Contingency

What we have been considering in this blog is a Christian approach to sports, and more specially, a Christian approach for an elite athlete. In contrast to the “recreational” athlete, sport for the elite athlete is what they do, it’s their passion, it consumes their time, it’s what they work at, and it’s how they give back. For them the “play” of sport has become “sedulity” – a certain striving towards excellence. Above all what I have been seeking to suggest is that this “striving toward excellence” of a Christian athlete in a given sport can be a means through which s/he lives into communion with God. This argument is predicated a certain – Christian – view of human existence understood fundamentally as “response”, and here what is assumed is the Triune God. Human existence presupposes God, that is, it presumes God’s existence and His sovereign free creative activity – we are because He first is/was. Contrary to modern thought we did not (and do not) create our selves, rather God brought us into being and thus we are contingent by nature – contingent upon his Being, and His free creative action.

The Bible begins with a telling of the story of creation. In the opening chapters of Genesis, a reader experiences God in His initiative to freely create the world and all that is within it. A focal point in these opening narratives is the creation of human beings (“male and female”), as well as, a description of their response to God’s creative initiative. A discerning reader can’t help but see the very contingent nature of human existence in these sketches. Man’s contingency is illustrated by the very fact of God’s initiative to create the world and man in the first place. If God had not chosen to create the world and man they simply would not exist. Even further we are told that God did not merely create man arbitrarily; he made man in His image (Gen 1:27). In other words, human beings were given a specific “pattern” for existence. Again, not of our own doing or choosing! Not only was man created in the image God, but he was made from the very “material” of the earth – Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground (Gen 2:7a) – and thus he is bound to this earth. This contingent aspect is most fully experienced in our need for food, water and oxygen in order to live. We may be free to choose what we eat, but we are not free to not eat; if we are to live, we must eat. Man’s contingency is highlighted even further in that man’s being was/is granted by God’s own Being – and (God) breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being (Gen 2:7b). God did not ask us if we wanted to “be”, we “are” by his choice, and His alone. Also, it is not that God granted us “being” in and of ourselves, rather our being is an extension of His Being. If God ceases to “be”, so do we! We are bound to God and to this earth; perhaps a stark way of putting this is that we are slaves to God and this earth.

Additional proof of this contingency is found in the “prohibition” God gave to Adam and Eve. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Gen 2: 16, 17). Obedience to God is one of those contingent aspects of human nature. I think it’s fair to say that “much” has been predetermined for us as a human being well before we are conscious of our ability to say “no”. In creating us, God did grant us the freedom to make a choice, that is, to respond to this our being. We can either live in accordance with our contingent nature, or counter to it. Each is a way of responding, the former leads to flourishing and life, while the latter tends to corruption and death.

I find it interesting that so much of these opening chapters of the Bible center upon an aspect of man’s contingency, that is, man’s “hunger” and food. Here, food is something more than physical nourishment; it also includes a spiritual/cosmic dimension.

 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,  but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.  “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.  Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. (Gen 3:1-7)

Even though in this episode we witness the negative aspects of eating the forbidden fruit the positive dimension of eating permitted fruit is implied. Which is to say, partaking of those foods that God did give them to eat was more than physical nourishment, it included a spiritual/cosmic dimension – it was means of communion with God. Alexander Schmemann explains “In the Bible the food that man eats, the world of which he must partake in order to live, is given to him by God, and it is given as communion with God.” Man’s hunger and thirst, his longing for something more, is the hunger, thirst and longing for God. Schmemann argues, “All that exist is God’s gift to man, and it all exist to make God known to man, to make man’s life communion with God.” God creates the world and all that is in it and in pronouncing it “good” he blesses it to be a transparent means of communion with Him.

As the story goes, “man” (and woman) rejected this contingent nature that had been given to them by God. Instead, they sought to reach beyond their own nature and free themselves from who God made them to be. In so doing, they lost touch with reality; they lost sight of God; they lost themselves. Food, and the world, became an end in itself. They exchanged blessings for curses, thanksgiving for an insatiable greed, and offering for consumerism.

In the Garden freedom and bliss was found through acceptance, thanksgiving and offering… “Man alone is to respond to God’s blessing with his blessing.” He was simply to offer up what he had been given in thanksgiving and thus partake in all things fully. Schmemman put it this way, “(Man) stands in the center of the world and unifies it in his act of blessing it to God – and filling the world with this eucharist (thanksgiving offering) he transforms his life, the one he receives from the world, into life in God, into communion with Him.” In this way, man lives out his priestly role within world.

One catches a glimpse of this eucharistic way of life in Old Testament saints, as well as, in the constitution of children of Israel. Sacrifice and offering was their attempt to live out God’s original intent, or should I say, to embrace their contingency. We don’t have to read to far along in Genesis before we witness this fundamental way of relating to creation and God in the likes of Cain and Able, Noah’s offering, as well as, the story of Abraham and Isaac. Throughout the OT we witness this pattern of sacrifice and offering as way a life by the children of Israel. Perhaps the most basic of them all was the fellowship offering, where a family would take a lamb, split it in half, and cook both halves. Then they would take one half to eat for themselves and set the other upon an altar for God to eat. It was in this sacrificial act that they communed with God. All of this comes full circle in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. What Adam failed to do, that is, offer himself and world up to God; Jesus did, and in doing so, He reconciled us, and the world, back to God. The good news is that in through the sacrifice of Jesus, you and I have real possibility by the Holy Spirit to receive this world and ourselves rightly by offering them up to God and thus transforming them into communion with God. (And yes, you should be hearing and making connections with the Eucharist within our weekly worship services.)

The Christian life is a response – that is, it is a life that is lived in response to the love of God and the gifts of God.

In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an expiation for our sins. (1 John 4:9-11).

As I have stated before, each day – never often enough, perfectly or sufficiently – the Christian is the one seeking to live in light of the reality that in Jesus Christ God has first loved us. Here, their response is not merely prompted by a command; rather, it is their attempt to love God with all that they are. For them, being a Christian – a follower of Jesus Christ – is not merely about a one-time decision; much more than that, it’s an ongoing encounter with a Person and an event that gives each day a new horizon and a decisive direction. There is no doubt, this is a deep personal relationship, but it is also one that is necessarily lived out with reference to other individuals and God’s creation. The Christian’s response of love is often expressed in acts of thanksgiving, confession, submission, reliance, sheer awe and even silence, but fundamentally this “response” is best characterized as an offering back. Our response of love to God’s love is to offer back to God that which he has given us. Succinctly put: Creation (and salvation) is a gift from God, and more specifically, your individual creation, with all your talents, passions and desires are gifts from God. These gifts have been given to you out of love to be the means through which you fulfill your purpose – become a partaker of the Divine life. The way in which we actualize all of this is by offering back to God what he has given us. For the athlete this offering takes the form of seeking in faith to become the best you can be at your given sport.