I had a few competitive people in my life as a child - namely, my best friend and my older brother. The thing they had in common was that they loved playing Monopoly (a game I dreaded, and for good reason), and they were always the banker.
True Story: I've been in a real fist fight. Yep. Over a game of Monopoly.
The scene opens in my best friend's backyard in a tent pitched next to an apricot tree. The late morning summer sun was beginning to stir us from our sleep, and we had another full day ahead of crawdad hunting in the creek, playing school with our American Girl dolls, and watching The Titanic. Both VHSs. Again.
But first, a quick three-hour round of Monopoly in our PJs. The game started innocent enough, as it always does; though at some point, as it always does, it took a turn. I don't recall the move I made that caused her to flip over the game board and throw handfuls of plastic real estate at me; I do remember yanking her hair, getting smacked repeatedly with a fly swatter, and the screams that caused her mom to abandon her skillet of pancakes and come running.
I've never had much of a competitive spirit when it comes to board games. After all, it is just a game. You win some, you lose some. But losing wasn't what bothered me; it was how I lost. What caused my Monopoly Meltdowns was catching somebody cheating. Slipping a get-out-of-jail-free card up your sleeve, skipping a space to conveniently land on Free Parking, dealing yourself some extra Monopoly money from the bank. Games had rules for a reason, and they should be followed at all costs, or else I had a fly swatter and I was not afraid to use it.
Usually, Family Game Night chaos ensued when we had different ideas of what the rules were; moments where we thought we were playing by the rules, but then someone pulls a brilliant move and you had no idea that was allowed. Or when rules were renegotiated mid-game, convincing opponents that the rule change would benefit them, when they were being led into a trap. Typically, this happened over negotiations of property trade.
And of course there are the grey-area rules that we usually disagreed about: Do we really have to go around the board once before purchasing property? Do properties go up for auction if someone declines a purchase opportunity, or is the opportunity simply lost? Do the rules really say that you can't collect rent if you are in jail?
After the first hour, arguing about Monopoly rules weighed me down, and I was very much looking forward to stepping my feet in that cold crawdad creek. More often than I would like to admit, I would intentionally let my friend to win just to get it over with. She was happy, I was happy. It was a win-win in the end.
According to the official Hasbro instruction manual, the Object of the game is 'to become the wealthiest player through buying, renting, and selling property'. Somehow, this doesn't quite encapsulate the sometimes violent game that I grew up with. Let's add 'Bankrupt your opponents by whatever means possible. Richest player wins.'
I came across an NPR podcast about the game's Origin Story. Here's a quick recap:
The Story goes that Monopoly was invented during The Great Depression in 1934 by man named Charles Darrow, an unemployed engineer from Pennsylvania with an American Dream in his pocket. But like another Story I know and so Treasure, there's another account of the Beginning, and it caught my attention.
The scene opens in a small town in Illinois in 1879 with a young girl reading a book her father gave her: Progress and Poverty by Henry George. Lizzie Magie's father was a writer who accompanied Abraham Lincoln in his travels around the state debating politics with Stephen Douglas. Inspired by the ideals that Henry George put forth, he understood that wealth and land ownership were deeply connected; and he made sure Lizzie understood it, too.
In the late 1800s, board game popularity was on the rise. Lizzie connected these dots and created The Landlord's Game as a cultural teaching tool. While writing was her primary means of conveying her revolutionary ideas, she realized that games - like books, songs, and stories - are a wonderful way to teach someone something. When we look at games as cultural artifacts of their time, the Object of the game starts to make a little more sense.
Lizzie's Objective was not to become the wealthiest player. Her aim was to show American families the harsh reality of the injustice in their current land system; that the quickest way to accumulate wealth and power is to get their hands on as much land as possible and hold onto it.
She patented the game in 1904, but her intention wasn't to mass-produce the game for big box stores. In fact, she made the game accessible to everyone by encouraging players to use objects around their own home (such as thimbles) as playing pieces, and localizing game boards with properties that represented real places in their hometowns.
The most interesting fact I came across, however, is that the game was initially created with two sets of rules: the Monopolist rule set and the Anti-Monopolist rule set. The Anti-Monopolist rule set rewarded every player when wealth was created, while the Monopolist set rewarded individual players who created monopolies to bankrupt opponents.
The game became massively popular, though Lizzie wasn't making money off the patent and wasn't getting known. People were playing and reinterpreting the game across the United States, creating and even selling their own spin-offs.
One day, a man named Charles Todd invites an old school friend, Charles Darrow, over for Family Game Night with their spouses in Atlantic City. Todd teaches Darrow the game. I'm sure the game started innocent enough, as it always does; though at some point, as it always does, it took a turn. Darrow asked Todd to write down the rules.
