Easter 6 (NL1) / Mother’s Day John B. Valentine
Romans 5:1-11 May 14, 2023

“CHUTES OR LADDERS?”

Any of the rest of you big fans of board games???

Any of the rest of you while away countless hours of your childhood playing this, that or the other board game with whomever you could find to join in???

Humor me for just a moment.

You know how ... earlier this Spring ... the Governor terminated our state’s COVID-19 State of Emergency ...

And how ... earlier this week ... the Federal government lifted almost all of it’s remaining pandemic restrictions???

Let’s celebrate our new-found social freedoms by doing a little “turn-and-talk” for the first time in three-plus-years!

Seriously ...

Turn to those around you ... and ask at least two people in your corner of the sanctuary what their favorite board game was as a kid ... or perhaps what their favorite board game still is ... and tell them yours.

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What kind of answers did you come up with???

• Clue? ... Monopoly?
• CandyLand? ... Life?
• Risk? ... Mouse Trap? ... Sorry?

Did anybody say “Chutes and Ladders”?

Do any of you remember “Chutes and Ladders”???

Chutes and Ladders was that kind of checker-boarded sort of a game that had a series of squares ... numbered from one to one hundred ...

With a cheap little spinner that had pictures of kids playing on a playground all over the board.

If you looked closely at the board ... you could see:

• there were commendable ... selfless ... behaviors that rewarded you with “ladders” that allowed you to by-pass a certain number of squares ... and

• there were reprehensible ... selfish ... behaviors which got you “chutes” ... whereby you slid back further down the board and had to start working you way back up again.

Now ... as I remember it ... playing “Chutes and Ladders” did NOT indicate that any of those morality lessons were actually being learned.

No ... at least in our neighborhood ...

• If one of us hit a ladder ... it was accompanied by the inevitable “ecstatic dance of victory” ... or at least a severe case of giddily kicking one’s feet on the floor.

• And if one of us hit a chute ... there was the requisite moaning and groaning by the one who’d just been “chuted” ... and gloating grins that crossed the faces of everyone else gathered ‘round the board.

It seems to me that ... rightly or wrongly ... the core lesson of ‘Chutes and Ladders” ... if you look really closely at the pictures on the board ...

Selfless behaviors are rewarded in this world ... and selfish behaviors are penalized.

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But how does that stack up against the world in which we actually live?

Let’s be honest here ... folks.

I mean ...

Selflessness is something we say we all encourage ...

Until someone suggests that they establish a homeless shelter in downtown Orinda ... like they did a couple of decades ago now ...

And then ... all of a sudden ... everybody seems to get a serious case of the NIBMY’s ... “Not In My Backyard” ...

Selfishness ... on the other hand ... is something that we say we find reprehensible ...

But if our investment advisor doesn’t at least keep up with the market average ... we complain that they need to make us more money and we find ourselves in the market for a new financial advisor!

Selflessness is something that we say we all hold dear ...

Until someone suggests we allow a bunch of Central American asylum-seekers the opportunity to participate in the American dream ...

And then ... all of a sudden ... Democrats and Republicans start to work together to figure out new ways to better secure our borders.

Selfishness ... on the other hand ... is something that we say is just wrong ...

But what do you think happens when someone suggests that we give up our seat ... at the game ... at the concert ... or on the airplane.

Point being ... it the game Chutes and Ladders” really imitated life ...

It’d be the selfish behaviors which would be the ladders ...

And the selfless ones which would be the chutes.

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But ... into the midst of all of our game-playing ... come the words of this morning’s Scripture lesson..

St. Paul’s perhaps familiar words about the heart of the Gospel message.

“For while we were still weak” ... Paul says ... “at that time Christ died for the ungodly.”

“Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die ......”

“But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely, therefore, since we have now been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God.

“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.”

• WHILE we were still weak .... Christ died for the ungodly .....

• WHILE we were still sinners .... Christ died for us ....

• WHILE we were enemies .... we were reconciled to God by the death of his son.

What Paul seems to be saying here ... LOUD AND CLEAR ... is that Jesus opted for the chute ... not the ladder ...

That he takes the chute ... in selflessness and service and sacrifice.

That he takes the chute ... for our sake and for our salvation.

That he takes the chute ... to gift us with that which we could NEVER achieve on our own.

And if ... IF ... we ... in the face of this Good News ... are going to “go in peace to serve the Lord” ... we do that precisely by taking chutes rather than ladders ... even as Jesus has done for us.

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It was Friday of this week that I had to hop in the car and head up to Dixon ...

For a funeral service at the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery for Martha Billman ... who was a regular worshiper among us for a number of years ... along with her husband Glenn ...

Until age and cognitive challenges meant she couldn’t get out much any more.

And ... as I was talking with her sons about the life which she had lived ...

Her sons insisted that ... though Martha was an amazing Mom ... that her real life-accomplishments were related to her being

• a community volunteer ... and
• a middle-school counselor ... and
• an advocate for educational rights for women in Saudi Arabia.

They thought that their mom was a pretty amazing woman in her own right ... which she was ... and they wanted the community to know.

But I have this clear recollection of Martha ... the first time I got to chat with her after worship on Sunday morning ...

After rattling on about how proud she was of her husband and his amazing career ...

And giving me a bit of the history of each of her three sons ...

I dared to ask her what it was that she had done with her life ...

To which she quickly replied ... with a bit of a grin on her face ... ‘Oh .... I was just a homemaker.”

And it was this pointed reminder ... to me ... that ... while Martha’s sons were rightly proud of the ladders their Mom had climbed ...

Martha herself was far more satisfied with the chutes which she had taken ... and particularly with that selfless chute which we call ‘motherhood’ ...

“Just a homemaker.”

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But here's a funny thing.

You know how the Church ... over the ages ... has come up with countless titles for Jesus ...

• Beautiful Savior ... King of Creation ...
• Son of God ... Son of Man ...
• King of Kings ... Lord of Lords ...

Stuff like that???

But have you ever heard the Church affix to Jesus the title of ‘homemaker'???

You see ... in the 14th chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John ... it seems like that is precisely the title which Jesus claims for himself.

What was it that he said?

"In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also."

You see ... there's a difference ‘houses' and ‘homes'.

Houses are just places .... homes are places filled with hospitality and humanity and care.

And ... by in large ... the one who converts that space from a ‘house' into a ‘home' is one whom we label a ‘homemaker'.

And what Jesus seems to be telling his disciples ... and telling us by extension ... in those verses ... is that HE is the master homemaker.

That He is the One who prepares places.

That He is the One who fills spaces with hospitality and attention and acceptance and love.

That He is the One who has owned responsibility for making that house a home.

Even as ‘homemaker' may not have been Martha's only vocation or Martha’s only title ... it seemed to be the one which mattered most to her.

And ... I guess ... in a certain way ... we could say the same thing about Jesus.

That ‘homemaker' may not have been Jesus' only vocation ... but by all rights it was the one which mattered to him the most.

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So ... on this day on which we celebrate ...

Those women who give ... and have given ... of themselves in selflessness and service to their families and their communities and to God’s world ...

Those women who have opted ... in their own ways ... for the chutes of selflessness rather than the ladders of selfishness ...

Those women who have owned the title of ‘homemaker’.

Let’s also celebrate the One who was and is our homemaker in the Kingdom of our God.