Playing the Wrong Game

Like a lot of you I grew up playing Monopoly with my family on the living room floor. I remember I always wanted to be the Race Car. And I treated the game just like it was a race car game. I sped off and did my best to make it around that little square track as fast as I could, not slowing down to miss a beat. Ninety-to nothing I was in my car and I was out to collect my $200 for passing Go! My mother was the banker. “Reading Railroad, do you want to buy it?” “No.” Pass Go! Collect $200. “St. Charles Place, do you want to buy it.” “No.” Pass Go! collect $200. Yes! Boardwalk, Fifth Avenue? No. Just give me my $200. While I was speeding my race car around the board my dad was busy being the Top Hat. The ultimate symbol of a Monopoly baron. St. Charles. Yes, I’ll buy that. New York Avenue. Why yes, I’ll buy that also. Boardwalk, Park Place. Yes, I’ll buy those too. Thirty minutes into the game I’m rolling in the dough and my dad is almost broke.

And then I land on my first house. And then the second house. And then the hotel. “Let’s see,” my mom says, “Boardwalk with two hotels and nine houses and a couple of horses and a Jacuzzi out back. Yes, Ryon will also be needing a $700 billion bailout.” I look up at my dad. He’s standing over me in a top hat in the middle of the living room jumping up and down on my little race car shattering it into pieces.

When I was in divinity school I did a summer internship in an inner-city ministry and made friends with a 13-year-old kid named Alvin. Alvin’s father was in jail for killing his mother and Alvin himself was on the margins. His life was at a critical point. He could go one way or he could go the other. I was glad to be there at that critical time to befriend him and to help steer him in the right direction.

Then my internship was over. I went back to the Gothic Wonderland of Duke. I was just a couple of blocks away from Alvin’s house, but I was a world away from his life. Yet Alvin kept showing up. I was a Resident Assistant on campus and I kept finding Alvin roaming the halls of my dormitory. I would come home from school and there Alvin would be, hanging out beside my door. I mean he was desperate for a friendship.

But I was too busy. I was too busy studying theology. I was too busy plunging the depths of God’s mind. I was too busy trying to make the grade. I didn’t have the time for an interruption like Alvin.

I was driven by fear that Alvin was going to ruin my nice, orchestrated life. Do you see? I was being the Race Car again. I was playing the wrong game again. I had gone to seminary to learn about God and instead I was settling for a theological education.

And I risked a 13-year-old boy’s life while I was at it.