Sermon Proper 20 B

When we want to be seen as the best we are living in a zero-sum world, where if I win you lose. The Kingdom of God is a non-zero-sum world, where everyone can win.

Proper 20 B

Sermon given on September 23, 2012

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St Barnabas Episcopal Church

It seems like I was not the only little girl that dreamed about being Miss America when I was growing up. I guess today little girls might dream about winning American Idol. And the boys all dreamed about being the best baseball player, or the best football player or the best whatever. It seems we all have this fantasy of being the best at something. And in our culture a lot of energy goes into determining who is the best. This summer we saw the Olympics and the Olympics is a huge industry where for four years people train and work and struggle so that they can be named the best in the world. They get to have that short little time where they are labeled "The Best".

We all know that feeling of wanting to be the greatest. We can understand the disciples in the scripture today. Our society is so focused on determining who is the best that some of the most popular TV shows are the quote “reality shows” where week-by-week, losers are sent off. They may be kicked off the island or no longer dancing with the other stars. Now if you are a star, doesn't that mean you are a success at something, that you are one of the greatest? Yet you have these people that already have some great ability learning to dance and working really really hard to be the best dancer on Dancing with the Stars. It is all about being that number one - about being the greatest. It doesn't seem to be enough to just do our personal best, we want to be the greatest.

We want our children to do well. We want it to be l like it is in Lake Wobegone where all the children are above average. We are constantly measuring ourselves against other people. And that is what the disciples were doing. But sometimes, trying to be first, trying to be the fastest, trying to be the best, trying to get attention can backfire. My brother had an interesting experience when he went to Vietnam. A large group of soldiers took a big airplane over to Nam. When they got off the airplane there was a bus and everyone was loaded on the bus and taken to the base. Now this brother of mine was never one to be overly enthusiastic about anything so when they got to the base he sat as people were pushing and shoving trying to be the first ones off the bus. You've seen that in airplanes, how people are hurrying to try and get off the airplane. With not much effect. So soldiers were pushing and shoving to get off while standing outside the bus was a lieutenant. The first half of the people who came off the bus were all put over to one side. And after enough people were off the bus, the ones who got off later were put in another group. Now the ones who got off first were the ones who were sent to the front lines because they figured that those were the ones who were going to be enthusiastic soldiers. The ones who took their time went to the base, so my brother spent his time in Nam working in an office.

We all know about that drive to be the best, to be acknowledged. And that drive to be best, to be first, comes from seeing the world as what is called a zero-sum game. In game theory, a zero-sum game is where there is a certain amount, and the more that I get the less you get. And the more you get, the less I get. It is like a pie. There is one pie and the bigger your piece the smaller my piece. It is a game where you either win or lose. There is no such thing as both people winning, or both people losing. I win you lose, you wind I lose. Therefore I have to fight. It is seeing the world as not enough and therefore I have to struggle - to get the love from my parents or the respect from my colleagues or the pay raise from my boss.  I have to be the best, to stand out because if they get it, I don't. That's a zero-sum game. And that is how most of us spend most of our lives.

But the Kingdom of Heaven that Christ proclaims isn't a zero-sum game. It is what is brilliantly called a non-zero-sum game. A non-zero-sum game is one in which the total amount available can be increased. In other words how much I get is not lessened by how much you get. It would be like when you have the pie instead of saying if you get a big piece I don't get as much you say “Hey, let's bake pies together so we can have more pies.” Most economic interactions are non-zero-sum games. If I am getting more than enough milk from my cow with more milk than my family can drink, and your apple tree is over abundant, I'll trade you some of my milk for your apples and we both win! We both have a healthier diet. That's a non-zero-sum game. That's what most exchanges are because you wouldn't trade for something if it wasn't going to help you, even though people sometimes negotiate as if buying a car or buying a house was a zero-sum game and try to win the negotiation process. But the truth is that if you didn't want that house and think that you would be better off by getting that house and the person selling it didn’t want the money for selling it, you wouldn't be there to negotiate anyway. No matter what, you are both going to win.

God’s world, the Kingdom of Heaven that Christ proclaims, is a non-zero-sum game. When there are five loaves of bread, if you get two that doesn't mean that anybody else is going to get less because there is more than enough to feed five thousand people. In the kingdom world, in the world of God, there is abundance and there is abundance on this earth. I was just reading an article that said that studies have shown that all around the world approximately forty percent of the food that is raised for human consumption never reaches a human being, but gets thrown away. Forty percent. Some times that because there is a problem of storage or shipping. In the United States it is more likely to be because we buy too much and restaurants buy too much. We end up throwing some away. In developing countries it has to do with not having the shipping or not having storage facilities. It is sometimes difficult to get the food from where it is raised to the people who need to consume it.

We live as if this world were a zero-sum game, but if we work together we have more than enough. In a hunting/gathering society the hunters go out as a team because it is hard to hunt large animals by yourself. Then when an animal is killed, it is more than one person can eat, so it is brought back to the whole tribe and everybody shares. It doesn't matter who is the one that kills the animal in fact everybody is cheering everybody else on. Because when one does well we all do well.

It doesn't have to be a zero-sum game. Imagine two men, two families who have houses on the same block and they both have very large lawns They start to get into a competition of who is going to have a better lawn mower. The first one gets a riding mower and the other one has to buy a better riding mower. Then the first one has to buy even better riding mower and pretty soon they have these two fantastic riding mowers that cost so much that they are both in debt. And they ride them for a couple of hours a week. Now the other option they had would be to say, “Hey, let's put our money together and we can buy one mower that we both can use and we can get the top of the line without going into debt.”

The way we see the world - is it an issue of being the best or doing what is the best? Is it seeing life as a zero-sum game where the more you get the less I have or do we see it as a non-zero-sum game where the more you have the more we all have together? Where the more we work together the more we thrive.

And you see the problem with wanting to be the greatest is that it is completely unchristian. Remember, Jesus told us we are to love one another. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves not compete with them. So, if I am busy trying to get what's best for me, if I’m trying to get on top, I'm not being loving to the ones I consider less than I am. Every time someone says I am the greatest they are saying that others are less, and that's not loving, that's not compassion. And we will find that for those who have ever won an award for being the best, the ones who won a contest, who have gotten the gold medal, that satisfaction doesn't last for very long. But the satisfaction that comes when we help another person - when we help someone else to thrive and to grow and to be a better human being - that is a satisfaction that stays with us and feeds us.