Crime and Punishment in the NFL

"But in those days, after that suffering,
the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from heaven,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken."
Mark 13:24-25

There is weeping and wailing. We have been cast into the outer darkness. The world as we know it has come to an end.

The National Football League has determined that the footballs used by the New England Patriots in their 45-7 win over the Indianapolis Colts were (slightly) underinflated and that this was very likely the result of actions by team personnel, against NFL rules, and that quarterback Tom Brady was likely aware of this and may have orchestrated it. As a result, Brady has been suspended for four games, the team has been fined $1,000,000, and they will lose their first round draft pick in 2016 and their fourth round pick in 2017. And, largely forgotten in the furor, the two locker room guys allegedly responsible for doing the actual deflating have been suspended indefinitely. 

One hardly knows where to begin. 

There are no heroes in this story.

In his letter to Brady and the Patriots, NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent made it clear that what the League was upset with Brady’s attitude. 

"The report documents your failure to cooperate fully and candidly with the investigation, including by refusing to produce any relevant electronic evidence," said Vincent. "Your actions as set forth in the report clearly constitute conduct detrimental to the integrity of and the public confidence in the game of professional football."

The NFL said that the League was taking these actions to preserve “the integrity of the game.” Seriously. The NFL would do well to remember that first, it is in fact a game. And second, they have demonstrated repeatedly and conclusively that they have no integrity whatsoever. Concussions, domestic violence, assaults, drug arrests, sexual assaults, performance enhancing drugs, and the list goes on. The NFL cares about money and image. And they only care about image because it leads to money.

And, sadly, everything we can say about the NFL we could also say about the Patriots. 

The NFL deserves a special award for self-righteousness, but there has been more than enough of that to go around. The usually measured veteran writer Frank Deford put out a podcast on NPR in which he said that Brady’s ego had him searching for any possible way to make up for his declining skills. He wondered what Brady might do when his good looks also deteriorated with age.

I am not really a big fan of Tom Brady. It bothers me that he could not make time to join his teammates when they were honored by President Obama at the Whitehouse. I’m still bothered that he left his pregnant girlfriend when he found Giselle. And I have  always found it annoying that so many sports fans have made invidious comparisons between Brady and his predecessor, Drew Bledsoe. 

The team that Drew Bledsoe inherited was not nearly as good as the one that Brady took over when Bledsoe was injured. He never achieved the championships that Brady has, but he was a very good quarterback.

Brady has been lucky. If a totally unknown defensive back (Malcolm Butler) had not intercepted a pass that should not have been thrown on a play that probably should not have been called, then Brady would not have been the Super Bowl MVP. On the other hand , it takes a lot more than luck to throw 33 touchdowns with only 9 interceptions last season, or to pass for more than 50,000 yards in his career.

But the hatred that Brady gets from around the country is nasty. And stupid. And it has more to do with his success than with any flaws in his character.

But beyond everything else, probably the most disturbing thing in the whole story is that we care so much about something that doesn’t really matter. And, apparently, we can’t help it. In case you haven’t noticed, I can’t help it.

We can make believe that it is a morality tale and that has deep meaning for us as a nation. Perhaps. 

In the most benign sense, it’s entertainment. Like the games themselves. And in that sense, it’s pretty harmless.

But I wish we could generate as much passion for social justice. Income inequality. Racism. Domestic violence. Sexism. Education. World Peace. 

Tom Brady, Shoeless Joe, and the Snowplow Game

You shall not have in your bag two kinds of weights, large and small. You shall not have in your house two kinds of measures, large and small. You shall have only a full and honest weight; you shall have only a full and honest measure, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. For all who do such things, all who act dishonestly, are abhorrent to the Lord your God.
Deuteronomy 25:13-16

Legend has it that when “Shoeless Joe” Jackson, one of the greatest baseball players of all time, left the court building after testifying to a grand jury about his part in a conspiracy to throw the 1919 World Series, a young boy reached out from the crowd and pulled on his coat sleeve. As his eyes filled with tears, the boy pleaded with his hero, “Say it ain’t so, Joe. Say it ain’t so.”Joe Jackson answered sadly, “Sorry, kid, I’m afraid it is.”

