Football Faithful

Okay... I admit it, I'm a Denver Bronco fan.

My Sundays, however, are not spent in front of a TV or at a bar watching Peyton Manning slice and dice his way down the field.  For the most part I gave up watching football.  It takes too much time, no one else in my family watches, and there is always the possibility of ending up on the wrong side of the score when the clock strikes zero.

But I'm still a fan.  I watch the highlights streamed on my computer later that night.  I revel in the loss of  the teams I despise.  I'm like many Americans, addicted to the game.

So, last night some friends from church invited me to watch the game against Indianapolis on their big screen TV and I said 'yes.'  Of course, the Broncos did not play up to their potential or even their normal level of skill.  Of course, the Broncos kept giving me hope they would pull it out in the end.  Of course, the Broncos lost.  It wasn't much fun.

Yet Americans of every socio-economic class, every ethnic origin, and from every region of the country stop, drop, and drool when the games roll up on the schedule.  The NFL commands such loyalty and devotion that I believe it goes beyond religion... it is like god.

As a pastor for 25 years, I've learned that the church gets hammered on the field of play every Sunday morning by the NFL.  The bookies in Vegas would have to give us 26 points and I still doubt that we could cover the spread.  The good news for us in Arizona is that the Cardinal football franchisee is woefully inept, and yet come Monday morning there is far more buzz about what happen at the Cardinal Cathedral than in any church in town.

Is this sour grapes?  Am I still working through my disappointment that my particular denomination of the NFL religion did not deliver the goods on Sunday?  Perhaps.

On the other hand, Luther defined a false god as something that cannot deliver what it promises.  Does the NFL really make our lives better?  I joke that on any given Sunday we will be rooting for a team that fails us, and ultimately every team will fail us (save one) by the time of the Super Bowl (and who remembers who won the Super Bowl 3 years ago?).

When I think about the time and energy, the money, the heartache, I've invested in the NFL and what it has given me and the world in general in return... I truly wonder if I have made a poor investment.  I realize that there is the forming of communities around teams, there are rituals and traditions as we get ready for the event, and that most teams cause us to pray and seek the intervention of a higher power sometime during the course of a game.

Yet, I wonder if the NFL is seen as superior to all other events in our life, simply because it gives us a simple story line where we can root for good (our team) against evil (the other team), and by the end of the game we will have been able to release our own demons so as to do battle the next day?

As a pastor I wish people would be as passionate about our brand of belief as folks are faithful to their particular brand of the NFL.  Yet, I'm not so sure life can be broken down so easily between good and bad, right and wrong.  I'm reminded that we are both sinners and saints (not the New Orleans kind) at the same time.

So... I am sure I will continue to get smacked around by the NFL on Sunday mornings.  I'm sure that the NFL will continue to capture the loyalty of folks I would hope would be as equally if not more passionate about the cause of the carpenter from Nazareth (just up the road from where the Eagles play).  I'm sure that the narrative told by the NFL will continue to ring deep within the hearts of its fans.  But we are told that on any given Sunday...

Yes, Sunday is a day when we will hear again of the power of that first Easter resurrection.  May the whisper of such Good News give us a peace that the NFL can only pretend to do.  (Oh, by the way, Go Broncos... all the way to the Super Bowl!)

Peace,
Pal