Jonathan Krogh Jonathan Krogh

Gaming Grace

Dear Fellow Gamers:

This past week I’ve been reading (listening to) a book commended at the conclusion of an Ezra Klein podcast, a space where he asks every guest to recommend three. This particular suggestion, The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else’s Game by C. Thi Nguyen, is a playful mashup of cooking technique, game theory and organizational philosophy. Previously a food writer, Nguyen has brokered his personal obsessions with international cuisine, rock climbing and

Dear Fellow Gamers:

This past week I’ve been reading (listening to) a book commended at the conclusion of an Ezra Klein podcast, a space where he asks every guest to recommend three. This particular suggestion, The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else’s Game by C. Thi Nguyen, is a playful mashup of cooking technique, game theory and organizational philosophy. Previously a food writer, Nguyen has brokered his personal obsessions with international cuisine, rock climbing and dinner party conversation into a job as an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah. Shoot!...rock climbing...no wonder my academic career stalled.

The Score is one of those books that is better experienced than reviewed. Nguyen contrasts game rules with social norms and cultural values. In games, he suggests, players are invited into a world of structured and unstructured conditions that draw in those who want to win with those who simply enjoy playing—the best games appeal to both. Nguyen believes social structures are similar. The difference is our failure to see the rules as manufactured; they are changeable, adaptable, mutable. Our values have been collectively curated, and for Nguyen, our failure to see their social construction causes their useful bonds to become destructive binds. 

Nguyen’s book has nothing to do with scripture or theology, but it brought me to understand Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in a whole new way. Jesus is not reading off a score sheet for better moral behavior; Jesus offers a radical reconstruction of what we define as moral behavior. My sermon Sunday nodded to Nguyen’s influence. The Beatitudes are not asking us to see people’s moral behavior from a different angle—to consider the mourning, the meek, the pure in heart and the persecuted in a more compassionate light. Jesus was announcing a whole new scoring system. These categories are nothing short of aspirational models for all behavior. The poor in spirit, the merciful, the righteousness-seekers and peacemakers are the very definitions of blessed. 

In Matthew 5.21-48, Jesus provides a series of oppositional examples. Each begins with a formula: “You have heard it said… But I say unto you…” Following the first phrase, Jesus provides a traditional game rule along with a description of how players (that’s us) score the system in relative terms: eight points for loving friends, deduct two for hating enemies; ten points for fidelity, deduct five for divorce; three points for honesty, add four when adding, “With God as my witness!”; and so on. Then, following the second phrase, Jesus continues by offering an alternative metric, one that is so uncompromisingly absolute that every player is rendered equally lousy. Jesus’ alternative scoring does not invite comparison, but equality. We are not better or worse players; we’re all the same.

This completely changes what I thought Jesus was saying in 5.17: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill”; and 5.20: “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The goal isn’t to be better than the scribes and Pharisees; that just creates a new kind of Pharisee. The goal is to see even the scribes and Pharisees as inter-reliant teammates in the challenge to seek mutual grace. 

Sometimes when I have what I think is a new insight, I can hear some of you say, “You just now saw that?” Never mind! I’m just glad to be sharing the game table of life with you, as I remain,

With Love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor

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