Accounts differ on the wording, and the more likely consensus of baseball historians is that the exchange never took place.

Although Jackson pleaded guilty, many have had a hard time believing that he did anything to contribute to the White Sox losing. He batted .375, played errorless ball in the outfield and even threw a runner out at the plate.

Unless you have been far off the grid for the past week, you have heard (repeatedly) about the long national nightmare known variously as “Ballghazi,” “Deflategate,” or “the latest Patriots scandal.” Even though I know that if you haven’t already heard about it that’s probably because you don’t want to hear about it, I’ll repeat just the briefest outline. The Patriots are accused of intentionally taking some of the air out of the footballs they used to defeat the Indianapolis Colts (45-7) last Sunday.

I know. When you see the score, it makes you wonder whose footballs were deflated. But it’s not about the final score. To paraphrase the passage from Deuteronomy, “You shall only have the full and honest pressure in the football.”

Yesterday morning, Patriots Coach Bill Belichick’s press conference was covered live by WGBH. That would be National Public Radio’s WGBH. At quarterback Tom Brady’s press conference yesterday afternoon he was questioned more closely than a supreme court nominee.

And Brady did what Shoeless Joe did not do; he said that it wasn’t so.

As I listened, I believed him. He was careful with his words. He was obviously nervous and upset. He was gracious. Turns out I am apparently in a very small minority on this one.

The sports commentators, including those from local media outlets, all thought he was lying. On one of the national shows, Spencer Tillman dismissed Brady’s denial with a reference to the culture of cheating in New England that goes back to the “snowplow game.”

Seriously?

The snowplow game has always been a personal favorite of mine. I think the Patriots were playing the Dolphins in Foxboro. It was snowing hard. The Patriots had hired a guy on work-release from Walpole State Prison (a detail that makes the story even better) to plow snow off of the line markers during time-outs. Late in the game the Patriots were getting ready for a field goal and when the snow plow guy cleared the yard markers he took a little detour to clear the spot from which John Smith would be kicking. Taking advantage of the bare ground, Smith split the uprights for a Patriots win.

Good times. Thanks for the memories, Spencer Tillman, but Tom Brady was in kindergarten when the snowplow guy cleared a spot for John Smith.

Mark Brunelle’s condemnation was less sweeping, but more direct. “I did not believe what Tom had to say” Brunelle began. “Those balls were deflated. Somebody had to do it. I don't believe there's an equipment manager in the NFL that would, on his own initiative, deflate a ball without the starting QB's approval ... That football is our livelihood. If you don't feel good about throwing that ball? Your success on the football field can suffer from that."

If you see the world as black and white, then the Patriots must have cheated. When the referees checked the balls at half-time, they were underinflated. But sports is not just black and white. There is a lot of gray. The gray area is not cheating; it is gamesmanship.

The rules on gamesmanship are a little different. Aaron Rodgers, by his own admission, prefers his footballs to be overinflated. Sometimes when the referees check before the game, they take air out to bring the inflation pressure within the rules. Sometimes, one assumes, they leave his footballs a little harder than the rules allow. No one thinks Aaron Rodgers is cheating.

So where do we draw the line?

I think that’s pretty clear. If the footballs were deflated after the referees checked them, then that is cheating. If the referees passed them and they were underinflated, then that is gamesmanship.

According to the NFL, a referee checked the Patriots’ footballs before the game and they were okay. But we don’t know what that means. Did the ref put a gauge on every football? Or did he give them a squeeze and think they were okay? That’s a big difference.

Of course, I want to believe that the ref passed on the footballs and they weren’t checked with a gauge until half-time. When I think about the alternative, I feel like that little kid questioning Shoeless Joe.

Something to Cheer About

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 
Philippians 4:8 

Brendon Ayanbadejo is not a household word. He is a linebacker for the world champion Baltimore Ravens, but I confess that I had never heard of him before a Maryland legislator, Emmert C. Burns Jr., wrote to Ravens management asking them to silence Mr. Ayanbadejo’s outspoken support for gay marriage.

