Not A Game

We have all played board games with our children.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, we teach rules, patience, and how to lose with grace.

Candyland and Chutes and Ladders were favorite first games.
I always dreaded turning the cards over as I got closer to the Candy Castle.
It was so frustrating to get a character that required me to go back to the beginning.
The children would laugh since they would inevitably win the game.

They graduated from those first games and moved on to Monopoly and Trouble.
Scrabble was always a favorite of mine, as well as the game of Memory.

It was important to teach the children how to play by the rules.
There was a certain way to proceed.
You couldn’t make up the rules as you went along.

It was okay to lose…as long as you lost with grace.
No turning the board over in frustration.
Everyone cleans up…and makes sure all the pieces go back in the box.

Simple rules.
Rules for board games.
Rules for life.

Perhaps, a board game box needs to be given to our leaders.
A box that contains the rules written on the lid.
Rules that can be referred to time and time again.

Remember that you are a servant of the people.
Remember the Word of God, on which you rested your left hand, as you took your oath.
Remember to uphold the Constitution…so help you, God.
Remember that you only have this position because God allowed it.
Remember that you do not make the rules up as you go along.

How wonderful it would be if those rules could be printed on the lid of a box.
I know what the front of the lid would say.
Public Servant: not a game…a calling!

In the fourth year of Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah, and all the other nations from the time I began speaking to you in the reign of Josiah till now. Perhaps when the people hear about every disaster I plan to inflict on them, each of them will turn from his wicked way; then I will forgive their wickedness and their sin.” So Jeremiah called Baruch, son of Neriah, and while Jeremiah dictated all the words the Lord had spoken to him, Baruch wrote them on the scroll. Then Jeremiah told Baruch, “I am restricted; I cannot go to the Lord’s temple. So you go to the house of the Lord on a day of fasting and read to the people from the scroll the words of the Lord that you wrote as I dictated. Read them to all the people of Judah who come in from their towns. Perhaps they will bring their petition before the Lord, and each will turn from his wicked ways, for the anger and wrath pronounced against this people by the Lord are great.” (Jeremiah 36:1-7)

Baruch did everything that Jeremiah the prophet told him to do.
Baruch read all the words on the scroll to the people
The people heard them and looked at each other in fear.
They wanted all of the words reported to the king.

…they went to the king in the courtyard and reported everything to him. The king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and Jehudi brought it from the room of Elishama the secretary and read it to the king and all the officials standing beside him. It was the ninth month and the king was sitting in the winter apartment, with a fire burning in the firepot in front of him. Whenever Jehudi had read three or four columns of the scroll, the king cut them off with a scribe’s knife and threw them into the firepot, until the entire scroll was burned in the fire. The king and all his attendants who heard all these words showed no fear nor did they tear their clothes. (Jeremiah 36:20-24)

What arrogance!
The words were intended to cut the people to the heart.
The words were offensive to the king.
Rather than deal with the truth of those words, the king burned them in the fire.

Gone!
Or so he thought!

The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: “Take another scroll and write on it all the words that were on the first scroll, which Jehoiakim, king of Judah, burned up.” (Jeremiah 36:27,28)

A second scroll was written, but the people did not listen.
Jerusalem, the impenetrable city, fell.

Are the leaders listening?
Are we?
Are we too arrogant to think that our great country can never fall?

We may not actually have a scribe’s knife in our hands, throwing God’s words into the fire.
But we might as well.
If we fail to listen, and fail to obey, we are no better than the king of Judah.
Though we are a bit subtler with our obstinacy.

Public servant: not a game…a calling!