3 or 4 types of Quiz Player

Parish Magazine Item stolen from a talk what I heard.

From The Rectory

I notice that a number of quizzes have taken place locally recently, including our own quiz in Bodle Street Village Hall during our Guest Weekend with the team of students from Oak Hill Theological College. I thought Phil’s talk that evening was so good that, with his permission, I wanted to share the gist of it with you here. Phil suggested that the same characters always seem to emerge at a quiz. If you haven’t spotted that, perhaps you’re one of them! Here are three or four to consider:

First, there’s the “Our Team’s Obviously Not Winning At This Point So I’m Just Gonna Try And Have A Good Time-Player”. There’s also the “Please, Please, Please, Please, Please Let No One Figure Out That I Know NOTHING- Player”. Then finally we have the worst kind of player – the player no one wants to be at a table with – the “Overly Confident but Usually Wrong–Player”.

Perhaps you’re not exactly like any one of those players but to be honest I think there’s something about them that rings true with all of us – maybe not in our attitude to quizzes, but in our attitudes and thoughts in so many areas of life – and even our attitudes and thoughts about God.

Maybe for you, when it comes to thinking about life and God, you’re like the “It’s Obviously Not Going Well, So I’m Just Gonna Try And Have A Good Time-Player.” Maybe you think, “it’s all a mess anyway – my life, my family, this country, our society, so all that’s left to do is to enjoy myself? What else is there? It’s all too far gone. And if there is a God, well it’s obviously too late for me to do anything about that now. All I can do is drown out my hurts, my frustrations, my expectations of the way the world should be and enjoy my life as best I can, however I can.

Or maybe for you, when it comes to God, you’re in the “Please, Please, Please, Let No One Find Me Out-Player” category. Maybe you’re the person who’s hoping there is no God because if there were a God, then you’d be exposed. The idea of a God who made you, sees you perfectly and knows you intimately terrifies you. He would see, he would figure out, he would know for certain – who I really am, and I know that’s not entirely pretty. And what kind of God would want anything to do with a someone like me?

Or maybe you come to the question of God with the bravado of the “Overly Confident But Usually Wrong–Player”. You’re sure that somehow, someway, when it comes to you and God, you’ll be okay. If God accepts anyone, I’ll pass muster. If anyone can be assured prize from God, surely, I won’t miss out. Though you might be too polite to say so, perhaps that’s how you feel. After all you go to church once in a while, you give generously to charities, you pay my taxes, you’ve never done anything really terribly wrong! I’m the Overly Confident Player!

But as we know, there’s always a humbling moment ahead for a player like that, that moment when they find out that confidence alone is just not good enough. Presumption and relying on yourself just won’t wash. Players like that are always left humbled. The Bible says that the same is true in life. Those who are “overly confident in themselves” before God will ultimately be humbled before him.

But of course, unlike a quiz, with all its little prizes and little losses, the stakes in life and before God are much higher. If we could score perfectly before him, it would be untold blessing and glory for us, but if we fail it’s untold horror and humiliation. And to make matters even more tense, before God, it’s not a matter of who does best – it’s only a matter of perfection: God’s standard of absolute holiness.  

Thankfully, there is hope because there is a fourth kind of player: The Lord Jesus Christ. He answers every question perfectly. He is the one who carries the team. He offers to sit down at your table. Or rather, he invites you to join his team. With him, the test of life and of the judgement to come are nothing to fear. Victory is assured because Jesus wins for us. If we trust in him, we can be sure we will share in the prize he has secured.                                                                                   

The Revd Marc Lloyd