In a letter to Ravens owner Steve Biscotti, Burns said, "I find it inconceivable that one of your players, Mr. Brendon Ayanbadejo, would publicly endorse Same-Sex marriage, specifically as a Ravens football player.” Burns went on to request “that you take the necessary action, as a National Football League Owner, to inhibit such expressions from your employees and that he be ordered to cease and desist such injurious actions. I know of no other NFL player who has done what Mr. Ayanbadejo is doing."

That last sentence reflects poorly on the NFL and says something very positive about Mr. Ayanbadejo.

Chris Kluwe, a punter for the Minnesota Vikings responded with a profanity laced essay to assure Mr. Burns that Ayanbadejo was not the only one in the NFL speaking out for gay marriage. He also scolded Burns for his apparent indifference to the First Amendment. In more muted tones, the NFL and the Ravens responded in terms of free speech and tolerance.

As the Ravens addressed the media storm around Brendon Ayanbadejo, the San Francisco Forty-Niners had a storm of their own. Cornerback Chris Culliver told a radio interviewer that a gay player definitely would not be welcome on their team or in their locker room. Team management responded with declarations of tolerance and the promise that Mr. Culliver would apologize and do public penance. Seriously. If there is one thing the NFL knows, it’s marketing. You cannot say that kind of thing in San Francisco.

From my perspective, this was perfect. I had someone to cheer for and someone to root against.

But it turns out that the Culliver case was not that simple. He made the offensive remarks during an interview with radio host and comedian Artie Lange. The radio host described it as a “goofy interview” in which he asks all sorts of “stupid” questions. That’s not an excuse, but it does put the remarks in a different light.

And then there was the apology:

"The derogatory comments I made yesterday were a reflection of thoughts in my head, but they are not how I feel," Culliver said in a statement released by the team. "It has taken me seeing them in print to realize that they are hurtful and ugly. Those discriminating feelings are truly not in my heart. Further, I apologize to those who I have hurt and offended, and I pledge to learn and grow from this experience."
If it’s not the best apology ever, it’s close. The most important thing in the apology is what he didn’t say. He didn’t utter the classic phrase, “If anyone was offended.” And he didn’t offer any excuses. He called his own words “hurtful and ugly.” He didn’t tell us that he is really a good person. And he promised to learn and grow from the experience. Following up on his apology, he issued this statement:

“As an African American male, I should know better. Hate and discrimination have a lasting effect and word matter. I also have a responsibility to myself, and especially to my young fans to be a better role model. The kids who look up to me and other athletes are the future of our country, and our future deserves better than fear, hate and discrimination…I was wrong, and I want to learn how to make it right. That’s why I reached out to an organization called The Trevor Project…No child should ever feel like they are less than anyone else, and God has put me through this storm so I can learn from my mistakes and help make sure no child has to feel that way, again.”

My guess is that the Forty-Niners had their PR people working on this, but I am still impressed with his willingness to take responsibility for what he said and grow from the experience. Sounds like a stand up guy to me.

Ray Lewis and Bad Theology

“He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” 
Matthew 5:45 

“Love your enemies, do good, lend expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great and you will be called children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.”
Luke 6:35-36

Thirteen years ago outside a Super Bowl party in Atlanta, Richard Lollar and Jacinth Baker were stabbed to death by someone (or more than one person) in a group that included Baltimore linebacker and future hall of famer Ray Lewis. We know there was an altercation. We know that at least some of them sped away from the scene in Lewis’s limousine. We know that he told everyone not to say anything. We know that the white suit he was wearing was blood stained and has never been found. And we know that eventually he was given a deal by prosecutors and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in return for his testimony against others in his group who were eventually acquitted.

Since then, Ray Lewis has turned his life around. He is in many ways a model citizen. His teammates see him as a role model. And he is often described as “a committed Christian.”

In a taped interview that aired during the Super Bowl, CBS sports analyst and former teammate Shannon Sharpe observed that the families of the victims have said that they find it painful to watch Lewis “being celebrated by millions.” Sharpe asked, “What would you say to the families?”

Lewis responded with an answer that was also a statement of his faith: "It’s simple. God has never made a mistake. That’s just who He is, you see.... To the family, if you knew, if you really knew the way God works, He don’t use people who commits anything like that for His glory. No way. It’s the total opposite."

In other words, if Lewis were not a good person then he would not have been successful. His success proves that he is not guilty. In other words, people get what they deserve.

