Mark 1:21-28

Today is Super Bowl Sunday, the “high holy day” for tens of millions of armchair athletes---like myself. This is the most sacred sporting event in America. This evening’s clash between the St. Louis Rams and the Tennessee Titans will be an hour of bone crushing hitting, kicking, running, tackling, passing, catching, punting and praising God---spread out over three hours! I repeat: We will be served hours of athletes going out of their way to do violence to one another after which they will praise God for his goodness. Curiously, for a preacher, I will enjoy pretty much every minute of it except the “Praise God!” part.

It's getting to the point where the National Football League is starting to sound like a wholly owned subsidiary of the Christian Television Network. Consider a recent playoff game: First, a Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback informs a sideline reporter that God is responsible for the Jags' victory. Not coaches or owners, not recruiters or trainers, not even the players! No, GOD is responsible. And how does this quarterback account for his team's success? “Thanks be to God,” he says. “There's a bunch of guys on this team who really love the Lord.” 

Over the past several months I have clipped newspaper and magazine articles that have reported this strange phenomenon. An article in U.S. News & World Report began with an account from two Super Bowls ago. New England Patriots' Keith Byars began his post-game recap with:

“Thanks be to God from whom all blessings flow.”

From this doxology he drifted seamlessly into a detailed analysis of the entire game. A few moments later, the Patriots' owner revealed that he had just been given a religious pendant that the coach had carried in his pocket during the Patriot’s lopsided victory over the Steelers. The owner obviously considered the pendant to be more than a “lucky charm.”

Professional athletes are getting saved, and sports writers are getting annoyed. These days, it seems, the only place in the daily paper where you can find religion is the sports page. There can be no doubt that the number of athletes publicly testifying to their faith has drastically increased in the last few years and, as the players push faith in their faces, the writers feel they have to report it.

A year or so ago, when the University of Oklahoma football team beat arch rival Texas in overtime, the Oklahoma coach declared on ABC-TV:

“This was Jesus Christ working through my players.”

In other words, the Lord Jesus turned his back on Texas while he tuned his ears to the prayers of the people of Oklahoma---and their prayers only.

Such testimonials---along with Bible study sessions, chapel services and post-game group prayer---have all become an accepted part of professional sports---football in particular. At least they've been accepted by the players and many like minded fans; but, not every NFL coach agrees. When asked whether God would favor one side or the other in a match up of passionately religious players, Coach Bill Parcells of the New York Jets replied, judiciously:

“No disrespect to anyone, but it usually works better when the players are good and fast. 

And, USA Today sports writer Jon Saraceno, asks:

                    “How about a little more hitting and a lot less sermonizing?”                         “Personally I'm all for separation of church and football.” 

(Terry Rifkin, "God in the Press Box," Religion in the News, Spring 1999, Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life).

Not every Evangelical Christian agrees either. Mike Horton of the “Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals” says:

                "We're turning Christ into little more than a football coach.   I think it competes with His role as Savior if this is the primary  message that people are getting.”

 (Jamie Lee Rake, "Door Interview: Mike Horton," The Door, March-April 1999).

Like it or not, there's a lot of holiness in the huddle these days, and some of the players on the winning team in today's Super Bowl will no doubt claim a victory for God---while television reporters and others, including some teammates, will stand silent in wide eyed wonderment. 

In today's lesson from Mark there is chaos in the synagogue similar to that of post game locker rooms. Jesus takes control, suggesting that those present get to make “noise” first and then get to make “silence.” The time of noise was predictably chaotic---like the post game shouting, pounding and stomping in the Superbowl’s winning locker room. And, the period of silence that followed was, in its own way, equally passionate.

While varying degrees and forms of both love and exuberance bind all teams together (congregations like St. James included) Christians are called to balance the exuberance of their claims with their love for one another and the world. Nothing puts Christian fundamentalists in an "Onward, Christian Soldiers mode” faster than when others question their right to be aggressive in their faith--- “Praise the Lord!” Right now, the blood of our Southern Baptist brothers and sisters is rushing and their passion pushing them into a rampage of righteousness, as they prepare for a summer of door to door conversions of Jews and Gentiles, Muslims and Buddhists. After all God is on their side! As natural or even holy as such a burst of aggressive exuberance might first appear, it doesn't seem terribly Christ-centered ---at least not to me.

