When was the last time you played chicken?

Perhaps you have seen the commercial.  It is two boys, from different continents, staring each other down through the video link attached to their computer screens.  They are locked, eye to eye with the face of their competitor displayed on the screen of their respective monitors – eyes open, expressions blank.  One boy is from America.  The other is from Asia.  Each child is surrounded by a classroom of friends, cheering them on as if this were an Olympic sport.  And suddenly it happens – the American boy blinks – and the Asian classroom erupts in joy, pounding their champion with glee.  Even across the continents people know – whoever blinks first loses.  Whoever blinks first loses.

The adult version of that game is called chicken – but instead of facing off with cameras and computer monitors, the contestants face off with automobiles.  And who ever ‘blinks first’ – who ever turns away first –  as the two cars close in on each other at high speed is the loser.  They seem like foolish, childish games, don’t they?  Yet we still play them as if the lesson is true – that whoever blinks first loses. 

Here is where I see it most often.  Someone has been wronged, feelings have been hurt, trust is betrayed.  And now there is a huge gap between the parties.  The estrangement settles in, and the gulf of un-forgiveness stretches into an immense chasm.  How can they be reconciled?  And if you ask most people, their response is so similar to the game of blink – IF only they would make the first move, acknowledge that they caused the hurt, admit they were wrong, ask for forgiveness – as long as THEY BLINK FIRST – then I could forgive them.  Then I could forgive them.  We’ve made the rules of forgiveness and reconciliation the same as the rules to blink! 
  
Fortunately for us, those are not the rules that God chooses to play by.  Instead, God reverses the order.  The path to reconciliation is for the offended party to make the first move, to offer forgiveness even before the offender asks for it, much less deserves it.  Sounds counter intuitive, doesn’t it?  But the very audacious grace of that unmerited offer may provoke the repentance needed from the wrong-doer for reconciliation to be complete.  It’s a new game God wants us to learn, where the one who blinks first and the one who blinks last both win.

In Wisdom we hear: “You have mercy on all …and you overlook people’s sins THAT THEY MAY REPENT!”  In the gospel story, Jesus who was going to pass through Jericho stops.  Why?  Imagine someone in a tux in the branches of a tree – wouldn’t you pause?  Because Zacchaeus was a wealthy man, he would have been wearing the equivalent of a tux.  And there, in the tree, Jesus notices him. Without so much as a whisper of repentance from the tax collector, he selects his house for lodging and a meal.  And in that culture, to stay at a home and share a meal is the ultimate sign of acceptance and fellowship.   Back at his house, this sinner, overwhelmed by the enormous grace given to him, responds to the one who blinked first with a complete change of life.  HALF of my belongings…  FOUR TIMES restitution for any cheating.  This is who I am now.  This is what I am free to become – because I was forgiven first, I was loved first. 

This week, perhaps it is time to try a new order of things, a new way to bridge the gaps that have formed between us.  Instead of sitting in the tree, nursing our wounds, retelling internally (and sometimes externally) the story of those who have harmed us – why don’t you make the first move?  Repentance does not create forgiveness.  But forgiveness goes a long, long way in creating repentance.  Just ask Zacchaeus.  Go ahead.  Blink first. 
And when you come to this table, celebrate the gift of grace that we all know.  Celebrate the love of our God who blinked first for us on the cross.