And just so that we are clear, Ray knows, really knows, the way God works.

The Super Bowl is often an occasion for bad theology. There are always more than a few players (and fans) who thank God for favoring their team, or blessing their effort, or in some other way choosing them for this special reward. But this goes way beyond the usual.

It’s not just bad theology; it’s evil theology.

If we believe Ray Lewis then we have to believe that Jesus was mistaken when he said that God is kind to those who are wicked and ungrateful, or that God makes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. And if we believe Ray Lewis then we will have to reject the Sermon on the Mount and most of the Gospels . . . just for starters.

Theological narcissism is bad enough, but the real evil comes when we look at the implications for the victims of that double murder thirteen years ago. If God chose to glorify Ray Lewis, did God also choose death for Richard Lollar and Jacinth Baker? If we believe that God controls reward and punishments and “never makes a mistake” then they must have gotten what they deserved.

The rich deserve to be rich and the poor deserve to be poor. Because God rewards goodness and punishes evil.

It is natural for those who have been successful to claim divine favor, so that success becomes evidence of moral and religious superiority. Ray Lewis’s faith in his own goodness has a strange parallel in the objections raised two hundred and fifty years ago by the Duchess of Buckingham after hearing the followers of John Wesley preach about God’s grace. “Their doctrines are most repulsive,” she wrote to a friend, “and strongly tinctured with impertinence and disrespect towards their superiors, in perpetu­ally endeavoring to level all ranks, and do away with all distinctions. It is monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful as the com­mon wretches that crawl on the earth.”

Football and Violence

But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled; my steps had nearly slipped.
For I was envious of the arrogant; I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
For they have no pain; their bodies are sound and sleek.
They are not in trouble as others are; they are not plagued like other people.
Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them like a garment.
Their eyes swell out with fatness; their hearts overflow with follies.
They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression.
They set their mouths against heaven, and their tongues range over the earth.
Therefore the people turn and praise them, and find no fault in them.Psalm 73:2-10
If you Google “Saints” today, your search results will first show stories about the New Orleans Saints football team and the “bounty scandal.”

An investigation by the National Football League found that former Saints Defensive Coordinator Gregg Williams ran a bounty pool, which paid out cash awards for injuring specific players on the opposing team. The investigation revealed that in addition to Williams, Head Coach Sean Payton and General Manager Mickey Loomis also knew about the bounty system and did nothing to stop it.

According to the report, the bounty pool was used to make payoffs to players who inflicted game ending injuries on opponents. If the opposing player was knocked out of the game, a Saints player received $1,500 for the “Knockout.” If an opposing player had to be helped off of the field, the payoff was $1,000 for a “Cart-Off.” These payments were doubled or tripled in playoff games.

Football has always been a violent game. It would be naïve to think that the Saints were the first or only team to have a bounty system on opposing players.

The iconic picture of an exultant Chuck Bednarik celebrating over the motionless form of Frank Gifford in 1960 reminds us that game ending injuries are not new.

But today the injuries are mounting up at an alarming rate. Former players are suffering the long term effects of repeated concussions. The players are bigger and faster. And the helmets and pads which were designed for protection are also used as weapons.

No one tackles anymore. Defensive players “hit” receivers and running backs. Players are praised for delivering a blow to opponents. The rare traditional tackle, where the defensive player wraps up the ball carrier with both arms and brings him to the ground, never makes the highlight reel. Compared to the “hit” that sends a player somersaulting, a tackle is boring.

As a football fan, this worries me, but the problem is bigger than the game.

The league will crack down on the Saints. No matter how much they may think that the “hits” and the violence are good for ratings, the prospect of costly lawsuits from injured players will force them to make clear that intentional injuries cannot be tolerated. And there is also the possibility that there could be criminal indictments. It is, after all, against the law to pay one person to injure another.

But the problem is bigger than the game.

Yesterday on a sports talk show they were comparing the Saints’ scandal with the Patriots’ “spygate” scandal of a few years ago. They were talking about which one was worse. As a fan, asked the host rhetorically, which would you rather have your team involved in, a bounty system on opposing players or taking illegal videos of the other team? “It’s not even close;” he answered himself, “what the Patriots did was much worse.”

