Thank God for Football

We have church at noon.

It's a problem.

It is smack dab in the middle of the early NFL game. I don't care what you believe, but conducting a somewhat sacred community event during the time another somewhat sacred community event is taking place really tests the loyalties of everyone involved. Church and community are important. Football and community are also important. It seems wrong to force anyone to choose.

By the way, I am the minister of the church I attend.

It doesn't help that the first week of football was record setting, heart thumping and dramatic to the point one wonders if it was scripted. In week one of football we witnessed:

1. The longest recorded kick return.
2. The longest play from the line of scrimmage.
3. The longest field goal.
4. 14 quarterbacks throw for more than 300 yards.
5. The most total yards ever gained in one week of football.
6. The most yards ever thrown by a rookie QB in their first game.

I cannot wait to get home from church each Sunday and turn on football. I am so glad the lockout was ended and that we are going to have a complete season this year. More so because I play in a Fantasy Football league too. My first three picks were Chris Johnson, Darren McFadden and Greg Jennings (M. Williams of Tampa, J. Best, A. Hernandez, S. Green, Big Ben, Percy Harvin….). I hate the new kick-off rule but I was excited to see it didn't really affect the number of kick returns this week.

By the way, it was a Packer who tied the record with his kick-off return.

Also, my entire family is from Wisconsin. I am a genetic Green Bay Packers fan. I've preached to our congregation in the South Suburbs of Chicago with a Packers jersey on. Last year was a time of almost indescribable vindication for me as the Packers defeated the Bears twice on their way to their fourth Super Bowl victory.

The first time my wife met my dad he asked her “Who is your favorite football team?” She told him she didn’t have one.

All 6’5” of him leaned over the table and looked her in the eye with a seriousness that made me shake when I lived under his roof and replied, “You do now. It’s the Green Bay Packers."

She flies their colors to this day. I love football.

I used to watch the old “NFL Crunch Course” Sports Illustrated sent to every subscriber (in the early '90a and late '80s), before every football game I played in grade school and high school. I loved the way Larry Zonka played. I loved the high knees of Roger Craig. I hate that the Vikings have Adrian Peterson. I think Ocho Cinco is amusing and that T.O. is destructive.

I still play in a flag football league. I go to sleep with visions of my glorious play in those insignificant games. Me catching a slant across the middle and running 60 yards to the end zone leaving men 10 years younger in my dust. My children are cheering and tears of pride fall from my wife's eyes as she runs onto the field to kiss me.

So having church during football is not insignificant for me.

I have tried every imaginable variable to change the situation at our church to absolutely no avail. We have facility issues. So every Sunday we expect hundreds of people to suspend their obsession with football in order to take some time to worship corporately with their community.

No cell phone updates allowed during service either. We have usher watch-dogs looking out for that one.

When church is over and everyone finishes their fellowship one can hear scores being called out across the parking lot as families team up to go watch the games together that afternoon in their homes. There are few joys greater than the feeling of walking into a friend’s home on Sunday afternoon where pizza rolls, nachos, chicken wings and chili are all laid out while the Patriots and Jets duke it out on a 60" TV, and you have Tom Brady and Santonio Holmes on your fantasy team.

In football, our country has realized a level of community it has long been losing. Where we have neighborhoods with neighbors unknown to one another and strangers living next door we, as a nation, have a great need for football.

I love my church and I have poured my energy, emotion and my youth into building something worthy of the God it is supposed to honor. But I would be foolish not to see that what football has done for the bonding of men, for the creation of context between father and son, for the spaces of community it effortlessly produces in a living room, tavern or stadium is worthy of imitation. Sunday football should not be belittled.

So I appreciate the fathers that gather their families together during important games and come to church instead. The same goes for every woman making the same sacrifice.

I think that church needs to look more like a bunch of people coming together to watch a football game. It should be exciting. There should be the slight anxiety of not knowing what is going to happen. Laughter. Joy. Defeat and the sickness that follows. It should have all the visceral emotions of grappling for victory. You know, without the swearing and drunkenness of football games.

As a matter of fact we have a tail-gaiting party before some of our church services because the elements of community inherent in such an event closely mirror the celebrations and festivals the Jews were told to uphold in the Law. Shared meals. Multiple families sitting down together to talk and fellowship and share in their common devotion to something bigger than themselves.

I thank God for football.