More Than a Game Show--January 14, 2021

More Than a Game Show--January 14, 2021

"...provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a servant of this gospel." [Colossians 1:23]

It's not a game show.  The Christian life, the life rooted in following Jesus Christ and being claimed by God, it's not like a game show, a quiz program, or even trivia night at the nearest Applebee's or sports bar.  It's not about a single question you either get right or don't in a lone moment of your lifespan--it's about the trajectory of our whole lives.  It is, to borrow the phrase Eugene Peterson used once, about "a long obedience in the same direction."

Let me flesh this out a bit.  You know how the standard game show works, whether it's trivia questions and answers (or answers and questions, in the case of Jeopardy!) or solving word puzzles, or guessing the Password, or whatever else: you get enough answers right, and then you are a winner.  Get the question wrong, or guess the wrong letter, or spin the wheel and land on Bankrupt, and you're all done.  It's all very much about creating individual moments that everything rides on.  If you happen to know a lot about the Final Jeopardy category, you can risk it all and hope to double your winnings and win the game--and of course, secure yourself a spot on the next episode as the returning champ.  But if you blow it when the stakes are high, you're gone, with only a few "parting gifts" to take home with you into anonymity.

I honestly think a lot of the time we operate with a picture of the Christian message like we are on some kind of game show where God is the host asking questions.  And if you get the Big Question right (different denominations would each like to phrase the Final Jeopardy question their own way, of course, but same basic premise) you earn a spot in the next episode--the afterlife.  Get it wrong, and you're off the show and out of the studio. We treat the Gospel like God is a genial but neutral game-show host, watching to see if you'll get the answer right, but of course, unable to help you, and bound by the rules of television to make you sweat as you weigh your options and consider your answer.

I don't know how many sermons, testimonies, and altar calls I have heard over the years out of the mouths of Respectable Religious People that present the Gospel basically in those terms.  On television, over the radio, on internet videos, and in county fair exhibit halls, I've heard the Good News of Jesus turned into some Millionaire-style "Who Wants to Get Into Heaven?" game show.  "It all comes down to this--will you say the correct formula for accepting Jesus into your heart?" or "Will you now recite this Creed for me?" or "Don't you want to ask Jesus to be your personal Savior?" and if you get the wording right, the game-show host/preacher declares you a winner and shuttles you off stage so they can get to the next contestant.  It's all so momentary, so short-focused.  It sort of imagines that if you get the right answer, then God is done with you, see you in heaven--and that ultimately, you have yourself to thank for being smart enough to know the correct answer on Spiritual Final Jeopardy!

But that's not really the way the Scriptures talk about how things work.  It's not a single moment you when you either get it right or you lose it all.  It's about a whole way of life.  It's not a solitary point in time, but the arc of our whole lives.  There will be days we feel completely in line with God's ways and are faithfully following Jesus... and there will be days we blow it and miss the mark. There will be days that we say all the right words but our hearts aren't in it, and there will be days when our hearts are anchored fully in faith even when we struggle with getting the words right.  There will be days when our lives and our choices are beautiful reflections of the character of the Reign of God... and there will be days when our hypocrisy or willful ignorance makes all of our choices fall miserably short.  It's a long journey, this life, and recognizing that is important.

The writer to the Colossians sees that.  He reminds the Christians in Colossae that God's goal in reaching them with the good news of Jesus is not to get them to answer a single Final Jeopardy question right so that they can get into heaven one day when they die, but rather that God's work is to sustain us and anchor us in a whole way of life, one that is rooted in the life and love of Jesus.

That means we don't get to say, "I prayed the prayer to accept Jesus into my heart, so I don't have to care about following him." It means we don't get to say, "I went to church and recited the Creed, so now Jesus doesn't get to question my bigotry or selfishness."  And we don't get to say, "I know the right religious jargon, so I can use it to dress my own agenda in it, because all God cares about is me saying the right words."  Colossians insists that God's design is to keep us grounded all our lives long in the story and vision of Jesus--the way he loves, the way he tells the truth, the way he lays his life down for others rather than seek his own interests.  It's not just getting an answer right once and then walking off--it's the whole life's journey, and knowing that God walks with us, pointing us in the direction of Jesus the whole way.

Honestly, this is why we keep gathering together, we Christians--in worship, in study, in prayer groups, and even in online gatherings, too.  It's because we know that our faith is not about a single moment when we mouthed the right words (and earn our heaven points by getting them right), but that we need each other to help hold us accountable, challenge us when we are off-base, encourage us when we are on the right track, and to keep reminding us of the way of Jesus as we all go along the way.  Otherwise it is too easy (too damned easy, literally) to mouth the right-sounding religious words about Jesus and then to get lured into patterns of thinking that nurse our hatreds, infect our love, stifle our commitment to truth-telling, and make us into mean-hearted people. We have all seen it too many times not to believe it happens, and maybe we have had the courage to see the way each of us has been pulled off course before.  But because I don't want to become the kind of person who can say all the right religious words in one moment and then to be hateful, selfish, or mean-spirited in the next moment, I know I need others who will keep re-centering me, who will keep pointing me back to Jesus, and who will keep me grounded in Christ rather than in conspiracy theories.

That's what this verse reminds us--God is not interested in just getting us to mouth the right words one time like it's the last round of a game show.  God is interested--deeply, passionately, and fiercely committed, in fact--in shaping us over the course of our whole lives into the likeness of Christ.  That's what today is about.  That's what every day is about.

Lord God, hold onto all our lives long, beyond learning the right-sounding religious words once, to the shape of our whole selves.