Paying a player for injuring someone is not as bad as taking illegal pictures. Seriously. The intentional injuries, in his mind, did not compromise “the integrity of the game.”

What a strange moral calculus. It sounds like something that the “fans” at the ancient Roman Coliseum might have said about the gladiators.

It leads me to ponder the nature of men (not women, just men). Here we are in the twenty-first century living far more sheltered lives than our prehistoric ancestors did, and we choose to define ourselves by making believe that football is real life. We don’t just live vicariously. We live vicariously through a make believe world.

I love football. But the players are not warriors. And it’s a game.

To risk life and limb to protect a loved one, or to save someone, is a noble thing. To intentionally injure someone to win a game is wrong and crazy at the same time.

If this is who we are; if this is how supposedly sane and well educated men think, it is no wonder that younger and less mature men so often turn to violence to settle their differences.

Winning, Losing and What Really Matters

All who pass along the way clap their hands at you;
they hiss and wag their heads at daughter Jerusalem;
“Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty,
the joy of all the earth?”
All your enemies open their mouths against you;
they hiss, they gnash their teeth, they cry:
“We have devoured her!
Ah, this is the day we longed for;
at last we have seen it!”
The LORD has done what he purposed,
he has carried out his threat;
as he ordained long ago,
he has demolished without pity;
he has made the enemy rejoice over you,
and exalted the might of your foes.Lamentations 2:15-17
I could not read about the game this morning.

When my team wins, I read the sports pages as if they were sacred text. I look at all of the pictures. I read what the winners said and what the losers said. I look for the human interest stories. It is a salvation history. Even if my team was favored, it still seems like a miracle.

As I read the stories, I can see the game unfolding and I relive the best moments. And then I want to turn on ESPN and see the same plays over and over.

But when my team loses, the world is darkness and not light. I cannot read the commentary or watch the replays on television. And I cannot stand the preening of the victors.

All of this is crazy, of course. It’s just a game. And in spite of our pathological determination to make believe that the games are determined by character and skill, the truth is that the distance between victory and defeat is often more complicated than that.

Yesterday our Youth Group collected money for the annual “Souper Bowl of Caring,” a nationwide youth program that raises funds for community food banks and soup kitchens around the country. Yesterday they collected more than five hundred dollars, and they raised more than two thousand dollars by making and selling pizzas. It was a great effort.

Since the “Souper Bowl” program began twenty years ago, the organization has raised more than $80 million dollars. This sounds like a lot, until you compare it to the total amount spent on the game, which was estimated at over $11 billion. The total amount raised to feed hungry people over the past twenty years is less than 1% of the amount spent on the game this year.

And that puts the notion of winning and losing in a very different perspective.

Where is our sense of proportion?

I love football.

The Super Bowl is a bizarre event on many different levels. But that is not the point. The problem is not that we care too much about a game, but that we care too little about so many other really important things in the world. Hungry people are just a start.

Still, except for the final score, it was a great game.

A Lament for the Kicker

Turn to me, O LORD, and be gracious to me,
for I am lonely and afflicted.
Relieve the troubles of my heart,
and bring me out of my distress.
May integrity and uprightness preserve me,
for I wait for you.Psalm 25:16-17, 21
For real football fans the two weeks between the Conference Championships and the Super Bowl are a secular version of Lent or maybe Purgatory, only worse. We enter into a wilderness of inane chatter and silly predictions. The history of every player will be presented as a morality play and the GAME will be talked about as if it had cosmic consequences. And in the end, most of the time, when we finally get to the Super Bowl it will not live up to the hype and the football will be lost in an avalanche of long (but clever!) advertisements, and a half-time show that will seem to go on for eternity.

Why can’t they just play the game?

But yesterday was wonderful.

And sad at the same time. The games were close and they were exciting. But in the end they were won on mistakes rather than accomplishments. The Giants won because of a fumbled punt return. And the Patriots won because of a missed field goal.

When he was asked about the missed field goal, Raven’s linebacker Ray Lewis said, “One play didn’t win or lose the game. There is no one man who has ever lost a game . . . It happens. Move on, move on, because life doesn’t stop.”

