2/13/22 "The Long Game" by Nancy E. Petty

Playing the Long Game

Luke 6:17-26

The Urban Dictionary says the long game is having a long term plan, long term goals, or doing things now that set you up for the future. There are articles about playing the long game in the arenas of sex, dating, creativity, business strategy, education, and financial planning. Basically, playing the long game applies to every aspect of life and work. Given that long term planning and investing for the future are not new ideas, the phrase, “the long game,” seems to be a relatively new way of saying something old.

As I thought about this phrase, “playing the long game” I wondered if there was a phrase called “playing the short game.” The Urban Dictionary doesn’t address the phrase, “playing the short game” but it seems this is a saying related to golf. It is the aspect of golf considered in relation to the ability of a player to hit medium or short shots, as chip shots, pitch shots, and putts, with accuracy. Without much knowledge of golf, I concluded (made up) that “playing the short game” was more about making a decision and acting in the moment in a way that benefits a short term need or desire. So if you will, just go with me on this one.

Now I don’t have any research to back this next statement up, although it’s probably out there somewhere on the worldwide inter-web, but my educated guess is that in our younger years we are more geared toward and motivated by the short game than the long game. I know I was. In those early years, life was dictated by what feels good in the moment and immediate gratification rather than long-term consequences, whether good or bad. And while I have mostly adjusted my life now more to playing the long game, the short game can still call my name. Just this past week, in a moment of weakness, I played the short game rather than the long game. For some reason, I had been wanting a beef brisket sandwich from City BBQ. An old indulgence of mine. For the most part, over the last several years, I have greatly reduced my beef consumption. As a result, beef now will often upset my stomach. But on this given day, my spirit was weak and my car drove us right into the parking lot of City BBQ. As I took the first bite of my sandwich there was immediate gratification. All was good in that moment – no regret, no guilt. Fast forward, three hours later and still three days later, the short game implications became known. My stomach is still adjusting as I stand before you this morning. I know that is a silly example, but you get the point. The short game is geared toward what feels good in the moment and the long game is about the future – whether that future is three days out, or three decades out, or three thousand years out.

It seems to me that Luke’s account of Jesus’ sermon on the plain is about the long game verses the short game. But a bit of background first. This set of teachings by Jesus to his disciples is found in both the gospel of Matthew and the gospel of Luke. Matthew gives it the title, Sermon on the Mount, while Luke’s designation is the Sermon on the Plain. There are two obvious difference in Luke and Matthew’s accounts: Luke’s version of the “sermon” is shorter than Matthew’s; and Luke expands the sermon to include, along with the blessings, a set of woes.

It is likely that Jesus told these teachings more than once as he traveled about the countryside. But both Matthew and Luke place their recollection of these teachings after Jesus has called together his group of disciples and before he begins his final journey into Jerusalem. Unlike Matthew, Luke is writing to someone or “someones” of high social standing. In the first chapter of Luke, in the first four verses, we learn that Luke is writing to Theophilus. Now to answer the question, “Who is Theophilus?” is a bit tricky and demonstrates just how complicated understanding a biblical text can be. To those who want to designate one and only one meaning to a passage of scripture, answering the question, “Who is Theophilus?” is a good lesson in just how complex historically, culturally and linguistically the scriptures can be.

So let me explain. Both Luke and Acts were written in a refined Koine, Greek and in the Greek language, the name Theophilos can mean friend of God or beloved by God or loving God. With this understanding, one could conclude that Luke was not writing to one individual, as the name would suggest, but to a community known as “friends of God.” And yet, the true identity of Theophilus is unknown, with a number of traditions swirling around various identities. Coptic tradition asserts that Theophilus was a person and not an honorary title. The Coptic Church claims that Theophilus was, indeed, a person – a Jew of Alexandria. Others say that Theophilus was probably a Roman official of some sort, because of the way Luke addresses him. There are theologians who believe that Theophilus could have been Paul’s lawyer during his trial period in Rome. I’ll spare you the supporting evidence of that opinion. And still, other scholars believe that Theophilus was a High Priest of the Temple of Jerusalem. So was Luke writing to an individual or a community? And does it matter?

