About a year ago I watched a documentary called Fistful of Quarters. It focused on two men trying to break and hold onto a high score record on Donkey Kong. The subject matter seemed light-hearted but I found the movie very profound and actually quite upsetting. This is a fairly well written plot excerpt from Wikipedia about the two main characters in the movie:
“In Ottumwa, Iowa, Walter Day founded Twin Galaxies, an organization formed to keep track of high scores achieved on arcade games in the United States. Billy Mitchell, having achieved the highest ever recorded scores on Donkey Kong and Centipede in the 1980s, remains a video game legend in 2005. Twin Galaxies has now become a global organization. Mitchell is unabashedly cocky and fond of self-promotion, proclaiming himself the “Sauce King” of Florida for his successful line of homemade hot sauces. Next to his family, Mitchell considers his arcade scores his greatest achievements in life.
On the other side of the country, in Redmond, Washington, Steve Wiebe has been laid off as a Boeing engineer, and now spends his time as a science teacher. His friends and his wife, Nicole, describe him as a tragic figure who always comes up short, despite being proficient at music, sports, art, and mathematics. He was a star baseball pitcher but was injured and unable to pitch in the state championship. He is a gifted drummer yet does not care to perform. Preparing to get back into the workforce, Wiebe begins going to night school to get a masters degree and obtains a Donkey Kong machine to play in his garage as a pastime. After reading of Mitchell’s world record of 874,300 on the Internet, Wiebe uses his math and engineering skills to discover various patterns in the game, and is able to master the game and achieve a score of 1,006,600 points. Wiebe submits the tape to Twin Galaxies, and for a few weeks, Wiebe is a local celebrity.”
The movie goes to show how Mitchell who is friends with Walter Day gets Wiebe’s record disqualified and submits what I am sure was a doctored video tape showing him breaking Wiebe’s record anyway, and the Wiebe continually tries to break Mitchell’s new record and eventually does.
It should be a feel good story about a guy working hard, breaking a record, and defeating a Goliath-type character, but I couldn’t get passed Steve Wiebe’s desperate attempts to be valued and to achieve enough to enjoy the movie.
All of the hardships he had faced combined with being laid-off had completely broken him down so that he saw himself as worthless and it was evident to anyone who watched the movie. He saw Donkey Kong as a way to do something of merit and get people to think he was worth something, Think about that. His search for value led him to spend hours upon hours in his garage trying to break a video game record.
His struggle was unfortunately very indicative of the human condition. As Dr. Steve McVey (an author and grace teacher) says, being valued is one of the 3 core needs of every human, the other two being to be loved and to be accepted. People all over the world do a million crazy things in order to feel valued. They pursue profitable careers they secretly hate, they drive themselves deep into debt in order to drive the right cars and wear the right clothes, they hide who the really are and try to conform, and they pursue meaningless records.
Imagine how different the world would be if everyone understood how valuable they are to God? There would be so much peace, not only externally, but within the hearts of each person. There would be rest and joy. After all Romans 4:17 says, “for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
Now for an example of that value let me share something I learned last week from Steve McVey’s Sunday Preaching series which he airs each week on his website www.gracewalk.org. This totally blew my mind.
Dr. McVey was talking about parables and about how many are taught incorrectly because they turn us into the subject of the parable when it should be God. Let me give an example. Matthew 13:44 says “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”
This parable is almost always taught with us as the subject and the treasure being the gospel, or Jesus. It is supposed to show us how much we should value our relationship with God and what He has done for us, which of course we should, but that’s not the correct reading. After all we didn’t do anything to get the gospel or the gift of grace. We didn’t pay a dime. It was a free gift. So what’s the correct read?
The man is Jesus, and if the man is Jesus, guess what? You are the treasure. He paid it all on the cross to get you.
Now read Matthew 13:45-46. Same thing! You are the pearl!
Lastly, read Luke 10: 30-37, the parable of the Good Samaritan. This one seems like it’s about us because Jesus tells the man who asks the question “who is my neighbor”, “Now go and do likewise,” but does that mean we are the good Samaritan in the story? Actually no, He is. We are the man who was attacked and in desperate need of help. And, just for a little bonus, who passes us on the side and refuses to give help? A Levite and a priest, representations of religion.
But, when we were broken and alone He came. He is our rescuer and redeemer. The one who cares for our bodies and souls. The one who thought us so valuable He would do anything for us. And, if understanding that doesn’t make us see how valuable we are, nothing will.