Category: Foundations

“While you are competing admirably in the divine race along the course of virtue, lightfootedly, leaping and staining constantly for the prize of the heavenly calling, I exhort, urge and encourage you vigorously to increase your speed.” – Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses (390s AD)

 

On August 12, 1994, I married Kimberly Byham; one month later she attended her first LPGA Qualifying School. Kim had recently completed a stellar senior year in golf at the University of North Carolina where she had won multiple times, including the NCAA East Regional tournament; she earned 1^st team All-American Honors and was ranked as the 3^rd best amateur in the country. She could “golf her ball”! I was in my second year of seminary training in Orlando, Fl.; a perfect place for Kim to practice golf year around. God and golf characterized my days. I would get up and go to class in the mornings, learning Greek and talking theology. My afternoons were spent at the course with Kim, learning the intricacies of the game and talking swing mechanics with her teacher Mike Bender. Her schedule was regimented and demanding, she lived constantly under the pressure to perform, nevertheless, she was focused, determined and driven. She loved competing. I helped with what I could because I loved her and enjoyed being apart of the pursuit of her dreams.

I share this because I have spent my adult life living with an elite athlete and being around them. Kim played professionally for 10 years, and has been coaching at the collegiate level for the last 11 years. In addition, for the past 7 years I have been involved with former MLB great, Billy Wagner, coaching, training and advising elite high school baseball players that are striving to play in college or be drafted. I’ve had a unique opportunity to observe first hand what it takes to be great athlete. I often find myself in awe of their passion, dedication, and disciple. The great ones are so mentally tough; there are always way more defeats than victories, yet they continue to get up after being knocked down as though their life depended upon it. I have a heart for these athletes and this blog was started to confirm them in their pursuit of excellence in their sport and help them understand that through this pursuit of excellence they can pursue God.

By comparison to other subjects within the history of Christian Theology very little has been written on Theology and Sports. Thankfully, recently certain Christian ethicist and theologians have begun to take on the subject. Dr. John White and others have been working together in a group called “Sport and Christianity” to discuss and address Christians in sports. In 2014, Lincoln Harvey published A Brief Theology of Sport, where he situates sports within the context of Christian thought. Most recently, Michael Shafer’s work, Well Played: A Christian Theology of Sport and the Ethics of Doping, where he explains the original intention of sports and the need to recapture it. I very much appreciate the work these folks are doing to help Christians think and relate Christianly to sports. For the most part the work that has been done is very general in nature addressing “how” Christians should relate to sports as participant and fan. My concern throughout this blog is for the elite athlete (professional or amateur), or those striving to be one. For them sport 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 – within that sport. I will show that for the Christian athlete this “striving toward excellence” in a given sport can be a means through which s/he lives into communion with God.

The purpose of this blog, as stated above, is to confirm the serious Christian Athlete in their quest to become the best they can be at their given sport. My hope is to make a way for them as a “Christian” Athlete. I want to help them find meaning – God – in all they do from practice to play. Sports are not merely instrumental, but have meaning within itself. A given sports value is established on its own merits finding its rational in the rational and love of God. We do not apprehend God by moving beyond the sport, but by exactly attending to it. Like all things in Creation, sports are intended to be a road to God, an avenue through which we ascend to the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit. By contemplating the intricacies and reasons of a given sport we grow in our knowledge and experience of God. Contemplating is not merely observing and analyzing but living in the midst of and experiencing the truth of a “thing”. To contemplate an apple is to observe the beauty of an apple (shape, size, color), but even more so, it’s to taste and enjoy the apple’s deliciousness as well as benefit from its nourishment. Christian contemplation is experiencing creation in all its grandness, or brokenness, while simultaneously realizing and experiencing God in the midst. The Christian athlete does this in a given sport by attending to it, observing it, working at it, living it, playing it and suffering it in faith. Here, faith arises as something much more than a mere belief, it becomes an actual mode of existence – a way of seeing, being, and living in the world.

 

There is a way to be an elite athlete and love God. I am going to go as far to argue on this blog-site that the Christian athlete actually shows their love to God (loves Him) by exactly becoming the best they can be at their given sport.  Even further, I’m going to contend that when an athlete seeks to become “the best they can be” (in a Christian fashion) at their sport they come to know and experience God more deeply. It’s going to take numerous posts for me to reveal and support the truth of these assertions. I am going to weave together biblical passages, theology, personal testimonies, and prayer to hopefully confirm you the athlete in your pursuit of God and excellence in your sport. At times it’s going to necessitate you to do some mental work, while at other times it’s going to require you to do spiritual work as well as some soul searching. Remember, most things that are worthwhile do not come easy. So I ask you to stick with me, especially through the biblical and theological posts; they are foundational to what we believe and thus how we live.  It’s time to put on your thinking cap and do a little theology. Here, I’m seeking to restate what I said in the 1^st post, “Thinking about the Fundamentals”, but this time in more biblical and theological language.

            To understand the full scope of God’s intention for us human beings and the world we must consider why God created the world and us in the first place.  Out of God’s boundless riches creation was brought forth out of nothing to participate in and reveal God’s being through its beauty, diversity and varied dimensions. Furthermore, the world was created to house the crown of God’s creation, “Man”, and be the medium through which human beings come to know and participate in God’s inner-trinitarian life.  As for “Man”, the Fathers of the church contended and explained that to be created in the “image” of God does not merely set us apart as rational beings from all other created things, but fundamentally constitutes us as relational beings. To be made in the image of God is made in the image of the Trinity, which orients us toward communion with God and other human beings.  In other words, to be truly human is to live in communion with God and others. “Image” implies our necessity and thirst for God. St Augustine captured this reality well when He said;  “My soul was restless until it found rest in You”.

