Sports...

1-13-10
Well, you must know that I am a Chicago Bears fan – it comes from weeks and months of brainwashing from “The Super Bowl Shuffle” when I was a kid I think. Now please don’t hold this against me, especially this weekend if you happen to be a Seahawks fan. So, on Sunday when the game is on, I will batten down the hatches, turn off all relational attachments but those corporately engaged in frolicking in the joys of football and zone out in happy land (or sad/angry land if the bears get whipped), and maybe become so unruly that I bear only a slim resemblance to my usual self. Now, I may close myself off, but not from fellow bears fans! We relish the time spent together, cheering for our team, even in criticizing the coach’s choices or the players’ performance. And, at the game itself, set in the freezing cold of Soldier Field in January, there will be a community of warmth basking in aggression and excitement, in passion and togetherness, in unity.

It’s interesting, but you know what’s even more interesting? This will be happening at Playoff games around the country this weekend. It will be happening at hockey games and NBA games, and college basketball games and high school games and junior high games and even 4th grade basketball games (I know because my son is on the 4th grade basketball team at his school). Truth? We love sports. We love all of it. We are addicted to it! Men and women, boys and girls…you will rarely see people more excited and animated, angry and passionate, than at any sporting event.

But have you ever looked at it a little deeper and considered what it is about sports that is so wonderful to us? Well, let me give you my opinion and you can tell me what you think.

We love the community of sports, the togetherness, the unity, the common purpose. It taps into something that runs very deeply within all of us. You see, we were hard wired to have relationships, to work together, to enjoy the commonness of mankind. We are just better when we are working together with other people – it feels safe and right and peaceful. We love being united for or against something.

Why is it that the college in my hometown has no problem getting people to give millions of dollars, even in an “economic slowdown”, to new projects, buildings, new developments, while at the same time struggling to keep up with the maintenance on the facilities that they have?
Why is it that it is easy to get people to give money to stop AIDS (project RED) or to stop human trafficking, if they will be joining together with others, but to have them give money to their County Health Department to administer meds to TB infected people immigrating from Vietnam is something that just does not happen?
Why is it that marriages so often are great when they are out attacking the world together, in their early days, but when the years pass, they are sucked into the everydayness of life and they lose the passion and wonder for life? For each other?

But, why have sports become so big? Can’t we have the commonality of purpose, the unity, the wonder in togetherness in some more productive area of our everyday existence? Well, look around. Do you see people who have lots of time, energy, passion, excitement to apply to unity and commonality of purpose in something in their everyday lives? I don’t. You see, the drive to productivity of our society naturally pulls us away from any depth, any commonality, anything other than getting done the next thing that needs to be done. We trudge on minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day – each looking the same as the previous thousand, all bent on, as the recent Monday Night football commercial states, Getting to Monday night. We miss out on the purpose and wonder of life and this longing we have to something more. We want to have this kind of unity. We want to have relationships – we are made for it, but our world does not seem to allow it, at least not without purposefully bucking the system, realizing the futility of our world and our system and intentionally going a different way from the rest of society.
So, what does this ask of us? First, recognize that you are made to love sports – ok, not sports – but relationships and unity of purpose – doing something productive together. You were made to love and be loved…and sports is just a taste – it gets so much better as the depth increases and the purpose develops and extends! You, see, God loves. He loves relationships and purpose and involvement and depth – He hates superficial and meaningless – He hates producing just to store stuff away and to get more and more and more! He loves people loving! This is why sports feel so right! We were made to feel this way! So, the next time you are cheering for your favorite team, with your buds around you, or the other parents around you – you might just smile, notice the wonder and awe with which you were made – enjoy the way God made you! Thank Him for the fact that He loves so much, He does not abandon us to the mediocrity of our society! He wants wonder and awe and passion and purpose for our everyday lives. Invite Him into the moment with you – savor depth for a minute. Second, begin to look for chances to buck the system. How can you begin to let go of the superficiality of our produce more, get more, society, that so pulls us away from the unity and meaning and wonder that we were made for? Begin asking the God who made you the way you are to show you what your life could look like if it were to embrace the passion of sports in everyday life. Now, be careful with passion – passion is not momentary excitement – it is not a license to abandon commitments and the loves currently in your lives – instead, it is an invitation to see all of the commitments and loves with different eyes – to see them with God’s eyes – to open them up with all the wonder of your first Cub game!!!

This, by the way, is what More than more is all about. We are all trying to live our lives this way. We are trying to figure out what God’s way can look like, for real, in the world we live in, but the way we were made – not strumming harps and flying around like angels - but fist pumping, chant cheering, dancing and bash brother embracing, passion! We hope you will join us – we will be getting together to hang out again on January 27th, 6:45-8:00PM, at McAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette. Go Bears!