Sports and Life

I really like sports. In fact, I have been known to be fanatical about them. My kids are afraid when I watch college football and they are in the room, and my wife and I typically do not get along during that time. There is something about watching sports (especially if one has a vested interest in one of the teams or players) that can bring out the wildest reaction in an observer. The only thing that can probably generate more fury is when one is actually playing the sport. I was watching the NCAA men’s basketball championship game the other night between Florida and UCLA, and I was thinking about how cool it will be to look back on this game years later and remember some of these players that perhaps have gone on to make it big in the NBA. Some of you might think I have already retired, but I am still just musing.

Last week, I sent a lot of my childhood basketball books to our church yard sale, but not without hesitation. Those books did bring back many memories for me as a kid who wanted to be a great athlete (never happened, by the way). In the pile were books about all kinds of basketball greats from the 1950’s all the way to the 1980’s. There was also a book about Magic Johnson, my basketball hero, as well as other books about the Los Angeles Lakers, my favorite team. I remember, though, going outside on our dirt court trying to envision that I was Magic Johnson. He could do it all. He is still in my estimation one of the greatest players to have ever played the game, and undoubtedly one of the most fun to watch in terms of entertainment.

I recall, though, that when Magic Johnson was diagnosed with H.I.V. how devastated I was. I was in high school at the time, but it had a very negative effect on me. I recall how disappointed I was at what had taken place. I remember how my really good Celtic fans gave me the third degree about it, like I’m the one who made him be sexually promiscuous. I did grow up a little in the days and weeks that followed that, however, because it introduced to me the reality of the world in which we live. It never discouraged me from having heroes; it rather taught me the importance of choosing the right ones. It taught me something else, though. It tutored me in the arena of human frailty, and brought me to the realization that money and fame and power are possessions of humanity that often do little but corrupt and corrode the moral fiber of the man inside. Don’t misunderstand me; there are exceptions. But the moral casualties of our sports world are too many to count.

I suppose what reminded me of all this were the recent reports about baseball now looking into the allegations of steroid use among its players, one in particular- Barry Bonds. Bonds will almost certainly break Babe Ruth’s career home run record, and is closing very rapidly on Hank Aaron’s all-time leading career home run record. The reason baseball is jumping through hoops now is because of the pressure congress has put on them to do something about the drug use (and rightfully so). It is also the recent book released that alleges Barry Bond has used steroids for some time. The truth is Bonds is an easy target, and the fact is not many people really like Bonds. He has always been somewhat of a rebel to the sport, in fact. As a Braves fan, I used to dislike him when he played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, because I just thought he was a dirty player, but that may have been just my biased opinion (which I am entitled to, since this is my blog). Bonds was never a friend to the media, or really anyone else in baseball. In fact, his own teammates have been know to dislike him. If you don’t think that is a fair treatment, just ask Jeff Kent who got into a dug out brawl with Bonds two or three years ago, before Kent was traded from San Francisco to Houston. But, as much as I dislike Bonds, I would not have minded his breaking the all-time homerun record. Why? Because, it is history, and I love to be an observer of good history (like when the Red Sox reversed the curse or when Tiger Woods won his first Masters as the youngest ever or when Lance Armstrong won his sixth Tour de France). Considering that none of us actually know whether Bonds used steroids or not at this point, it is still unfortunate that our sports have sunk to this level of moral value. We do know that some have used it, and my own suspicion is that once this can of worms begins to open, many of our favorite players, managers, and teams will be ravaged by the depravity of their own actions.

What does all of this mean? Does it mean that I am going to get mad at them and stop buying tickets and stop watching games? Not really. I will probably fuss and rant, but then I will be back at it again, yelling at the t.v. again to change pitchers or to bunt a guy over instead of trying to knock it out of the park. I do think I need to stop long enough, though, to point out to my kids how life is full of people just like sports figures who might just disappoint us, even people like their dad, i.e. me. I might also want to emphasize the fact that people who cheat to win actually lose in the ultimate game of life. And I may want to throw something in there about the only One who can forgive and fix a cheater is Jesus Christ, and He is the One who will never, ever disappoint them.

