“God,
Faith, and Sports”
2 Timothy 4:3-8
Scott Huie
Westminster Presbyterian Church
February 8, 2009
(Watch
“Cast Away” clip (3 minutes)
where Wilson,
the volleyball, falls off the raft into the ocean.
Chuck wakes up and swims frantically after
Wilson, but the rope connecting him to his raft isn’t long
enough. He ends up
returning to his raft, weeping
over the lost volleyball)
Are there
things in life that you admittedly have become overly attached to? Are there any possessions
or hobbies in your
life that you would cry about if they became lost?
Is there something that holds the potential
of becoming an idol for you, something so near and dear to you that you
practically worship it? If
so, then Paul
has some words of wisdom for you, words written directly to his
apprentice
Timothy, words written indirectly to us.
Listen now for God’s word.
(Read
Text)
Recently, I
came across an article written by a good Presbyterian, Rush Otey, that
really
spoke to me. In
fact, it convicted
me. I want to now
share some things that
I learned from Rush. Let
me begin by
saying, My name is Scott, and I am a sports fanatic.
I came to be this way very naturally and
honestly. Growing
up in Decatur,
sports were very simply part of the
natural rhythms of the seasons in the Huie family.
I was the youngest of four boys, boys that
loved to play and watch sports. I
was
the team mascot at age 3 of my two oldest brothers’ Cardinal
baseball little
league team. Soon,
I went on to play
little league baseball, then football, and then soccer, basketball and
tennis.
In the
fall, it was all about football, the Decatur High Bulldogs on Friday
nights and
then Georgia and Georgia Tech on Saturdays—unlike most, I
couldn’t pick between
the two. On
Sundays, there were always
two NFL football games to watch, first the Falcons game at one and then
whatever AFC game was on at four.
In
fact, it actually began during the Sunday morning sermon. My buddies and I would
secretly write down
our predictions on the worship bulletin for nearly every game that day
and
exchanged them back and forth. Then
when
the benediction was pronounced, I would rush out the church doors and
home as
fast as I could. You
see, the NFL Today show with Brent
Musberger, Irv
Cross, Phyllis George, and Jimmy the Greek, came on at 12:30 pm. If Mom felt particularly
generous that
Sunday, she would allow us to eat lunch in the den and watch six hours
straight
of NFL football. It
all ended just in
time for youth group at 7.
With the
changing seasons, football gave way to basketball, playing at the Y,
and then
watching those Pistol Pete Maravich and Sweet Lou Hudson-led Hawks to
another
mediocre season. Growing
up, I think
basketball was my first love, and I became the first white boy to make
the
Decatur High varsity basketball team in ages.
And basketball at Decatur
was bigger than football, and yes, we were state champions my junior
year. The key was I
scored five points and had six
fouls that entire season. Then basketball season
segued into baseball
season. I remember
those ’69 Braves, the
’82 Braves and their record-breaking 13-0 start. There weren’t a
lot of bright spots in those
early years until the amazing run of 14 consecutive division
championships. I
have been blessed by the Almighty with the
rare distinction of being one of those few lucky souls who attended in
person
the three greatest moments in Atlanta Braves baseball history: 1) when
Hank
Aaron hit homerun #715 eclipsing Babe Ruth’s record. 2) when
Sid Bream slid
home safe against the Pittsburgh Pirates sending the Braves to the
World
Series, and 3) Game 6 in the 1995 World Series where the Braves
clinched the
championship. Yes,
I was there at all
three. I could go
on, but let it be said
that I do appreciate sports.
They are
given to us to enjoy, to watch, to more importantly play, and to reap
the
rewards of exercise.
Yet, as
time has passed and marketing has intensified, have you, like I,
sometimes
wondered if sports have become an idol for us?
As Rush Otey writes,
An idol is a
good thing which we elevate to a position of power and
authority. Usually idols are wonderful things which take over and
assume
authority in a way which becomes unhealthy and unbecoming, especially
for
people of faith. Remember the first commandment of the ten is,
‘You shall have
no other gods before me,’ and the commandments are given to
us not to make us
feel guilty, but to make us free.
Sports
ought not to take the place of God, because sports cannot save us or
give us
grace or life in any deep sense. We
tend
to take on the value system of our idols.