With the help of a cartoonist friend for illustrations, Darrow designed a game board based on real locations in Atlantic City, from the impoverished communities on Mediterranean and Baltic Avenues to the shining hotels on Park Place and Boardwalk. He packaged up the game components claimed he invented it.
Within its first year in 1935, it became the best-selling game in America. But here was the card up Darrow's sleeve - he only included one set of rules: the Monopolist set. At some point he must have realized what really sells: "The idea that anyone with a little cash can rise from rags to riches in this country."
Lizzie soon caught wind of all this and had her own Monopoly Meltdown, calling reporters and doing interviews to correct the skewed Object of the game:
"I conceived of the game of Landlord to interest people in the single tax plan of the great economist, Henry George."
Very likely, your grandma and your grandpa played Monopoly. Truth to tell, Mrs. Elizabeth McGee Phillips of 2309 North Curtis Road, Clarendon, Virginia, then Lizzie J. McGee of Brentwood, Maryland, took out a patent on the game on January 5th, 1904." ~ The Washington Evening Star, January 28th, 1936
The news traveled to Parker Brothers and they offered to buy her patent for $500, to which she agreed, hoping that her original game concept would be restored. In a letter to Parker Brothers after the agreement was signed:
"Farewell, my beloved brainchild. I regretfully part with you, but I am giving you to another who will be able to do more for you than I have done. I shall do all I can to add to your success and fame, which will in some measure add to my own.
I charge you, do not swerve from your high purpose and ultimate mission. Remember, the world expects much from you."
Needless to say, that second set of rules was never restored to the game of Monopoly that we all know today. Parker Brothers received many other letters from people who had been playing the game for the last three decades, expressing their confusion. Among them was a letter of disgust at Darrow's scheme written by the very man that taught him how to play the game and wrote down the rules for him - Charles Todd.
Do you see the irony here? And what does this multi-billion dollar empire today say as a cultural artifact of our own time?
Origin Stories are important because they bring us back to Intention. Lizzie's Intention for the game was to send a message about the wealth gap and offer a creative alternative solution; in other words, to solve a societal problem. Darrow's Intention was to get rich by whatever means necessary, such as stealing property to solve his own problem at the expense of another.
This all reminds me of a Jesus story.
Shortly before His crucifixion, Jesus is asked about the future Kingdom by His disciples. "Tell us," they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"
"...it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey." (Matthew 25:14-15)
Jesus goes on to tell them that the first two servants "put his money to work"; that is - they invested it and doubled their return. The servant who was given just one bag dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. When their master returned, he greatly praised the first two servants and gave them even more. To the third servant he said:
"You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.
So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matthew 25:26-30)
Woah. Intense. Now that sounds like the game of Monopoly I'm used to.
I have always read this parable with God playing the role of the master in the Story. It lined up with the idea of God that I had painted from an Old Testament view of God, one who punishes and uses people for his own personal gain and glory. In fact, even my study Bible commentary holds the view of God as the master in the parable and that the Big Idea is that we should be faithful stewards of the money God has entrusted us with:
The last man was thinking only of himself. He hoped to play it safe and protect himself from his hard master, but he was judged for his self-centeredness. We must not make excuses to avoid doing what God calls us to do. If God is truly our Master, we must obey willingly. (My NIV Study Bible)
I'm wondering if we got this all wrong. What if this is less about blindly following rules and more about...breaking some rules?
Hear me out. There are some dots that don't connect for me with the Jesus that I Know and my study Bible's description of a judgmental, "hard" master. Maybe this was Jesus' whole point. Maybe He was pointing us toward a different view of God. A God that doesn't stand for the worship of Bulls and Bears. A God that tells us to move counter-culturally in an unjust system. A God who discourages reaping where we didn't sow. A God who calls out masters who make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
What if Jesus was not the master in the story? What if that role belonged to Caesar, and Jesus Himself takes the role of the third servant, refusing to play by Caesar's rules and invest in a system that causes harm, and so being cast out of Jerusalem's walls and being crucified by those that worship gold. That sounds a lot more like the picture of God that Jesus painted through His actions.
We have all heard, "Jesus was a rule-breaker." But when it comes to moving counter-culturally, it feels easier said than done. We have to learn how to discern which rules to break, and which ones to hold onto. For Jesus, there were only two simple rules. Simple, but not always easy:
'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest rule. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the rest of the rules hang on these two commandments. (Jesus in Matthew 23:37-40).
The Objective of following these rules?
To have life, and to have it to the Full. (Jesus in John 10:10)
For further reading on some creative, inspiring, and counter-cultural "rule breakers", check out this article by Jon Jon Wesolowski.
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