Answering Questions About Spiritually Gray Areas

When I started off at college in Jacksonville, Florida a few years ago, we were required to attend the chapel services. During one of the famous, chapel sermons, I heard a message that (at the time) was very important to me. It was delivered by our Executive Vice-President and was entitled “How to Deal with Spiritually Gray Areas.” The title itself struck me to be very relevant to what a lot of young guys were trying to discern was the best way to deal with issues about which the Bible just did not have a definitive answer. They were not black or white; they were just gray.

As I was scrolling the other day through old sermons I have kept through the years, I ran across this one, and couldn’t help but mentally enter that old dialogue about what in life is acceptable to do and what is not. For me, I know the issues that were important to me as an eighteen or nineteen year-old have since changed now that I am a thirty-one year-old. I felt, in those days, that I was highly isolated from reality. I was trying to fulfill the command “to be in the world, but not of the world.” I was trying to “come out from among them,” and striving to “be separate.” What is fascinating to me now, however, is that as I look back over the points of his sermon, that many of the things he said are still very compatible with my worldview, except that I look at it in a totally different light than I did then, and interpret his words much differently.

For the sake of anonymity (and boredom), I will conceal the outline of the sermon, but will jump right into the task of asking the more pressing question that confronts many Christians today, as it did for me then (although I am still grappling with many of these issues): How do we determine what things are right and wrong, in the event that the Scriptures (hopefully our primary rule of faith and practice) fail to deal explicitly with that issue. Well, let me state at the outset of this that I do agree with this speaker that there are larger Scriptural principles that speak indirectly to many of these “spiritually gray areas.” Nevertheless, I think it is dangerous as well as legalistic to define what those areas look like for every Christian. Moreover, to set up clearly defined rules based on one’s clearly defined interpretation based on what is not clear to Christianity at large is not only arrogant, but remarkably cultic.

In fact, Paul warned us about this in Romans 14, when he was trying to handle a disputation over some other minor matters and said, “Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.” In other words, figure out what is right for you. That might sound a little too post-modern for some of us, but the truth is that is exactly what Paul was communicating. In fact, in verse 25 he says, “So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves.” The issue, he goes on to state, should always be a matter of faith. If we fail to trust the Lord in what we are doing, then whatever it is we are doing is sin.

How does that translate, however, to a situation in which a believer might ruin his or her good Christian standing? Let me, first of all, say that there is not a “one size fits all” approach to this. The brutal reality of this discussion is that if you “offend” one type of Christian, you might “impress” another. In this vein is also the problem of what many well-meaning people have erroneously quoted in defense of not ever doing anything that is spiritually gray: 1 Thessalonians 5:22, which has been translated in the King James “Abstain from every appearance of evil.” In the NIV, however, it is translated “Avoid every kind of evil.” The difference, of course, is pretty sizable in meaning. One is what appears to be wrong; the other is in actuality wrong. The word for “kind” or “form” is the Greek word “morphe” which is also used in Philippians 2 to refer to Jesus’ being very God and very man. He did not merely appear to be God, but was in fact God, and He took on the “morphe” of a man.

I guess what all of that means is very simply that it is not that simple to pull that verse out of our spiritual wallets and use it at the first glance of something spiritually ambiguous. The truth is that our Christian lives are in the midst of an incredibly changing world that will stretch us far more than I believe any generation before us has been stretched. We will have to think through strategies and ways of ministry that will seem to many questionable and perhaps even crossing the line. But, this idea of risky ministry is no different than what Jesus did during His day. In fact, Jesus might have been cast out of some local fellowships, or gossiped about by some church gurus. Why? Because, to them, he would have crossed the line. When he met the prostitute at the well in Samaria, He was (by the standards of the day and of His own disciples) crossing the line. In addition, the Pharisees, of course, saw that Jesus was eating and drinking with sinners so much that they not only called him a “friend of sinners,” but “a winebibber and glutton” (for those who believe in a non-alcoholic bible, it would be a grape juice bibber). Think of that, Jesus did not, in fact, abstain from every appearance of evil, in seeking people to be saved (we, of course, know that He did abstain from every form or kind or evil, because He lived a sinless life).

So, how do we determine what is good and what is bad, if the Bible does not spell it out for us? Well, we could ask our nearest cult leader, but that might cause more damage than good. My opinion is that we filter what we do through two Scriptural questions: (1) Will this thing or course of action help me to treasure Christ as the most satisfying passion of my life? And (2) Will this help me to introduce others to the treasure of Christ? I think that is what Paul meant when he said, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” He went on to say “For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.”