I love games, so do my children. I used to be (and maybe I still am) rather serious about really trying to win. Winning is important otherwise a game is no fun. If one of the participants doesn’t really mind and doesn’t really try to win the fun goes out. You lose that tension and games become either exercise or boring passing the time (a bit like watching television). –You could of course play games just for the sake of the fellowship that it engenders, but that is just a bit too pious and mature to be true for me-. But for that tension, expectation and excitement to be there you need losers and you need losers who mind losing enough to want to win but not so much that the game ensues in a fight. This balance is one that is hard to achieve for young children. Playing games with my five year old often end in tears because he hasn’t won. Just before Christmas he had found a theological solution to his problem of losing. He declared: “God is on my team, so I always win”. It is an idea that he shares with many political and military leaders throughout history. Although Jesus seems to have had a similar confidence he did not need anybody to lose except himself. I hope that in time my son and I will realise that ‘God’s Team’ are the losers that only win when everybody has won.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 20th, 2012 at 7:27 pm and is filed under STETS Blog.