry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you worry about little things, big things, unimportant things, important things?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus\u2019 reminds us how God takes care of birds, animals, flowers, and that we \u201ccount for more.\u201d So trust in God\u2019s generous grace rather than in your fear of being left out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where do you suppose Jesus learned to trust God more than human fear? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most likely, there were many moments leading him to embrace that truth. But I\u2019m sure one of the key moments we can read about is his moment of baptism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As he stood up in the river, Jesus hears a voice say, \u201cYou are my beloved son; with you I am well pleased.\u201d But if you think that Jesus is the only one to hear that voice, think again! That message is for us also. Yet we either may never hear it or not believe it\u2019s meant for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus believed what the voice said about him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And he spent his ministry compassionately trying to convince his followers the voice was also meant for them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He claimed his identity as a child of God. He didn\u2019t need to play the zero-sum game.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He and most of his followers didn\u2019t have an unending supply of material goods, religious or political power. But they did experience a simple abundance of love that affirmed their ultimate value as human beings. Hmm, perhaps that\u2019s a clue as to why we play zero-sum games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the most intense game-players, it seems like their human value is recognized only in their winning. Or, perversely, in someone else losing. \u201cSee, I\u2019m better than you are because I have more medals, more money, more control, more\u2026\u201d (Expletives deleted come to mind here!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The solution to our tendencies to over-worry, or be rudely competitive, or smirk at the put-down of a person or group who is different than we are, is really pretty simple: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fully embrace your identity as a child of God.<\/em>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for us to embrace that solution is so complicated and inconsistent because \u2014 well, maybe we really can\u2019t believe the solution is so simple. So we play the games hoping to win our \u201cshare\u201d of God\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadly, we don\u2019t hear God\u2019s grace constantly declaring, \u201cThe game is over! No one needs to win what I give you freely and lovingly!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rev. Paul Graves<\/strong> serves as the chair for the Council on Older Adult Ministries for the Pacific Northwest Conference of The United Methodist Church.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“From benign bicyclists ignoring stop signs to increasingly toxic shoving matches to the horrors of mass shootings, zero-sum games are played every day.” <\/p>\n

For the Rev. Paul Graves, the pervasive winner-takes-all mentality this engenders stands in contrast to the ministry and teachings of Jesus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":20333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,142],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20332","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-conversation","8":"category-older-adult-ministries"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/chess-1742720_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C627&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-5hW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20332"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20335,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20332\/revisions\/20335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}