Religion and Sports

Earl Pitts would always start his rants with “you know what makes me sick?  You know what makes me so mad I just want to….”  As funny as he was, like Rush Limbaugh says, there has to be an element of truth in it to make it funny.  And so, I come today to say that people pick their religion like they do their sports team.

How’s that you say?  Well, just as there are different sports, there are different religions and just as there are different teams in a particular sport, there seems to be a different sect, denomination, or whatever in each religion.

How do people pick their sports team?  Well, it is usually because they like the colors, or the symbols, or it’s from their area or it because their family are all fans.  There’s really not much logical thought put into it.  I’ve heard it said that people put more thought into choosing an article of apparel than they do choosing their life’s occupation and I believe it fits with picking their team as well.  People also seem to pick their religion for the same types of reasons.

Once people pick their sports team, then they wrap themselves in the colors, symbols, and traditions of that team.  Then, they rah rah for their team and have the us vs. them attitude; our guys are better than your guys, yay us.  Have we not seen the same thing with religion?

The problem though is that after a while, it becomes tiring to keep rah rahing and you need a break.  That’s why sports have seasons.  For religion though, there is no off season.  Usually what happens then is when the excitement wears off; people tend to drift away form whatever religion they chose.  They drift off unless there is someone to beat them or threaten them to hound them back into the flock.

True Christianity though is different (or it should be).  You don’t choose to become a Christian.  Jesus bluntly told this to the apostle when he said “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit-- fruit that will last.”  Just as the drowning person cannot choose who will save him or her, you cannot choose to be a Christian.

This is evidenced again when Jesus chose Saul of Tarsus.  Jesus told him “it is hard for you to kick against the goads.” In other words, when you are chosen, there will be goads or prodding by the Holy Spirit that you cannot ignore.  You can ignore and fight against it but eventually it comes to where you have to make the decision to accept or reject it.  

So if you pick Christianity as your religion like you’d pick a sports team, when all the hoopla fades away, you’ll fade away from church also.  It’ll become something that you are supposed to do instead of something you want to do.  However, if you sense the calling, and seek out how to tune into it (which is “seek ye first the kingdom of God”), your life will never be the same and you won’t need all of the emotion and hype to keep you going.