And it’s true. The Ravens had many chances to win. And the Patriots had many chances to put the game out of reach. But the missed field goal was the one that ended it. And that is the one that will be remembered.

Years ago there was a study of fan reactions, and one of the conclusions was that the pain felt in losing lasted longer than the joy felt in winning. I think it was a study of Pittsburgh Steeler fans. And I think it was during their great Super Bowl years in the mid-seventies. (And I could be just remembering it that way because it fits my narrative.) In any case, it rings true.

And within all of that, field goal kickers have a special place. Most of the time, we can’t see the missed assignments. We don’t know what a defensive scheme was really supposed to look like. And we don’t know how a play was supposed to be run. But we can see the kicker. And we can see whether he makes it or misses it. And it does not look as hard as it is.

So Billy Cundiff will be remembered as Scott Norwood is remembered.

A year or two ago he was in the Pro Bowl. And this year he was very accurate inside of forty yards. But none of that mattered on Sunday.

He answered the inevitable questions with class and dignity. The field goal was makeable. He just missed it. There were no excuses.

“It’s one of those situations that will strengthen me in the end,” Cundiff said. “Throughout my career, I’ve had challenging situations and I’m still standing here today. It’s something that is going to be tough for a while, but I’ve got two kids and there are some lessons I need to teach them. First and foremost is to stand up and face the music and move on.”

I would have been happier if the Patriots had just made a couple of first downs on their last drive.

We Don't Know How to Pray

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.Romans 8:26-27
Yesterday in worship, as we were sharing our celebrations in preparation for our prayer time, one of our folks gave thanks that he was leading in a family football pool organized by another member of the church. This led me to share my dismay that it appeared that the Steelers would be playing our Patriots next week. “I’ll be praying for Tim Tebow,” I said, “but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

Obviously, our worship service is fairly casual.

It was all in good fun. Though I did worry a little that someone might think I actually prayed about football games. And I worried a little more after Denver pulled off what seemed a miraculous win.

But in a larger sense, it got me thinking about prayer. It is the most common and probably also the most misunderstood of Christian practices.

In his letter to the church in Rome, Paul makes an amazing confession. He says that we do not know how to pray.

Although the Gospels had not been written when Paul wrote his letters, it is almost certain that he would have known the story of the disciples asking Jesus to teach them how to pray. And he would have known the prayer that Jesus taught them, which we call “The Lord’s Prayer.” And he would have known all of the Jewish prayers by heart and used them daily.

But Paul is talking about something that is much deeper than the words we use. He is talking about the nature of prayer itself.

In his wonderful sermon on this text, Paul Tillich explains that, “According to Paul, it is humanly impossible. This we should never forget when we pray: We do something humanly impossible. We talk to somebody who is not somebody else, but who is nearer to us than we ourselves are. We address somebody who can never become an object of our address because he is always subject, always acting, always creating. We tell something to Him who knows not only what we tell Him but also all the unconscious tendencies out of which our conscious words grow. This is the reason why prayer is humanly impossible.”
From this insight into the impossibility of prayer, Paul gives us a mysterious answer. God intercedes for us. It is God to whom we pray, and it is God who prays through us. Paul gives us a picture, which is absurd if we take it literally, but profoundly true if we understand the symbolism. God intercedes for us before God. Through us, God speaks to Godself.

Like most pastors, I work hard to craft a pastoral prayer for Sunday worship. I want it to be profound and poetic and moving. Parts of the prayer are intercessory, meaning that in a formal sense we “intercede” for one another before God.

But in a deeper sense, the language of public prayer is for the congregation rather than for God. What we hope is that the words we use will help individuals open themselves to God in prayer. The words themselves are not the prayer; they are the invitation to prayer. The real prayer is what happens “when the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.”

Tim Tebow's Very Public Faith

Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
or sit in the seat of scoffers;
but their delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law they meditate day and night.
They are like trees planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.Psalm 1:1-3
The most hated man in the National Football League right now is Tim Tebow, quarterback of the Denver Broncos, who has led his team to seven improbable, almost miraculous victories, in the last eight games.

It seems like every other caller on the sports talk shows is phoning in to say how much they despise him. Hating Tim Tebow has become a national pastime.