In the case of contemporary sports, this may be,
‘Winning is the only
thing,’ or ‘Show me the money.’ If one
good thing about sports is the teaching of teamwork, discipline, and
even
sacrifice, why is it that so often we read or hear about an athlete or
a coach
taking short cuts with “performance enhancing
drugs”? These
latter day values may not be very
consistent with the best of our religious tradition, where a Cross is
at the
heart and winning doesn’t matter because we are moving toward
a kingdom where
the last shall be first.
When I hear
Rush’s words, I wonder if I might need help with my sports
fanaticism. Maybe,
just maybe, it has become an
addiction. The
problem with addictions
is they make us behave in stupid, out-of-control ways.
They interfere with our relationships at
school, in the neighborhood, in our homes, where we work. As an
example, maybe
you have noticed, when the Atlanta Falcons have a home game, my
sermons, my
prayers, my children sermons tend to be a little shorter. I like to cut
the hymns down to one
verse. You see, I
have season tickets,
and the games start downtown at 1 pm.
What I admittedly find myself thinking during worship on
those Sundays
is, “I gotta hurry out of here so I get to the game before
the second quarter
starts!” Talk
about mixed-up priorities!
Friends, I think I need help.
Another
sign of my addiction: A couple of months ago, I was walking down Sugarloaf
Parkway
wearing my autographed Ovie Mughelli football jersey (put
on jersey). Ovie
is not
a superstar, but he is the starting fullback for the Atlanta Falcons. Suddenly, a car pulls over
beside the
sidewalk. The man
shouts out, “Nice
jersey.” I
do a double-take. It
was he, Ovie Mughelli, in person, in the
flesh. How often
does that happen, the
guy whose shirt you are wearing drives up randomly in the middle of
nowhere Gwinnett
County
and starts a conversation? I
was just frothing at the mouth. I
said, “Dude, you’re my favorite
Nigerian.” We
talk for ten minutes. I
got his address for my Christmas card list.
I sat with his parents at the next Falcons game.
Wow!
As I think
about that encounter now, I sometimes wonder, is that a healthy thing
really? A
“distinguished” Presbyterian
minister, a 45 year-old man frothing at the mouth over meeting a
football
player? I am not
one who is prone to
take off my shirt at Lambeau Field in December nor have I ever painted
my face
the team colors. I’m
not one very prone
to yell at the referee through the television screen. But
sometimes I wonder if I do expend a little
too much emotional energy on sports.
When I wake up in the morning, do you know what I obsess
over? I would like
to say morning devotions, but I
can’t. I obsess over bringing in the AJC so I can read the
sports page. I find
myself more concerned about last
night’s box-scores than I am over such issues as poverty,
homelessness, and
affordable housing that I read about in other sections of the paper. I am reminded of a recent
Super Bowl cartoon,
where a woman says to the man, “We’ve already
watched three quarters of the
game. Can’t
we talk about us during the fourth
quarter?” I
laugh, but yes, I need help.
But
I don’t think I am the only
one. It
doesn’t take a rocket scientist
to make the observation that our society is obsessed with sports, and
it
carries over to our children. Along
with
many of you, I have struggled with the escalation of youth sports
becoming more
and more dominant in our lives. Both
the
Huie children love sports, and I love that they love sports, and Karla
and I
want to support them in their athletic and their non-athletic endeavors. But I hate it when Sunday
games and practices
infringe upon our church time. That
causes us at times to make difficult decisions about what our
life’s priorities
are and what we model for our children.
We normally have approximately two hours a week for
Christian education
and one hour for worship, and when we automatically yield and give way
to
sports, that makes it that much harder for us to build a deep and
growing faith
among our children.
Another
cause for concern is the
growing costs of youth sports. When
kids
want to play on the travel team, it can sometimes cost a small fortune
and take
up nearly every day of the week. I’m afraid we sometimes push
our kids to
specialize too much too soon. We’re
worried that if we don’t, then they won’t make the
team at a higher level. We
push them in one sport and they never
learn others, and often they become subject to overzealous coaches and
even
parents. They play
not for themselves
and the pure joy of the game, but they find themselves playing for
their
obsessed fathers.
Friends, let us all remember that
less than 1% of
high school athletes will play in college, and an even more miniscule
percentage will go pro. It’s
probably
wise not to expect little Johnny to get a college scholarship or a
professional
contract, even if he has a wicked curve ball.
