Playing God

People complain when they see folks playing God.  Some folks just don’t like it when others practice birth control, or consider euthanasia, or even take medicine for that matter, depending on the religion.  They don’t want us to mess with stem cells.  They say we shouldn’t play God.

At the same time, those same people have no problem playing God when it comes to sitting in judgement over others.  Playing God  never comes up when they talk about capital punishment, or blowing up abortion clinics.  But in fact, we play God all the time.

Doctors and nurses play God every day.  Certainly, many of those people in the hospital would die each day if those medical saints didn’t provide the best medical care the insurance companies allow.  We have learned to control electricity, chemistry, biology, even atomic structure, all to our benefit.  I mean, sure, there are some abuses that haven’t been so great for us, like pollution and global warming, but nobody’s perfect.

There isn’t anything wrong with playing God.  After all, children play grownups.  They pretend to be grownups all the time.  This is true throughout the animal kingdom.  Baby tigers play at being great hunters.  Baby otters play at finding sea urchins.  Kittens…well, kittens are just crazy.  Anyway, what could be more natural than humanity wanting to be like its creator?  Of course we want to play God.  That is what the whole Adam and Eve myth is all about.  The serpent promised Eve she would be like God if she ate the fruit.  The history of mankind has been all about trying to be Gods.

And that’s where the bible comes in.  The bible is early civilization’s attempt at writing an instructional manual on how to be like God, or at least being like the perception of God for that particular time period.  One can argue that the God of the bible changes significantly over the course of that book.  But of course, the bible was written by people, and we  create God in our image.  Ancient people created a vengeful, jealous, bloodthirsty God because that’s what they were like.  That sort of God justified their own behavior.  But then Jesus came along and told the people that God wasn’t like that at all.  God wasn’t the scary ruler-king waiting to punish us all for our sins, but a loving parent, offering a rich inheritance to any of His/Her children that wanted it.  This was a very different God than they were used to.

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus and said to him,
“Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”
He replied, “What do you wish me to do for you?”
They answered him, “Grant that in your glory
we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.”
Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking.
Can you drink the cup that I drink
or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”
They said to him, “We can.”
Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink, you will drink,
and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized;
but to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to give
but is for those for whom it has been prepared.”
When the ten heard this, they became indignant at James and John.
Jesus summoned them and said to them,
“You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles
lord it over them,
and their great ones make their authority over them felt.
But it shall not be so among you.
Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.
For the Son of Man did not come to be served
but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

When you think about it, James and John really had balls.  I mean, here is this guy you believe is the chosen one of God, your “master”, and you say you want him to do whatever you ask.  Wait a minute…maybe it isn’t just James and John.  When you come to think of it, isn’t that what we all do most of the time?  When we DO pray to God, we spend most of our time asking for stuff.  Please help me get a better job.  Please make me healthy.  Please bring us rain.

Now keep in mind that the general Christian attitude is that Jesus is God.  It’s all part of that trinity thing, but Jesus, as a human, is also divine (of course, he said we all were children of God, and therefore divine too).  What does HE say?  He says it isn’t within his power to grant anything.  He said such honors were for those for whom such honors were prepared.  The Greek text uses the passive voice here.  He doesn’t say that these honors go to the people his Father wants.  He says they go to those for whom they are prepared.  I find that interesting to begin with.  God is not in complete control, apparently.  But that is neither here nor there.

Nevertheless, when the other guys hear all this, they get pissed.  Who the hell are John and James to want some kind of higher status?  It is here that Jesus tries to once again get the message through their thick skulls, that it is all about service.  If Jesus is God, then here is our example.  If we want to be like God, and Jesus is like God, then we should try to be like Jesus.  That’s how you play God.  Be like Jesus.  And Jesus says that the truly great are the ones who serve others. It isn’t about you, it’s about everybody else.

Why are the other ten guys mad?  They are mad because THEY want the same honors John and James wanted.  They were angry that John and James wanted to be top dogs because THEY wanted to be top dogs, each one of them.  But they didn’t know what they were asking for.  Because to be like God, is to serve.  The truth is, we ask God for stuff, and God delivers.  Everything we need, we get.  God, the divine creative spirit of the universe, takes care of all of us, loves all of us.  God is servant.  If we want to play God, then we should serve one another.  There, the problem of Eve is solved.

Nearly fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy told us to “ask not what [your] country could do for [us], but what [we] could do for [our] country.  The secret to a happy life isn’t about getting, it’s about giving.  We had a great country because people placed the needs of the nation first, but not in the fascist way of thinking, taking care of the needs of business, but in taking care of the needs of the people.  That’s how we got Medi-care, and Social Security, and Headstart for kids.  This isn’t just a religious thing.  Take care of others, and our whole world becomes better for all of us.

Fundamentalists like to stress how Jesus died for us.  The word used in this particular reading is that he gave himself as a ransom.  It was the Jewish tradition that when a person was imprisoned for being unable to pay a debt, it was the responsibility of the nearest family member to pay the debt for him or her.  And then Jesus says that each one of us must drink of that same cup, if we want to be like God.  We must be willing to pay the debt for those around us.  In other words, letting people sleep in those beds they made themselves is not a very Christian attitude.  It all comes down to this, be kind.

We all know this is true.  There are many people we all hold in high esteem, our world leaders, rock stars, actors, celebrities, sports stars, all sorts of people.  But those people who we acclaim has being great humanitarians, the Salks, the Ghandis, the St. Francises, the Mother Theresas—those people we place on a somewhat higher pedestal, as though we knew there was something greater about them.  Moreover, those people are our proof that you CAN live a life like that.  It IS possible.  It isn’t easy, but it is possible.

Of course, being that kind of a person isn’t a goal, it’s a process.  None of those great humanitarians ever set out to be great humanitarians.  It’s just something that sort of happened, as though it were prepared for them, you might say.   Life isn’t really a noun.  It’s a verb.  That is the message of Jesus.  In this way, you see, to be a Christian, you don’t have to believe the stories are true, you don’t even have to believe in Jesus.  Being a Christian means you follow the teachings of the man called Jesus.  Those sacred books would tell us that Jesus is our model for God.

So maybe playing God isn’t such a bad thing after all.  Playing God means taking care of each other.  Playing God means feeding one another, and giving one another shelter.  Playing God means to comfort one another in our sickness, and to rejoice in our joys.  Sometimes playing God means to sit and provide a shoulder to cry on.  Playing God means being a friend, and that doesn’t sound so bad to me.  Maybe we should play God a lot more often.