Fastest Growing Religion?
messageofhope | Reflection | Sunday February 21 2010Integrating Faith and Sports
Gospel: Lk 4:1-13
Week of 2/21/10
In this past week’s Gospel, we are tempted on the “deserts” of our athletic fields.
Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were over he was hungry. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, One does not live on bread alone.” Then he took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant. The devil said to him, “I shall give to you all this power and glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I may give it to whomever I wish. All this will be yours, if you worship me.” Jesus said to him in reply, “It is written: You shall worship the Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve.” Then he led him to Jerusalem, made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written: He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you, and: With their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.” Jesus said to him in reply, “It also says, You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.” When the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from him for a time. Lk 4:1-13
The Fastest Growing Religion in America
I am coming to believe that the fastest growing religion in America today is the sports culture. It has become a culture full of gods, rituals, chants, and followers that seem to grow with every year, i.e. Super Bowl ratings in 2010. The words that are used in the locker rooms today can also be heard in our pulpits such as: faith, sacrifice, hope, love, devotion, spirit, and suffering. Today, I was watching a commercial advertising the upcoming baseball season in which the word “hope” was on a base and the word “eternity” was used on the field of play. We have become a culture that has accepted a mind-set of becoming your own god for 3 hours of competition on an athletic field as long as it produces results, success, or should I say salvation, because we think it is the mentality you must have to succeed, to be mentally tough, and to be a great competitor on the athletic field, even if it is exactly what Satan is tempting Christ (and us) with in this particular gospel. In today’s American culture, professionally down through youth sports, if you are a superb athlete, or a “winning” coach, you are seductively being tempted of “power and glory.”
I was a former follower of this sports religion until I began asking myself honest questions like, if I believe in Christ and the gospels, do they apply to sports? If so, what does this particular gospel have to say in the context of this sports religion? Am I choosing to become my own god so I can “be successful” on the field? If so, does God care about this? Once I began asking honest questions to myself, the illusions of what I considered to be an integrated Christian faith into sports, such as praying before a game and having a scripture verse under the bill of my hat while at the same time the first pitch being thrown and having a heart full of darkness and needing to dominate, win, and seek salvation on the athletic field (which by the way is considered to be a healthy mind-set in sports, including “faith-based” sports, and is often times promoted) started to become exposed for what they were, a heart full of pride, being seduced by the temptations of power and reigning over my own kingdom.
“You must ask God to give you power to fight against the sin of pride which is your greatest enemy – the root of all that is evil, and the failure of all that is good. For God resists the proud.” St. Vincent de Paul
Identity vs. Temptations
From the self-identified beginning of my “high-drama” conversion of Christ in my heart, (the point in which Christ became “a who,” not “a what,” at 18 yrs old in my first year of professional baseball) I knew I was involved in an identity crisis. I was fighting back the temptation of being my own god versus the person I am, “baptized in Christ.” This “high-drama” battle is still going today, and is truly a life-long and more conversion of what is already True and done, my identity in “Christ.”
What was striking to me in this gospel was that Christ was led into the desert by the Spirit, after he was baptized into “His own identity.” And thus it was the understanding of His identity that helped Him fight off the temptations of sin. As Larry Gillick, S.J. suggests in his reflection, “Jesus could listen to all temptations, challenges, and invitations to disown Himself, to fall down, to be unreal, because He listened once and often, to the prayer of God over and within Him. Baptism, the Easter Sacrament, is our joining the Israelites as they entered often the river of remaindering. Jesus lived Who He had received from God. We follow Jesus in and out of the same waters of indicative identity.”
And thus when we are tempted to win rather than love, “succeed” rather than nurture, have pride in your play rather than service to the Lord, we can rest in knowing who we are, and are called to be, sons and daughters of God Almighty, through Christ our Lord.
Our Press Conference
Coming to accept and understand this identity is not only a life-long process but a process full of struggles, failures, and sins, especially when the temptations come from all over our culture, even sports.
Last week the biggest athlete in the world held a press conference discussing his struggles and humanity. Last week, in my faith tradition, we also had a press conference of sorts confirming our humanity, Ash Wednesday. On that day, the first day of Lent, the time of the year when we are asked to re-think and examine things in our life that keep us from God and our “true selves,” we recognize our humanity and capacity to sin and turn away from the “light.”
This leads us searching for Hope, Hope that is found on the cross, not a base. Hope that forgives us for our sins, and leads us from darkness to light. Hope that helps us stand up again when we fall and get seduced by the temptations on the athletic fields of our culture. Let us continue our conversions to our “true identities” and continue our search for Hope that we will celebrate in our baptismal promises on that glorious Easter Sunday.
