The old preacher went to visit one of his parishioners who owned a small farm. The farmer had worked hard, but just scraped by to make a living. The preacher was greeted warmly, and on the porch was offered a glass of lemonade, a cane-bottom chair, and a conversation. As it always did when the preacher visited, the subject of church came up, and on its heels, the subject of money. Supporting the church. Stewardship. Tithing.

            “Preacher,” said the tired farmer, with a twinkle in his eye, “you know if I owned a hundred cows that I would tithe. Yes, sir. You know I would. Gladly. Support the church. Yessir.”

            “A hundred cows?” asked the preacher.

            “A hundred cows.”

            “What if you owned fifty cows?” Asked the preacher as he rocked slowly back and forth, surveying the beauty of the evening sun, setting across the farmer’s fields, in which three cows quietly grazed.

            “Yes, sir. Um. Hm. You know if I had fifty cows, I would gladly tithe. I believe in the church. Yessir. Fifty cows. I’d tithe.” (The thought made them both smile.)

            Still rocking slowly, the sly old preacher said, “What if you had three cows.”

            The farmed stopped rocking, and shot a glance at the preacher. “Now preacher. You know I only got three cows!”

            Three cows.

            “’Game theory’ was conceived by the mathematician John von Neumann in 1928. It involved finding a mathematical proof of the optimum strategy to adopt in games such as poker or bridge.”[1] In the 1940’s this intriguing theory was adopted by an Austrian economist named Oskar Morgenstern, who began to see broader uses for this academic exercise. Game theory analyzes two types of so-called  “games,” that academics have found useful in understanding the world through their many and varied disciplines of study.

            I don’t understand game theory, certainly not the mathematical aspect of it, and here’s all you need to know about it to make sense of this sermon. According to von Neumann’s now much broadened idea, there are only two types of “games” or “strategies” in the universe. A preacher seeking to use his insight would say that there are only two types of theologies, or ethics, or spiritual approaches to the world, and to our interaction in it. The first is called the “Zero-Sum Game.” It is a well-known game, which we all have played. In this game, “one player’s gain is always the other player’s loss.”[2] Sports are zero-sum games: for me to win… you have to lose.

            Zero-sum games are played when there is a finite amount of “stuff” – or, when people believe there is a finite amount of stuff. In the cutthroat play for that finite stuff, there is only one winner. There is always at least one loser.

            The second kind of game is harder to learn, for in “The Non-zero Sum Game,” there is no necessary “winner” with a corresponding “loser.” Non-zero-sumness suggests that win-win really is possible. The interesting thing about the “Non-Zero-Sum Game,” and this is borne-out by mathematical proof and evolutionary science,[3] I dare say you have experienced it in interpersonal relationships as well, is that non-zero-sumness is really better for everyone involved. Win. Win.

            In his book, Nonzero, Robert Wright suggests that life as we know it could only be, as we know it, as a result of non-zero-sumness. In Charles Darwin’s survival-of-the-fittest world (a world that should be very much ruled by the zero-sum game), somehow the creatures that evolved here have learned that what I have is not necessarily just mine. “Maybe I didn’t earn it all on my own, after all.” “Maybe it’s not really in my best interest just to hoard ‘my stuff.’” Somehow the creatures, that is, we, learned that only in sharing, that only in the non-zero-sumness of selfless generosity could the world really move forward.

            What Wright sees is the evolution of a universe and a hint of the divine.[4] But what I see is even more important than that! What I see is you and me, living, together. Will we learn a spirit of generosity? What I see is Christians and Jews and Muslims wrestling for truth. Will we learn a spirit of generosity? What I see is Americans and Europeans and North Koreans and Iraqis struggling together to live on a shrinking planet with only a finite amount of stuff. Will we learn a spirit of generosity? Wright is boldly optimistic in his assessment of the future.[5] I hope he is true to his name, for if Wright is wrong, our age-old selfishness will be our death too.

            Is politics really a zero-sum game? Whether in the war with Iraq or in the just-as-destructive ongoing and uncivil war between Democrats and Republicans, if we cannot learn that there really is a win-win possibility, in the end, we will all be losers. There’s room for a little generosity in our politics. Is religion really a zero-sum game? If the adherents of the world’s great faiths cannot learn to listen to one another, to come to some appreciation of the truths of each other’s faith claims, in the end, we will prove that there is no faith at all. There’s a need for generosity in the world of religious thought. Is your marriage really a zero-sum game? It’s “my way or the highway.” There’s hope for generosity, even in marriage. Is there really no win-win scenario with your mother-in-law? (I’m sorry, even game theory has its limits!)