Whatever position you take, whethere Luke was writing to an individual named Theophilus or to a community of people known as “friends of God,” at the heart of Luke’s account of the Sermon on the Plain is the question: What does it mean for such a person or people to join the Jesus community? Or another way to ask that question: Is being in the Jesus community about the short game or the long game? Is it about a moment or a movement? It is about doing what feels good now – instant gratification – or acting in ways that set us up for a future?

Luke begins with the long game:

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.

Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

And then, for clarity’s sake, unlike Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount, Luke makes clear the short game:

But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.

Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.

Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

It’s a fair question, albeit not the point, but a fair question to ask: Do I have to poor, hungry, weeping all the time and have people speak ill of me in order to be a part of the Jesus movement? The answer, I believe, is No. God doesn’t desire for anyone to be poor, hungry, mournful all the time or having people revile or exclude them. However, one of God greatest desires for us is that we stand in solidarity with the poor and the hungry and those who are weeping and who are excluded for loving God as they know God. But it is more than solidarity in word. Solidarity means working and acting together to change the systems that leave some people poor, hungry, weeping and excluded.

In both the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus is speaking to us about the choices we will make about how we will live in this world. Will we play the short game – finding our riches here in earthly things, filling our egos with tasty but empty calories, always chasing the next high that numbs us from our dis-ease and discomfort, and speaking the popular word rather than the prophetic word? Or will we play the long game – setting up systems for a future where no one is poor, making individual and communal choices that ensure no one goes hungry, standing in solidarity with and crying out for the injustices of our world, and risking looking foolish for love and inclusion and welcome?

Luke, in his recounting Jesus’ core teachings, wants to make clear just how high the stakes are for those who want to be “friends of God.” There is no clearer statement in all of the Bible on just how high those stakes are than in Luke 6:22:

Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.

In a world that spins on popularity and being in the “in group” and possessing high status among others, those are high stake words that make playing the long game a tough choice. So why choose the long game? Because the long game is where we ultimately find meaning in life. The long game is where we experience abundant living. The long game is where we experience that transformative love that Chalice talked about a couple Sundays ago. The long game is about living an authentic life. The long game is where we find forgiveness and grace and hope. The long game is where we find community – the kind of community that sustains us through our spiritual poverty, hunger, and weeping. The long game sets us up for a future that does not disappoint but offers hope, even in the midst of pain and suffering.

I want to return to Theophilus just for a moment. I have concluded that the answer to the question “Who is Theophilus?” is both/and. Theophilus represents both us as individuals and as the community of the “friends of God.” Likewise, the Sermon on the Plain is directed to both us as individuals and as the collective “friends and community of God.” I have been thinking about what a set of new beatitudes for the church – the collective friends of God – might sound like today (not that Jesus wasn’t clear enough). But just to give us some more food for thought, I offer these:

Blessed are the churches that become physical shelter for the homeless, the refugee, the queer teen whose family disowned them, for those churches will find the shelter of God’s love.

Blessed are the churches that love the entire world rather than their own tiny country, state, city or congregation, for they will know the unbroken web of life and the meaning of being God’s beloved community.

Blessed are the churches that forgo extreme efforts at saving the institution and instead risk extravagantly for the common good, for those churches will be filled with love and hope.

Blessed are the churches that do not see their primary purpose as the ingathering of people to fill a building in but rather the sending forth of people into the world to be God’s justice-love, for those churches will transform the world.

But woe to the churches that set boundaries and exclude others from finding welcome in God’s sanctuaries based on gender identity, economic status, doctrinal belief or faith tradition, for those churches will be empty of God’s love.

Woe to the churches that isolate and insulate from the global human and non-human community, for those churches will be empty of God’s compassion.

Woe to the churches that never risk going to the edges of society where Christ lives, for those churches will never experience God’s transformative hope.

And woe to the churches that only see their purpose as saving souls for Jesus and adding to their numbers of the baptized, while ignoring the orphan and the widow – the individual sleeping on the street, the hungry child, the single mother struggling to keep the lights and heat on, the queer young person longing for acceptance and belonging, the refugee who made it to this country of freedom and opportunity who still has family being persecuted in a war torn country, for those churches will have no relevance in God’s world.

The short game is often enticing. But it is the long game that God longs for the people of God to play, for it is the long game that sets up a future of hope for all of creation. It is the long game that will usher in the kingdom to come. May we be long game people! May we be a long game church!