Callers are irate that Tebow seems to begin every interview by saying, “First, I’d like to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” And they hate it that almost every success is quickly followed by dropping to one knee in prayer. This act of spontaneous prayer has been labeled, “Tebowing.” The Global Language Monitor, a website which monitors global language trends, has announced that “Tebowing” has officially entered the English language. One definition says that Tebowing is getting down on one knee and praying even if everyone around you is doing something completely different.

I don’t share Tim Tebow’s theology, and we would disagree on a wide variety of social issues, but as a football player, he is fun to watch, and I think the world could use at least a little more “Tebowing.” Wouldn’t it be great if more people would get down on one knee and pray when everyone around them was doing something completely different?

Given the variety of unpleasant things professional athletes have said in post-game interviews and the number of unpleasant gestures we see at football games, it is hard to see how Tebow’s public profession of faith can generate so much hostility. Praying on one knee is way better than a lot of the touchdown celebrations we see.

But the irate callers insist that it is simply not appropriate at football games. They don’t go to football games to see people pray. And they don’t need a football player telling them what to believe.

For his part, Tebow seems unfazed by the furor. When a reporter asked him how he felt about so many people saying they hated him, he said simply, “I’m living my dream. I’ve dreamed of playing professional football since I was seven years old. I don’t care what they say.” He is cheerful and respectful and polite.

Tebow’s pastor, Wayne Hanson, who pastors the Summit Church in Suburban Denver, says that the Broncos are winning because of their quarterback’s faith. “It’s not luck,” Hanson said. “Luck isn’t winning six games in a row. It’s favor. God’s favor.” He believes that the Broncos would not be winning if God had not decided to reward Tebow for his faithfulness.

Tebow himself seems to have a more mature theological understanding than his pastor, and he has consistently rejected those sorts of pronouncements. He is happy and he clearly delights in his faith. But he does not claim divine favor in his successes. He talks about a team that believes in itself and teammates who believe in each other. He talks about the strength of the Denver defense and about how he is just trying to do his part.

In the strange world of talk radio, callers at one end of the dial were calling the sports show to say how much they despised Tim Tebow’s religion on the football field, while at the other end of the dial callers were phoning the public affairs show to say how much they despised Lincoln Chafee for keeping religion out of the tree lighting at the State House.

How weird is that?

Specks and Logs and the Illusion of Moral Superiority

“Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.”Matthew 7:3-5
I think I was in Junior High School when I first encountered Jesus’ teaching about the speck and the log. I had probably heard it when I was younger, but it was in the early teen years that it first made an impression.

I loved it immediately because it was the clearest and best description I had ever seen of what was the matter with my parents. They were trying to correct me. All the time, it seemed. And yet they were blind to their own faults.

I did not take it to them and confront them with the biblical explanation for their poor parenting because I knew it wouldn’t work. They had logs in their eyes. And I knew that they would not be able to see the truth even if I could show them that it came from Jesus.

It was only years later that it dawned on me that Jesus was not speaking to my parents, he was speaking to me.

One of the perverse truths of human nature is that we are always much more adept at seeing the specks in the eyes of our neighbors than we are in seeing the logs in our own eyes.

In a recent column in the New York Times, David Brooks commented in the Penn State scandal, the news of the atrocity of the (alleged) sexual assaults was quickly followed by the what he called, “the vanity.” He explains:

“The vanity is the outraged reaction of a zillion commentators over the past week, whose indignation is based on the assumption that if they had been in Joe Paterno’s shoes, or assistant coach Mike McQueary’s shoes, they would have behaved better. They would have taken action and stopped any sexual assaults.”

According to Brooks, research suggests that is a fiction. Ironically, some of the research was done at Penn State, where students were asked if they would speak up if someone made a sexist remark in their presence. Half of those surveyed said that they would. When researchers arranged for that same group to actually hear someone make a sexist remark, only 16% said anything. At another college 68% of students said that they would refuse to answer offensive questions during a job interview. But when they encountered a (seemingly) real stiatuion, none of them objected.

We are very good at self-deception.

We judge Mike McQueary and Joe Paterno, and the Penn State administrators by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our good intentions.

Moral outrage feels like virtue, but we deceive ourselves.

We can see the speck in the eye of another, but we simply cannot see the log in our own eye.