Football and life
02/02/14 05:18
It is going to be a busy day in a lot of different places in a lot of different ways. In Costa Rica, voters head to the polls to elect a new president and legislative assembly. There is a host of candidates running for president and a runoff election is likely.The candidates have all been quick to declare their faith - all are members of the Roman Catholic Church - and how faith is informing their social policies. Perhaps it is fitting the election day is also the Feast of the Presentation in liturgical churches. The fest of the presentation doesn’t always land on a Sunday, but this year the timing works out. It is the time of remembering when the infant Jesus was taken to the temple to be presented as was the custom in his time. There he and his parents met Simeon and Anna, two elders who spent most of their time in the temple waiting for particularly significant moments. Luke’s gospel reports that both recognized the child as the messiah and Simeon’s song, recorded in the gospel is a declaration that the elder can now die ion peace because he has witnessed the fulfillment of the prophecies and the faithfulness of God. We read the Song of Simeon at nearly every funeral that we perform.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the main focus of the day will not be the Eucharist services celebrating the feast of the presentation for most of the candidates in the Costa Rican election. In a country with a state church, faith is often assumed more than it is acted upon. The church is one among many state institutions. Buildings are generally well-maintained with taxpayer support, but often empty from the apathy of the people.
Not that church will be the event of the day here in the United States. There is something about a football game that seems to be a bit of a distraction for many folks. And when we say football here in this country we mean a different game than the one that holds that name in most of the rest of the world. I have heard it said that “if baseball is America’s pastime, then football is its passion.” With the clustering of college games around national holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years and the huge spectacle of the Super Bowl, the sport certainly carries a lot of symbolic baggage along with a hierarchical and highly gendered game. Like many sports it has vaguely militaristic concepts - the battle between two sides, strategies and officers directing the play. In many ways, however, the game has evolved less than the military, which is largely a gender-integrated profession these days. Don’t elect that for football any time soon.
Football trails other sports in terms of the number of high school and college students who play the sport, but the sport often is the largest source of income for collegiate sports programs. The game is part of a huge marketing and entertainment structure. It is the fans that bring the money to the sport. There are high school games that draw crowds of 100,000 fans and being associated with the games is critical to marketing many items. The association of Budweiser beer and Doritos chips with the Super Bowl haven’t hurt their sales one bit.
I’m sure that there are plenty of social scientists who will study the game, the advertisements and their impact on our society. It is clearly a cultural phenomenon in our country. Visitors from other countries can easily see that marker of our national identity.
My attention won’t be primarily focused on the game, even though it is so much a part of our culture it would be foolish of me not to know who is playing and to pay attention to the outcome. I probably need to know something of the advertisements that will be as much a topic of conversation in the week to come as the game itself. Fortunately it is easy to watch the advertisements without watching the game. They’ve been available on the Internet for a couple of weeks now.
It would be a huge mistake, however, to say that my day isn’t influenced by the sport. This afternoon I’ll be attending the viewing and family service for a man who we knew as “coach.” And I’ll spend part of the evening putting the finishing touches on his funeral service that will be tomorrow morning. It isn’t possible to talk about his life without thinking of him both as a coach and as a fan. His turf and territory wasn’t professional sports, but he has as firm a grasp on the dynamics and role of sports in American education as anyone I’ve ever met. Being illiterate about the sport wouldn’t serve him or his family at all as they make their way through this journey of grief. Telling his story requires knowing some of the teams for which he cared.
If the game is our passion, it cannot be ignored at the most important moments of our lives.
Folks in our congregation may notice that another member of the congregation is away on a trip to Arizona this week. For years this other member was the lay reader on Super Bowl Sunday every year and together we compile little tongue-in-cheek commentaries on the game. No such commentary has been prepared for our worship this morning. There are some things that are so dependent upon a particular person that an imitation simply doesn’t work.
You can be a fan of the sport or not, but to ignore its impact on our lives is to fail to understand the culture in which we live and minister.
Down in Costa Rica, there are plenty of folks who will be paying as much attention to the question of whether or not Peyton Manning can dominate the Seahawk’s defense to win his second Super Bowl. It might even be as big a question as to whether or not ex-San Jose mayor Johnny Araya can hold off the challengers in the presidential election.
They’re watching the game all over the world. Even if soccer is their big sport, they are intrigued about how football affects our culture.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the main focus of the day will not be the Eucharist services celebrating the feast of the presentation for most of the candidates in the Costa Rican election. In a country with a state church, faith is often assumed more than it is acted upon. The church is one among many state institutions. Buildings are generally well-maintained with taxpayer support, but often empty from the apathy of the people.
Not that church will be the event of the day here in the United States. There is something about a football game that seems to be a bit of a distraction for many folks. And when we say football here in this country we mean a different game than the one that holds that name in most of the rest of the world. I have heard it said that “if baseball is America’s pastime, then football is its passion.” With the clustering of college games around national holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years and the huge spectacle of the Super Bowl, the sport certainly carries a lot of symbolic baggage along with a hierarchical and highly gendered game. Like many sports it has vaguely militaristic concepts - the battle between two sides, strategies and officers directing the play. In many ways, however, the game has evolved less than the military, which is largely a gender-integrated profession these days. Don’t elect that for football any time soon.
Football trails other sports in terms of the number of high school and college students who play the sport, but the sport often is the largest source of income for collegiate sports programs. The game is part of a huge marketing and entertainment structure. It is the fans that bring the money to the sport. There are high school games that draw crowds of 100,000 fans and being associated with the games is critical to marketing many items. The association of Budweiser beer and Doritos chips with the Super Bowl haven’t hurt their sales one bit.
I’m sure that there are plenty of social scientists who will study the game, the advertisements and their impact on our society. It is clearly a cultural phenomenon in our country. Visitors from other countries can easily see that marker of our national identity.
My attention won’t be primarily focused on the game, even though it is so much a part of our culture it would be foolish of me not to know who is playing and to pay attention to the outcome. I probably need to know something of the advertisements that will be as much a topic of conversation in the week to come as the game itself. Fortunately it is easy to watch the advertisements without watching the game. They’ve been available on the Internet for a couple of weeks now.
It would be a huge mistake, however, to say that my day isn’t influenced by the sport. This afternoon I’ll be attending the viewing and family service for a man who we knew as “coach.” And I’ll spend part of the evening putting the finishing touches on his funeral service that will be tomorrow morning. It isn’t possible to talk about his life without thinking of him both as a coach and as a fan. His turf and territory wasn’t professional sports, but he has as firm a grasp on the dynamics and role of sports in American education as anyone I’ve ever met. Being illiterate about the sport wouldn’t serve him or his family at all as they make their way through this journey of grief. Telling his story requires knowing some of the teams for which he cared.
If the game is our passion, it cannot be ignored at the most important moments of our lives.
Folks in our congregation may notice that another member of the congregation is away on a trip to Arizona this week. For years this other member was the lay reader on Super Bowl Sunday every year and together we compile little tongue-in-cheek commentaries on the game. No such commentary has been prepared for our worship this morning. There are some things that are so dependent upon a particular person that an imitation simply doesn’t work.
You can be a fan of the sport or not, but to ignore its impact on our lives is to fail to understand the culture in which we live and minister.
Down in Costa Rica, there are plenty of folks who will be paying as much attention to the question of whether or not Peyton Manning can dominate the Seahawk’s defense to win his second Super Bowl. It might even be as big a question as to whether or not ex-San Jose mayor Johnny Araya can hold off the challengers in the presidential election.
They’re watching the game all over the world. Even if soccer is their big sport, they are intrigued about how football affects our culture.