Jesus at the Chessboard
Preached October 17, 2021 by the Rev. Dina van Klaveren; Matthew 20:20-28
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According to the game of chess: the king is the most important piece, allowed to move one square in any direction (orthogonally or diagonally). If your king is threatened with capture, it is said to be in check, and if your king cannot escape capture, the game is over: checkmate. You lose. Do you think Jesus would be good at chess?
I’m not sure. On the one hand, Jesus is Wisdom in human form. Jesus is strategic and gets what is going on at every angle. And yet, Jesus plays around the rigid rules and roles of the game. For example, in the gospel text this morning, James and John are playing by the rules of the game. As they seek to gain status in this Jesus way. They seek to climb the ladder of the Jesus movement and secure positions of influence and power in it. They ask Jesus to position them on that back row of the chess board, on the right and left sides of the king.
Jesus says to them, and us - and I’ll explain the two Greek words in a moment: “…whoever wishes to become great among you must be your διάκονος and whoever wishes to be first among you must be δοῦλος of all.”
διάκονος: translation deacon - an intermediary servant person who acted or spoke for a superior. In the early Christian Church, deacons were agents of the bishop, overseeing the distribution of charity in the community of believers and beyond. The serving work of deacons reminded the ancient followers of Jesus of the activity of angels. Deacons acted as sacred messengers, agents of this Jesus way of love for all.
δοῦλος: translation doula - today refers to a woman who is employed to provide guidance to a woman during childbirth and to support new parents in caring for a newborn. Doula was the name given to the those attending births in ancient Rome, women who possessed .deep knowledge and experience for how birth happens. They comforted during a difficult and frightening time, providing encouragement and a peaceful environment for the family.
Jesus is teaching James and John a new strategy for a new way of life. He gives a new set of high ranking positions to aim for: deacon and doula. It must be hard for them to absorb. They must be shaking their heads- “that’s not exactly what we had in mind, Jesus.”
Instead of “king down, game over” like in chess, for Jesus followers, when the king goes down —the old game crumbles and the new way, the new life opens up. We follow a king who voluntarily became a deacon, a doula, to guide us into resurrected life. To guide us into ways of being reborn in the spirit that we might live forever.
The King of kings says "this game is rigged” and strategically flips it by voluntarily dying, reversing his status and being willing to pay the price for not only his side of the chess board- also for the other side of the chess board. When Jesus died on the cross, it opened a better way, a game of life and love and peace and justice for us.
We are called to constantly strategize with Jesus in flipping over the games of this world that people play on a grand and small scale. While it’s fun to play chess and other games of strategy some evenings - we must be on guard against falling into the larger games society plays in which certain lives matter more than others, in which certain positions have power over the lives of others and fail to serve them faithfully, in which our own desire for status causes us to knock others over.
For Jesus followers, salvation comes when his status is flipped.
Greatness comes through humility. Greatness comes as we claim the power of διάκονος and δοῦλος. Deacons and doulas, serving and assisting, coaching and encouraging, making sacrifices for one another, seeking the good of the community over our own desires for status.
It is really challenging to live in the new flipped way of the game with Jesus as the culture around us, sometimes in the guise of Christian values, beckons us to play by the rules of another game that is not the way of life in Jesus.
Sometimes we deceive ourselves into thinking we are following Jesus faithfully when we are in fact enriching ourselves and gaining in status and being more faithful to institutions or economies or corporations that look nice, and seem nice, and even feel nice - while contributing to injustice.
And so, alongside this challenging and confusing way of life we have chosen as followers of Jesus, we have practices that shape our lives to be more and more like Jesus - more and more into deacons and doulas instead of kings and pawns.
A few of these practices are:
Prayer- the act of acknowledging that we are to in fact the center of the universe, that there is a powerful being we turn to and say:” Help! Thanks! Wow!” (Thats the title of a book on the three essential prayers by Anne Lamott- excellent resource for Jesus followers!) By turning to God in prayer, when we sit with a prayer book open on our lap as the day dawns, when we wordlessly lift our heart in the direction of healing as we watch a helicopter land on 70 to take someone out of their banged up car to shock trauma, or when our eyes widen in the depth of color painted across the sky after the afternoon winds and rains pass as happened yesterday, we pray. We say to God: help that person. Thanks for this new day. Wow, you and your creation are amazing, God!
Another practice is forgiveness. One way to know that you are following Jesus and not playing some game dressed up in the costume of religiosity is to be constantly doing the hard and freeing work of forgiving and forbearing. Forgiving requires us to release ourselves and others from making demands on the behavior of others, or ourself in the past. To experience freedom and peace as we learn from the past and move forward. Forbearance requires us to be gentle, to exercise patient self-control; restraint and tolerance with others even as they are knocking over our game pieces and behaving in ways that violate our values. Forgiveness and forbearance are signs that we are doing the hard work of flipping the game. When we forgive and forbear, we are learning to live more like Jesus.
Another practice is charity. There is a longing in us to serve and assist in real, material ways. We care so much about being deacons in this world and bringing about new life for one another that we contribute a portion of our earnings toward action that will draw us all into the reconciling love of God. We financially, and with our time and skillfulness, contribute to the new way of playing this game. We dislodge our death grip on our status seeking ways and open our hands to offer our lives and our earnings to one another, especially in areas where we see a great need.
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2020 will be remembered for many things- and one of them is a spike in generosity. Philanthropic giving was up nationally by 3.8% from all-time records on charitable giving patterns, even when factoring in for inflation. Physically isolated, struggling through another contentious election cycle, out in the streets protesting racial injustice or watching the protests on the evening news with fear or frustration- while all of that was happening, people gave more money than ever before to causes that they believed would deacon one another, would doula new ways of life into being.
Let’s strategically find ways to deacon and doula. Through prayer, forgiveness and generous giving, let’s bring to life new ways of ordering our own lives and relationships. We are deacons and doulas, called to serve and bring life into this world, that those around us may find themselves drawn into the love of Jesus - the king who willingly went down for every player on the board, that the game might be revamped and reworked into a life-giving way characterized by hearts and homes and communities brimming with peace and joy and understanding.
