Sixty Wednesday of Lent; March 20th, 2013 The Games People Play: Scrabble Romans 12:3-5 This sermon was preached by Pastor Jim Page at Trinity Lutheran Church
It was 75 years ago in 1938, during the Great Depression, an out-of-work architect named Alfred Mosher Butts decided to invent a board game. His ideas was to create a game that combined skills of crossword puzzles and anagrams with the additional element of chance. The game was originally called Lexico, but Alfred eventually decided to call the game ‘Criss-Cross Words’.
The first attempts to sell the game to established game manufacturers were failures, yet Alfred persisted. In 1948, James Brunot from Newtown, Connecticut who was one of the few owners of the original Criss-Cross Word game, bought the rights to manufacture the game in exchange for given Alred a royalty on every game sold. Brunot simplified the rules and re-named the game Scrabble-a real word that means ‘to scratch frantically’. Brunot and his family made 2,400 set but actually lost money the first year and following three years were a struggle.
It was in 1952, that Scrabble has its big break. Jack Straus, the president of Macy’s, discovered the game while on vacation. He returned home and soon realized his store didn’t sell the game. Mr. Straus quickly placed an order and the interest of the game spread to the point that everyone had to have one.
Brunot sold the rights to Selchow and Richter in Long Island, NY. They like Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley, had originally rejected the game. In just its second year, 4 million games were sold. I. t is estimated that one out of every three Americans own a Scrabble game.
Scrabble is a simple word game involving two to four players. Points are scored by forming words using individual lettered tiles on a 15x15 grid. Words are formed across and down and must be in the dictionary. Each letter, and subsequent scores where they are placed, are vary in point total.
Scrabble is a game of connectedness. While you’re trying to win the game, you realize that you cannot win it on your own. Your success depends on the other people in the game. You can’t just arbitrarily put a word on the board anywhere you wish. You have to build your word on the words already spelled by others. The words need to connect to count.
Our Christian faith is grounded in connectedness: connection to God, to other believers, and to the world in which we live. We were created to be connected with other for our well-being as well as the well- being of others.
In the story of creation in the book of Genesis, God said in chapter 2, verse 18, “Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” After animals and birds were created, he caused a deep sleep upon Adam, removed a rib and made a woman.
That was a wonderful relationship in creation between the man and woman, between them and creation and between them and God. God simply asked them to not eat of the free from a designated tree. Apparently what God provided wasn’t good enough so they ventured forth and disobeyed God by eating some fruit. Doing so under the temptation of a serpent.
The creation story is unique and regardless of how you regard it…it teaches us about an important truth healthy relationships: humility. It’s humility that the Apostle Paul refers to in our reading today: “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly that you ought to think.”
In a world of corporate, political, economic and social hierarchies, humility is a hard sell. After all, who wants to be on the bottom of the heap, last in line or out of the loop? I love this verse from the New Testament book of James, “My dear friends, don’t let public opinion influence how you live out our glorious, Christ-originated faith.” (James 2:1)
People jostle themselves to have others realize how gifted, qualified, valuable or productive they are. Folks compete so they won’t be overlooked or underutilized.
It’s a normal human longing to want to be appreciated, valued and recognized for our potential. And humility does not mean thinking demeaning and low thoughts about ourselves. It’s not denying the truth of our achievements or thinking less of ourselves. Humility stems from an honest understanding of who we are. Humility stems from having someone besides yourself as the center of your attention. Humble people let go of image-management and self-promotion by making the needs of others as real and important as their own.
When Brandon Phillips began playing professional baseball with the Montreal Expos. He was traded to the Cleveland Indians and was known for being lazy and arrogant. Yet displayed unmistakable talent on the baseball diamond. On his first day of spring training with the Cleveland Indians, he showed up wearing baseball cleats embroidered with the words: The Franchise. A nickname he gave himself.
This act was viewed as offensive to the other players and overall management. They tolerated him for a few years until they traded him to the Cincinnati Red. The trade was a wake-up call for him, so to speak. He’s won various Gold Glove fielding awards and he is a coveted athlete for reporters to interview in how he modestly assesses his skills and praises his teammates.
In the scripture reading today, Paul continues, “…not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” (Romans 12:3)
In other words, think clearly and realistically about yourself. It’s not realistic to think your better than others and it’s not realistic to think you have nothing to offer compared to others.
Paul is asking us to assess our lives in order to see again the gifts and abilities God has given each of us. In doing so, we begin to appreciate our unique giftedness that can benefit others in making God’s kingdom known in our midst.
What are your gifts? Do you enjoy doing ‘crafty’ things. If you do, I apologize if I offended you. My wife is gifted in doing craft projects…homemade cards, scrapbooks and we tend to visit scrapbook store, Archivers, when we are in the Twin Cities. I don’t have such a gift so I simply call such projects…crafty things not with the intent of sounding like they are not important. Paul writes, “Not all members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.”
Are you a people-person...willing to connect with others in conversation or a project? Perhaps you are great with tools? Or cooking could be your niche. Music is a great interest point to you. In essence, what are you good at? As a child of God, how can you use, or are you using, that gift to benefit the lives of others where God’s presence is made real?
We may regard this game of Scrabble and our theme today of “Connecting with Christ’s Body” as easily understandable, a simple fact and an obvious truth similar to saying the sky is blue.
Yet, this is an important theme as we draw near the end of Lent since, of all these themes, this is one that gets the most public attention. Rarely do people read in the paper or hear among friends in passing about the family member who was forgiven, about the person who made an effort to limit their schedule since it felt the game of Twister or about the family giving their extra money to a homeless shelter than buying another jet ski.
What gets people’s attention is when divisions occur among individuals and even congregations. This has been true our community and in others as well.
Using our God-given gifts to bless others in our lives, in support of a congregation’s mission of faith development and service and to simply make others aware that God is present, God is active and God cares about this world…is a reality all need to experience.
We are called to connect with others. Those who we agree and disagree. Those whom we know and those whom we do not know. The message of Jesus Christ is one which brings us to God through the death and resurrection of Christ. When we were divided by our sin, Christ brings us together with forgiveness.
Since, in a world marked by corporate, political, economic and social hierarchies and divisions on many fronts…the power of connections can seem small yet have powerful, inspiring and joyful effects.
You possess amazing God-given gifts that can change the world.
Will you join God in connecting with others? You may be surprised at the goodness and joy that you experience as you continue to share what is unique to you. Amen.
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