In the text before us, Jesus commands a rampaging aggressive spirit to “come out” of a man who was disrupting the synagogue’s silence. “Come out of him!” Jesus said ---meaning “let go.” “Break free” of the desire to beat your enemies into submission in the name of God. Better to submit yourself to God, and to let your “good works” show the world the power of the Christian life; stop attributing a competitive spirit with godliness; ---refrain from equating “winning” with good and “losing” with evil. Far better to welcome the Holy Spirit, who wants everyone to win by discovering and accepting the love of God in Christ.

This is what the whole world should hear and understand. This is what we must teach our children and what they must in turn learn from us. There are, of course, almost as many ways to teach as there are teachers. How, one might ask, did Jesus teach such things? The Bible says that he taught as the Master and, he taught not the traditions of men, but the Good News of God. Furthermore, Jesus backed up his words with deeds.

          He didn't advocate this or that school of healing---he healed!

          He didn't suggest  that forgiveness might be a good thing---he forgave! 

          He didn't talk about teaching---he taught!

What about us? We talk about the power of the Holy Spirit, but are we, like Paul, empowered by the Spirit? Are we, like the Apostle Paul, prepared not simply to speak but to truly teach and live the Gospel of Jesus Christ?  It has been said:

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”

If you want to find heroes of the faith today, you need look no further than your nearest Sunday school teachers. Sunday by Sunday they tirelessly (well maybe not tirelessly but certainly faithfully) they faithfully serve the Lord by exuberantly teaching children and adults. Not always an easy job!

On a slightly different “teaching tack”---following every single national tragedy we get a plethora of news coverage which invariably includes a bevy of experts clamoring to teach us “right” from “wrong” and about “good” and “evil.” Nightly news programs and talk shows are packed with politicians, lawyers, psychologists, and even a pumped up clergyman or two, like Jerry Farwell, all telling us what we should think and believe and teaching us nothing! The aftermath of the murder of Jon Bene Ramsey and the killings at Littleton, Colorado’s Columbine High School are  examples that reflect America’s inability to talk about tragic events in a way that lessons can be learned. It would have been better if the so called “experts” had kept silent.

I recall a news article in which a prominent psychiatrist was reported to have said, "The Littleton, Colorado shootings are symptomatic of the male identity crisis." --- to which University of Chicago philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain retorted, “When we need Reinhold Niebuhr, we get fifty Dr. Joyce Brothers.”

It was mid-20th century theologian Karl Barth who said it best:

         “We must first learn again to speak to each other with authority  and not as the scribes. For the present we are all much too clever and un-childlike to be of real mutual help.”

We need to re-employ silence for self-examination and we need to re-claim terms such as "personal sin," in order that we might better understand and account for such disasters. And, we need to do so in simple, even childlike ways, as opposed to throwing about the vague moral assertions such as: “an evil society” or, “greedy movie makers” or, “profane music,” or, “godless educators”-- “made them do it!”

When we follow the command of Jesus to be silent. . .  when we hear God's still, small voice. . .  when we listen for the guidance of the Lord instead of bragging to the whole world about how much we know and have achieved because of the special relationship we have with the Almighty. . . when we truly listen to the Lord, we discover that our most precious treasure is the soul ---that “holy thing” or “place” that has been quietly tucked deep down within each of us from the very beginning of life.

It is our souls that we should remember to take with us into each and every new day ---whether it is a winning day or a losing day. Such insight requires a simplicity and silence sorely lacking today;  not just among today’s professional athletes, but everywhere! Simplicity of faith and appropriate silence is lacking among those within the institutions of education, law, and yes, among those of us within the institutions of religion--- who should really know better!  AMEN!