            Why did God create the world, and especially us humans beings? Simply stated, so that we might become partakers of his divine life.  The truth of this assertion is most fully revealed in the advent of Jesus Christ. Irenaeus, the 2^nd century church father, summed it up best when he stated, “In his unbounded love, He was made what we are, that He might make us to be what he is”.[i]  Through Jesus Christ we come to more fully understand God’s motive and purpose for creation. God’s motive for creation was his goodness and love. And the early church fathers emphasized this fact over against the idea that God had some inner necessity to do so, as if God was alone and in need of some companion to make himself complete or satisfied.  Rather, they contended that God, who is in need of nothing and is perfectly sufficient and satisfied within Himself, created freely out of the overflow of his love and goodness. Peter writes,

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (2 Peter 1: 3-4)

 

The purpose of this creation, and especially human beings, was so that they would become participants in his divine life.

            Through Jesus Christ humanity becomes a partaker of divine life. More specially,  “through the Incarnation, Christ raised up the divine image in man to its fully actual state, that is, to the full communion that it is able to with God and with human beings”.[ii]  Here we come to understand the emphasis in Christian thought that Jesus was “fully God” and “fully man”. Only God can “save”, thus Christ our Savior must be God. And only if Christ is human does salvation reach the point of human need. He takes into himself what is ours and in exchange he gives us what is His own (2 Cor. 8:9). Salvation is not so much making “amends” as it is ”mending”. In Jesus Christ, humanity is restored and perfected through the Incarnation (deifying communion).  Kallistos Ware explains,  “Salvation is nothing less than an all-embracing transformation of our humanness. To be saved is to share with all fullness of human nature in the power, joy and glory of God”.[iii] Otherwise stated, Jesus Christ raises “humanity” to the level of participation in the Trinity, and through the Spirit our humanity can be and is raised as well. We actualize this “mending” through faith in Jesus Christ by the Spirit who communicates God’s divine life to us.

            God creates “all things” out of his goodness and love so that all things might share in that love. The purpose then for “all things” is that they might reach full participation in this love. This gives created things a distinct meaning – “matter matters”.  Not only in Jesus is humanity redeemed, but also all creation is set aright toward this goal or purpose.  In the Christian scheme of things, creation can be a medium through which we commune with God. In other words, we live into this salvation, we become who we are meant to be, by seeking more and more to participate and advance in this communion with God. One of the ways this comes about is through our involvement, progress and grasp of created things. Humans are called to grow in communion with God by “exercising spiritual rule over the world, by transfiguring it, by exercising their capacity to see the world and make it a medium transparent”[iv] that radiates the goodness and glory of God. Thus, it is in and through the created things of the world, like sports, that we have the opportunity to seek to grow and advance into fuller communion with God.

The fundamentals of a particular sport are those essential skills one must perform in ordered to “play” the sport. For instance, in baseball and softball the fundamentals are hitting, throwing, catching, and running. If one does not possess these skills it is impossible to play softball or baseball. “Fundamentals” are the necessary essential ingredients for participation in a given sport. We can talk about baseball and softball all we want, but we cannot play baseball or softball without being able to hit, throw, catch or run. Even further, the better we are at performing the fundamentals the better we are at playing the game. (This is what the best coaches and players know, and why they work so hard to perfect the “fundamentals”). This also holds true for the Christian Athlete! The “fundamentals” that make an Athlete Christian are faith, sacrifice and commitment. Without these we cannot play the “game”.

We will discuss faith, sacrifice and commitment in more detail in future post, for now let’s take a step back and begin by sketching the “fundamentals” of the Christian faith. I’m going to do this in two parts (posts); here I’m going say it as plainly and straight forward as possible. In my next blog, I’m going to state the same thing again but in more biblical and theological language.

God’s intent in creating the world, and especially us human beings, was to share His life. His desire was make us participants in His goodness and love. This was not something that He wanted to force upon us, but for us to freely live into. Unfortunately, we chose differently and the consequences were “grave” for the world and us. Death, sin, separation, pain, and suffering entered into our existence raking havoc and causing chaos. Thankfully, God did not abandon us to this “state”, but rather remained constant in his original intent for us. So at the proper time he sent his Son to redeem us – to win us back. In Jesus Christ, God competed for us! He conquered sin and death and opened up a way for us to once again live freely into His life by faith.

A Christian Athlete is one who “works out their salvation” (Phil 2:12) through their sport. Like any Christian, the Christian athlete begins (and ends) with the belief and a deep commitment (trust) that “life” is found in Jesus Christ. Each day – never often enough, perfectly or sufficiently – they seek to live in light of the reality that in Jesus Christ God has first loved us. Here, the Christian’s response is not merely prompted by a “command”; rather it is their attempt to love God with all that they are. For 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 (His death and resurrection) that gives each day a new horizon and a decisive direction. For the Christian, 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 creation. Their response of love to this gift of God is often expressed in acts of thanksgiving, confession, sheer awe and even silence, but most frequently for the believer, it takes the form of submission and reliance (Our Father who art…your kingdom come, your will be done…give us this day…). How we live our lives is the Christian’s response to the love of God in Jesus Christ, or shall we say, how the Christian Athlete competes (and practices) at their given sport is their response to the love of God in Jesus Christ.

In honor of The Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Christ, 2017