6th Sunday of Easter (C) – May 25, 2022

St. Paul – Lyons, KS

Acts 15:1-2, 22-29; Psalm 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8; Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23; John 14:23-29

9/11 and the “Infinite” War on Terror

September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda launches a surprise attack on the United States. Driven by the ideology and leaderships of Osama bin Laden, terrorists highjack four jumbo jets and flew them into monuments of American capitalism and democracy, all in an attempt to provoke a U.S. overreaction, destabilize Western influence and people’s confidence in American ideals, and several other idealogical goals. From that point on, the “War on Terror” began—and from there on out, the U.S. “won” every major battle, killed or captured every major leader, and has prevented any more “major” attacks. We decimated Al-Qaeda, ISIS who took its place.

But it raises an important question: how do you decimate the enemy, win all of the important battles, but still lose the war? Because the “War on Terror”…it hasn’t ended, we didn’t “win.” As it turns out, we don’t fully understand, or at least there are multiple definitions of, what “winning” and “losing” mean.

We do know that when there are two competitors, we have a “game.” (And real quick, by “competitor” I don’t just mean an “enemy” or someone we hate or they hate us. That’ll be more clear in a second.) So there are two types of games: finite games and infinite games. James Carse was a theologian and professor at N.Y.U. for many years, and in 1986 wrote a little book called “Finite and Infinite Games,” and he sketched the theory of these games. A finite game is a game in which there are (1) known players, (2) fixed rules, and (3) a clear and agreed-upon objective. Take basketball for example. (1) There are known players: five players on each side. (2) There are fixed rules with a team of officials to enforce the rules. (3) And there is an arbitrary, but clear and agreed-upon objective: the team with the most points after time runs out is the winner. That’s a finite game: players, rules, objective—winner and loser.

But an infinite game, an infinite game is one in which there are (1) known and unknown players, (2) where some rules fixed, but some are changeable and not always clearly defined, and (3) where the objective is to perpetuate the game, to never stop. For example, no one “wins” friendship. Or even though you get grades and someone can graduate top of the class, no one “wins” education. Or in your relationship with your spouse, there isn’t a winner or a loser. The “objective” of marriage isn’t to “win,” the objective is to perpetuate the “game,” to love one another forever. You would never say, “I won my marriage!” No, that’s stupid. And this is what I mean by the “competitor” doesn’t mean they’re you’re enemy; they’re just the one playing the “game” with you. Ok.

Now, when you have two people playing a finite game, it’s stable: baseball players playing baseball—stable. Same thing with an infinite game: two people “playing” marriage “’til death do them part” are stable. But problems arise when you pit an infinite player against a finite player. Ok, back to the 9/11 example. Did we “win” the War on Terror? And the answer is that there wasn’t really a clear “winner.” And the reason is that America was playing a finite game while Al-Qaeda and all of the other terrorist groups were playing an infinite game; they just wanted to keep the game going.

Faith As A Finite Game

Ok, this is why I bring all of this up. So often we can live our faith, being Catholic as if it is a “finite game.” We “play” our faith like any other finite game. (1) There are known players: me and God. (2) There are fixed rules: go to Mass, pray the Rosary, fast on Fridays, follow the Ten Commandments. And (3) there is a clear and agreed-upon objective: when time runs out, when you die, you get to go in one of two directions; there are “winners” and “losers”; heaven and hell.

And while there is some truth to that, I would like to invite us to see our faith through a different lens, an “infinite” lens. 1) There are known, and unknown players; 2) some rules are fixed (yeah, like going to Mass, fasting on Fridays, Ten Commandments—I’m not saying that any of those “rules” are not true)—but while some rules are fixed, others are changeable and not always clearly defined; 3) and the objective isn’t just “heaven,” but an ever deeper sharing in the life and joy of God himself.

And the reason I say that it is helpful to see our faith as an infinite game is because all throughout Scripture and our Tradition, we see people living the faith not just as a finite game, but as an infinite one! And when we make that shift, that is also when we see new ways that the faith can shape our lives—like we’ve been talking about all Easter (the faith isn’t something we lose, rather we merely cease to shape our lives by it). This is a shift that will allow the faith to truly shape our lives.

Faith As An Infinite Game

We read in our first reading about Paul and Barnabas being sent to Antioch, and the Apostles who send them describe them as having “dedicated their lives to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” “Dedicated” is nice. The Greek there, though, is paradidomi—which means? “To hand over.” This is the word we use in the garden of Gethsemane when Judas “hands over” Jesus, “surrenders” him into their custody. In other words, Paul and Barnabas didn’t just “follow the rules” or “go to Mass” hoping that when they died they would get to heaven, no. What did they do? They “dedicated,” “handed over,” “surrendered” their lives to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. They lived their lives not for themselves but for another.

Ok, this is the shift from a finite to an infinite mindset. Paul and Barnabas would never ask what the lowest bar was so that they could still get into heaven, they would always ask, “What more? What more can I give? What more can I hand over to the Lord? What more can I do to surrender my life?”

Think in your own life, think how often this plays out. Do you ask, “Man, can I squeeze Mass in this Sunday?” Or do you ask, “What more could I do to dedicate all of Sunday to the Lord?” (Remember how we talked about “Reclaiming Sunday” last year? “What more could I do to dedicate all of Sunday to the Lord?”) Do you ask, “Am I going to go to hell if I only have one or two kids and then we don’t have any more?” Or do you ask, “Could I receive more children from God? Could I be more generous in receiving this gift from God?” Do you say, “Well, I’m a pretty good person. It’s not like I kill anyone.” Or do you ask, “What more could I do to become the person God has created me to be? What virtues do I need? What sins do I need to root out?”

Do you see what I mean? When we live with the mindset that our faith is a “finite” game, then we easily end up asking, “What’s the least I need to do to still ‘make it to heaven’?” But when our mindset is that faith is an “infinite” game, that the goal isn’t just heaven but to perpetuate the game and to deepen our love and expand our heart—then we begin asking, “What more can I do, what more is there to experience the joy, the peace, the everything that God wants for me?” Like Paul and Barnabas, we ask, “What more can I dedicate, hand over, surrender to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ?”