Transcript
Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Please be seated.
A zero sum game is when one side wins and one side loses. It would be like checkers. It doesn’t so much matter how you play the game. One player will win and one player will lose. A plus one, and a negative one. Hence, zero sum.
This term doesn’t have to apply to just board games, though. It’s used in politics and conflict too. Politically, it’s the idea that if they win, then we lose. If they get insert social service or fiscal program or whatever it might be, then we don’t get it.
In conflict, it would be like the war in Israel and Palestine. Israel wins and Palestine loses or Israel loses and Palestine wins. Even in personal conflict, how many of us have gotten into an argument with our spouses or partners or roommates or whomever? That has to do with washing dishes, or mowing the lawn, or taking out the trash. One person wins because they don’t have to do the chore, and the other person loses because they do have to do the chore.
A very basic idea of how this theory exists involves cake. Or a cookie, for all of you parents who have ever had to break a cookie in half for two children. If we are sharing a cake and you get a bigger piece, then I must get a smaller piece. After all, that’s the very nature of cake, right? You can’t have an infinite amount of cake. Once it’s cut, distributed and consumed, the cake is gone. There is nothing left. So getting your “plus one” means I’m getting “minus one”.
You can see this idea in today’s gospel reading. The parable of the Prodigal Son. Perhaps one of the best parables in Scripture, at least one of the parables most successful at crossing into mainstream consciousness. We could probably tell the story of the prodigal son without even looking. A wealthy man has two sons.
One, the younger, goes to his dad and asks for his inheritance early- you know, before dad is dead- and then runs off. And I quote directly from Scripture, squanders his property and desolate living. We can only imagine what kind of desolate living this young man was enjoying. Scripture even hints at it. Then, after running out of all his money, the young man realizes that life at home was actually pretty good. So he decides to go home, apologize, and hope that dad will treat him like one of the hired hands. But before the son can even open his mouth, dad is excitedly running to him, hugging him and planning the greatest homecoming party ever. Which of course leaves the older son- you know, the one who stayed behind with dad to work on the farm.
He’s left sitting outside and sulking. For all these years, I have been working like a slave for you. And I have never disobeyed your command. Yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. The parable ends with the dad offering some words to the older son you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. This brother of yours was dead and has come to life. He was lost and has been found. The older son might see the farm, the fatted calf and the young goat, and dad’s inheritance as a zero sum game.
Younger son gets more so older son gets less. After all, younger son already got his half back before he left. So what is left? What should be the older son’s inheritance will now have to be split again between the older son and the younger son. Interestingly enough, this parable is actually offered as the third in a series of three parables.
The other two are the parable of the Lost Sheep. You know, when a shepherd has 100 sheep and loses one, and he leaves the 99 to go find the one. And also the parable of the lost coin. A widow loses a coin and then spends the rest of the day cleaning out the house and sweeping the floor until she finds it, and then throws a big party to celebrate. These first two parables don’t really seem to get the same emotional reaction as the prodigal son. Perhaps it’s because in the parable of the lost sheep, we may be already relate to the one sheep who has wandered off.
If we relate to it at all, that is. And in the parable of the Lost coin, we probably relate to the widow with the broom. Although, full disclosure, if you saw the state of my kitchen floor, you’d see I’d never relate to someone sweeping. But with the prodigal son, I suspect a lot of us, or at least most of us, probably relate to the older brother, the one who follows the rules. Who behaves, who comes to church on Sundays and sits in the pews quietly following along and works hard and saves for retirement and is polite to strangers and tries really hard to love neighbors and all those other things we are supposed to do to be good citizens and good neighbors and good Christians. And if we relate to the older brother more, then we probably get a bit grumbly about the younger brother who, after wasting resources and life and making bad decisions, returns only to be celebrated.
And one conversation I had about this gospel reading, someone said it’s fine for the father to say all that is mine is yours. But how many times had he said that before? Or was it explicitly vocalized? Or was the older son just supposed to read his mind? So the answer or the secret, or whatever it is we are trying to find when faced with a parable, I think everyone would agree that the dad is God and we are the two sons, and some of us squander our heavenly inheritance, and some of us “follow the rules”.
So why should those people who live desolately, to use the scriptural word, still get to be in heaven? Still get the benefit of salvation and grace and mercy and love? Well, it goes back to that zero sum game theory because God’s love is not like a cake or a cookie. It’s not finite.
It is infinite. And God doesn’t love us anymore because we are “good Christians” and God doesn’t love others anymore because they were lost and then found and then returned. No. God loves each and every single one of us infinitely, without ending, without fail, without ever running out of love. Granted, talking about a kid who runs off and spends dad’s inheritance before dad is dead and desolate living compared to the kid who stayed home.
It’s such a grand scale that it’s easy to see the parable, and perhaps some of the absurdity of God’s unending mercy. But what about each of us? What about those small things we do? The choices we make to not love our neighbors quite as much as we should. To not show mercy or grace towards those who really could probably use a lot more of it, or even to sometimes forget about the mercy and grace and love that God has for each of us.
For you and me, it is infinite. No matter what, God’s love is never ceasing. His mercy is wider than the sea, no matter what we do. Jesus will come down from heaven and walk among us and still be arrested, and suffer and die on a cross, and still again rise again for us, and of love and mercy and grace for us. No matter if we were the younger son or the older son, or even the dad, there will always be enough for each of us. Enough love, enough mercy, enough grace.
I hope you remember that this Lenten season, as we are reminded of our own shortcomings and also reminded of the love that led to Jesus hanging on a cross and dying and rising again. There is always enough love for all of us, whether we make the best choices or the not as good choices. This isn’t a zero sum game. There is always enough.
Amen.