Gwinnett County
sports programs are some of the
best anywhere, but I can think of only a handful from our community
that have
made it professionally: Lou
Williams,
Jeff Francouer, Brian McCann, Jason Elam, and that’s about it. Youth sports should be
about working hard,
learning a game, being a team, and having fun.
The first question a parent should ask his/her child is
not, “Why did
you miss that free throw or fly ball?”
Rather, it should be, “Did you have fun today? Did you give it your
best?”
Men and
women, boys and girls, our idols, our addictions are strong. They raise hard questions
for us, questions
about how we spend our money and our time.
In regards to a stewardship of time, I have to ask myself,
how many
football games and basketball games and tennis matches do I really want
to
watch in a given week? Yes,
we Huies got
up at 5 am on certain mornings because he had to watch the Australian
Open live
last week. If I
limit it to around three
events, that’s approximately eight hours a week, or 416 hours
a year. And that
doesn’t include March Madness and
the Bowl season. But
that is well over
400 hours a year, time spent, time lost.
Is that really how I want to leave my mark on the world?
In
regards
to stewardship of money, I am not even sure I need to go there.
The average NBA basketball player makes more
money than probably all of us combined.
New York Yankee Alex Rodriquez makes more in two years than what has
been raised nationally in 15 years in the Souper Bowl of Caring by
10,000
churches (we by the way raised over $600 last week—thank you
very much!). Personally if what we spend on sports exceeds
what we tithe to the church and to other charities, perhaps we need to
realign
our actions to be more in step with the values proclaimed in our
Scriptures. I could go on.
The
bottom line is, our idols and
addictions can so quickly take hold of us, our families, our time, our
checkbook. They can
do harm to our
bodies. Given to us
for health, for
discipline, for teamwork, and for joy, sports often become little more
than a
passive spectator event. I
need your
help. Perhaps we
need each other’s
help. So as a
church, let’s consider
this issue carefully. Let
us think how
God fits into the picture; let’s think theologically. As leaders in our
communities, let’s put some
clear thinking and faithful prioritizing in the mix.
I think what we will discover is that our
children can compete on a relatively high level of competition without
compromising raising our kids to love God and the church more than
anything. As I once
heard, it begins
with parents being parents and parents sticking together.
Rush
Otey raises three issues
that I invite you to ponder: 1) If you have driven hundreds of miles to
attend
athletic contests, and have not driven the five miles to the soup
kitchen, the
Habitat house, or the nursing home, maybe there is time for you to
regain your
balance. 2) If you have neglected your family too often for the sake of
sports,
maybe there is time for repentance.
3)
If you have kicked your dog or hated your neighbor because your team
lost,
maybe there is mercy.
My
friends, sports can do great
things. They can
exalt the human
spirit. They can
teach us great lessons
in life. They can
push us to be all that
we can be. But
sports can also be our
downfall if we are not careful. I
need
help with my sports fanaticism. So
to
begin my journey, I make the pledge that for every hour I watch sports
on TV, I
exercise for half an hour. Of
course, I
waited until after the Super Bowl to make this pledge.
But wait a minute, the Pro Bowl is on later
today, and it won’t be long until March Madness is here. Let me revise that pledge. For every hour I watch
sports, I will
exercise for ten minutes.
To
close out, let me leave you
with three quotes, the first from Kurt Warner, the amazing quarterback
of the
Arizona Cardinals, who said recently, “So much of this
business is ‘Me, me,
me.’ My
faith has allowed me to step
back from that and say, ‘Hey, this isn’t about
me.’ I
walk by faith and not by sight. I
walk according to what I believe, and what
I believe the power of God is, as opposed to what the world tells me. It’s the power
of Jesus.”
The
second quote is from college
basketball legend John Wooden: "I always tried to make clear that
basketball is not the ultimate. It is of small importance in comparison
to the
total life we live. There is only one kind of life that truly wins, and
that is
the one that places faith in the hands of a Savior. Until that is done,
we are
on an aimless course that runs in circles and goes nowhere."
Finally,
from the apostle
Paul: “As
for you, always be sober—keep your
head in the game. As
for me, I have
fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the
faith.”
“God,
Faith, and Sports” is the
title of this sermon. Obviously
it has
been a confessional sermon. I’ve
talked
a lot about sports. But
whatever your
potential idol is, be it sports, money, popularity, job, or even
family, as
Paul says, it’s about “keeping the faith.”
We keep the faith, very simply, because God in Jesus
Christ has been
faithful to us. Thanks
be to God. Amen.