            Generosity, you see, is not just about money. It is about the way we “play the game.” In politics, in religion, in economics, in relationships, generosity begins when we recognize that Truth is infinite, and that because of God’s love – which Christians affirm in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ – there are no losers.

            The zero sum game.

            In a wonderful article entitled “The liturgy of abundance, the myth of scarcity,”[6] the highly acclaimed Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann, traces this “myth of scarcity” through the pages of the Old Testament. In creation, the world was born in abundance. All things were pronounced “good.” God provided all that was needed. God’s breath sustained the world. By the end of the book of Genesis, Brueggemann says, however, the great, destroying myth has entered the scene. He sees it first in the Israelites’ captivity in Egypt – a captivity that occurs because the Pharoah knows nothing of abundance. In the time of famine, the Pharoah hoards the grain that would have fed the entire ancient world.

            We have been in bondage to the myth ever since. There’s only so much stuff. So what is mine is mine. Bruegemann’s essay is not just a critique of American life, but we rightly fall into the line of judgment.

…as we American grow more and more wealthy, (he says) money is becoming a kind of narcotic for us. We hardly notice our own prosperity or the poverty of so many others. The great contradiction is that we have more and more money and less and less generosity – less and less public money for the needy, less charity for the neighbor.[7]

            The undeniable truth is that, even in our growing-and-shrinking world, today there is still enough stuff for everyone.

            But the myth of scarcity prevails.

            And the zero-sum game is still our trump suit.

            And three cows… Well, “You know, preacher – I’ve only got three cows.”

            I think of her as old, but surely she was not. In her culture, the mother of a young son was probably just a child herself. But being widowed in her world would have bent anyone over in despair. So I see her, head down, shawl pulled over her long, dark hair, shuffling along, gathering a few sticks, eyes always alight for some small treasure amid the trash. She heard a voice, “Bring me a little water in a vessel.”

            Can you imagine the insult? Destitute in her poverty, broken by an oppression that made her worthless in the eyes of all, on her way to cook her last meal she is called on, again, to serve. A nameless man. A stranger. I can imagine that it made her indignation no less when she learned he was a preacher!

            As she turned, to do what was her duty, he called again, “Oh… and while you’re at it. Bring me something to eat, too!”

            I wonder why she did it? Was it just duty? Was the call of culture and tradition so engrained that when a foreign man called, the mother of a young son just willingly gave up her very last meal – to him (the stranger)? I cannot see it. Mothers, can you? Most mothers would have died, even in disgrace, making sure that her child did not go hungry.

            I think there was something else. Another tug. Some other kind of call. A deeper urging. We know the story of the unnamed, Widow of Zarephath, because for maybe as many as 30 centuries, the people of God have dared to call her insight a generosity born of faith. The Church has told her story for all those years out of the belief, which I share, that when we learn to be truly generous – and perhaps true generosity comes only when it threatens to truly costs us something – something on the order of the miraculous happens! Every time.

            Generosity is about the giving of our money. But not just about money. Generosity is about recognizing that we are only stewards (borrowers) of all the good that is our abundance. And Jesus helps us to see that the roots of generosity, even financial generosity, are planted in the soil of God’s love and forgiveness. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put in to your lap…” (Luke 6.38).  Being forgiven is like going to the market for grain, and being told to hold out your shirt. The measure you are given is poured in, packed down, shaken around, and poured again, until it overflows on the ground all around you.

            When we recognize, whether in our spiritual lives, our political fortunes, our inter-personal abundances, or as it regards our financial success, that we have long been the recipients of overflowing generosity, then the liturgy of abundance can begin in our own hearts.

            I would like to have seen the look on the doctor’s face when Zell Krevinsky, white and upper class, walked into a predominantly black hospital on the poor side of town, and announced, “I’m here to donate one of my kidneys.”

            “To whom? Why? Sir, are you feeling OK?” I’m sure there was a barrage of questions, but Krevinsky’s response was simple: “Someone else’s needs are as worthy of satisfying as my own.”[8] “Take it, and give it to someone who needs it, but can’t afford it.”

            When we give generously out of the never-ending abundance of God that is overflowing in our very laps, perhaps we can begin to learn the truth of the old preacher. Maybe it was that same old preacher, sitting on the porch, looking out at three cows and a setting sun…

            “You can’t out-give God.”

            Amen, preacher – but even if we only have three cows – we ought to die trying!”