Winning by Losing
Living Beyond the World’s Definitions of Winning and Losing
The lectionary gospel assigned for this coming Sunday is Luke 6:27-38 and is part two of Jesus’ sermon on the plain. If you’re a preacher, I hope the following might help you prepare because, as we all know… Sunday is coming.
Our world has unambiguous definitions for winning and losing; from what I can tell, those definitions will not change anytime soon. We celebrate winners and give a gentle nod to those labeled as “the losers.” While it is not polite to frown on losing, no one I know aspires to be a loser or adopts practices that lead to losing as the pre-determined outcome.
Jesus takes our definitions of winning or being a winner by commonly held community standards and flips those rules more sharply than my younger brother trying to change the rules while playing Monopoly on Christmas Day.
After a night of prayer and followed by choosing his twelve disciples, Jesus delivered this sermon containing guidance on living in the kingdom that broke into human history through Mary’s womb and forever changed the world with the empty tomb.
Before laying out the seemingly impossible task – loving your enemies, for starters – Jesus offers four beatitudes, blessings, and four woes.
Blessed are the poor.
Blessed are the hungry.
Blessed are those who weep.
Blessed are you when you are hated.
Woe to the rich.
Woe to the full.
Woe to those who laugh or mock.
Woe to those who are falsely propped up.
Blessed are you, the one overlooked by the world.
Woe to you who cannot see beyond your pride and self-interest.
Blessed are you, the one deemed a loser by the standards of the world.
And woe to you who insist on those standards being kept.
In this flip, Jesus declares a new way of living and being. Jesus is not offering a list of character qualities for us to aspire toward. No, Jesus’ opening words in the Sermon on the Plain create a new list of contrasts between the kingdom of Caesar and the Kingdom of God with the implications of Jesus’ flip detailed in our scripture reading.
Love your enemies. No thanks. I can barely love my neighbors.
Bless those who curse you. I would rather pass. They can have their blessing when they stop their cursing.
Pray for those who abuse you. Maybe next week, Jesus.
Do to others as you would have them do to you. How about doing to others as they have done to me.
These tongue-in-cheek responses better match the game we have played since birth. This is a game where getting even and settling the score are preferred norms. Instead of being merciful just as God is merciful, we trick, deceive, and get even. And if we do not do those actions, someone will surely do it to us.
Jesus’s words are cute and a nice ethic we can aspire to, but the world tells us that in a world of winners and losers, we want to be on the winners' side.
In 1991, Ted Turner, described on his Wikipedia page as an American entrepreneur, television producer, media proprietor, and philanthropist, said, “Christianity is for losers.” Turner later apologized for the comment because when you are an entrepreneur, television producer, and media proprietor, alienating a significant segment of the population is bad for business.
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you… love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”[1]
By the standards of the world, when Jesus said what he said, Turner was right.
We cannot win the game the world insists we play because, as Bishop Will Willimon puts it, “You have not won anything because everybody plays this game of tit-for-tat retribution; and because everybody plays it well, everybody wins, so nobody wins.”[2]
The world wants us to play a game where there are more losers than winners, and even winners are ultimately losers.
Jesus is inviting us to play a new game, a new way of living, a new way of being in a relationship with one another. Jesus’ invitation is to a new relationship, a restored relationship with God.
What is the name of this game? “… love your enemies, do good, lend, expecting nothing in return… and you will be children of the Most High, for God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as God is merciful.”[3]
This is a way of living that sets aside the need to play games.
A way of living where forgiveness – for them and you – abounds.
Where grace is amazing and also offensive – amazing that is for us and offensive that is also just as much for them.
A life where our preconceived notions are flipped because the rules under which we operate are not devised based on what I or even what the other person wants or deserves. Instead, this is the invitation Jesus is extending to a life where the basis for everything is rooted in God.
And who is God?
God is, as Jesus notes in verse 36, merciful.
God is a father welcoming the prodigal home.
God is a shepherd who will leave the 99 behind in search of the one that is lost.
God extended forgiveness when he was nailed to the cross and continues to forgive.
God is the One who takes your “deepest sins and your shameful secrets”[4], marks them as irrelevant and then extends an invitation to a new way of life.
God has invited us to play a seemingly impossible game: playing absolutely no games. Love your enemies, do good, lend, and expect nothing in return. It sounds difficult, but God has not left us to do this alone. Jesus is setting us up for failure, so we will drop to our knees, knowing that under these rules, we have no hope apart from a savior who is doing the law for us—loving his enemies, doing good, lending his life, and expecting nothing in return.
Jesus invites us to set the games aside and live a life of losing in the best way possible.
[1] Luke 6:27-31, 35-36
[2] Willimon, Will. “A Religion for Losers.” Duke University Chapel. February 23, 1991.
[3] Luke 6:35-36
[4] Bell, Rob. Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived
This also pairs well with the OT reading from Genesis 45 when Joseph reveals himself to his brothers. Imagine what the outcome would have been if Joseph played the game to win by the world's standards. Would that have been a happy ending? No, the only way to win is to lose. Forgiveness and reconciliation are the true prizes.