Home By Another Road
In our family, vacation days usually mean board games. We
have a tradition of getting a few new board games every Christmas. Most games
are competitive, like Monopoly. I don’t know about your family, but my kids are
ruthlessly competitive Monopoly players. My son usually becomes an all-powerful
real estate mogul in the first half-hour or so. In competitive games like
these, it’s a zero-sum situation. There is one winner and the rest lose. It’s
every man, woman, and child for him or herself. In most games, you’re motivated
to capitalize on others’ bad decisions and misfortune. Most sports are the same
way. One side wins and the other loses. These games mirror how life works. They
help us learn how to win and lose graciously—we hope ;-) But what if there was
another way to play?
A new form of board game has come out in the last
few years that turns this everything we know about games upside-down. They’re
cooperative board games. In these kinds of games, all the players work together
to achieve a common objective. If they succeed, they all win. If they fail,
they all lose. We have three of these games at our house, and it’s amazing to
watch our kids and their friends play. They give each other help, cheer each
other on, and, of course, sometimes put some pressure on each other. These
games are built on the idea that everyone’s fate is connected. Everyone
matters. It’s harder in many ways, and the stakes are higher. But they require
a whole different set of rules that suggest there’s another way to get to the
finish line, or to that coveted Home square at the end of the board game’s
road. The first time my kids played a game like this, they said, “Whoa. That
was cool. I like it when all of us are on the same team.” They had their own
little epiphany when they realized that the ruthless, every person for
themselves, way was not the only way to get “home”.
In 40 b.c.
the Roman senate declared Herod “King of the Jews.” He was named governor of
Galilee at the age of 25, and was chief administrator of the entire northern
section of the country. He had incredible power and material wealth, but he
lived with a constant fear that his status was in jeopardy. His fear made him
paranoid. He saw anyone with any popularity or following as a grave threat.
This fear led him to execute one of his ten wives, drown his brother-in-law and
mother, and take the lives of three of his fourteen children. He believed that,
to rule over a kingdom of people, he had to be ruthless, have absolute power,
and be willing to eliminate anyone who got in the way of his plans. He saw
people as pawns on a chess board in a game he had to win at all costs. He had
forgotten that, long ago, the prophet Samuel proclaimed God’s dreams about a
different kind of King—“a ruler who is to shepherd my people.” Not a ruthless
dictator, but a shepherd.
So when a star stopped over a spot
in Bethlehem, far from Rome, far from the seat of power, and shined over a baby
born to nobodies from nowhere, Herod was afraid. Why would men from the east
risk such a long and dangerous pilgrimage to find a shepherd-king? Why would
anyone roam across dangerous and unpredictable territory to find a king born in
such questionable circumstances? Why would foreign men pay attention to a
prophecy about a king who would risk his own life to go back for even one lost
person? It’s easy to understand why Herod didn’t pay much attention to this
prophecy. It would have seemed silly and unrealistic. A shepherd-ruler or
servant-king makes no sense. That’s not the way the world works. A kingdom that
expands can’t be bogged down in worrying about the restoration and well-being
of every single person. A kingdom that is respected can’t tolerate outsiders whose
culture and ideas challenge it’s power. A kingdom with true authority can’t
abide people from outside the kingdom telling them how things should be
changed. And yet, a star stopped over the place where the child was,
illuminating just this kind of
servant-king. And yet, a star guided men from outside Herod’s kingdom to the
place where power was swaddled in vulnerability. And yet, a star stopped over
the place where God gave those faithful foreign men new dreams of a different
way home; dreams of a new kind of kingdom where the King was the servant of all,
and God’s promise was available to anyone who had eyes to see and a heart to
follow; This King was interested in expanding the reach of God’s love, not his
own territory or power. The rule of life in his kingdom was only that everyone
would have their lives restored and know that they mattered. In this kingdom,
wisdom comes wrapped in humility. This King will stop at nothing to find anyone
who is lost and bring them back into the fold. It’s no wonder that wise men
from all over the map followed that star. In a world where walls keep people
separated, and laws are manipulated to protect some while forsaking others,
this star stopped over the most unfortified place off all to welcome new way and a new rule. The star stopped over
the place where the rules of the game would be changed forever. These wise men
hadn’t come sure of what they would find. They were sent by a cruel king under
false pretenses to aid his destructive plans. And yet, the star stopped over
this new king whose great ambition was to serve, heal, restore, welcome, and
bless all people. The star stopped over the birthplace of a “whole new beloved
community rising in the East”—a community that would live a new rule of life in
which differences are met with curiosity, rather than suspicion; a community
where ambition becomes compassion; a community where cruelty is exceeded by
kindnesses, and where belief in what is possible overwhelms fear about what is
terrible.
This kind
of game-changing rule of life is not naïve or unrealistic, but it is hard. That
is why, when we are baptized, we agree to uphold those vows with God’s help.
God led faithful people from all lands, cultures, and races to the place where
the star stopped, not to give them a cozy, easy place to set up a tent and
stay. God led them, and all of us, to the place where the star stopped to show
us a game-changing new way of life. What the star illuminated was not a new
political philosophy, socio-economic strategy, or a trendy new movement. The
star stopped to show us that the every-person-for-themselves way of the world
is not the only way. It’s not God’s way. When the magi arrived at the place
where the star stopped, and saw Christ, they were overwhelmed with joy because
in Christ God proclaimed that we’re all on the same team. We’re all connected.
We all matter to each other and to God. This is terrifying news to those who
want to divide, conquer, and use people to pursue their own self-aggrandizement.
But to the rest of us, it is the epiphany worth going well off the beaten path
to find.
