NFL, NBA - Rumors of Wars

Spirituality Column #244
July 12, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

NFL, NBA – Rumors of Wars
By Bob Walters

“It’s the end of the world as we know it …” - Rock band R.E.M., 1987

“Small group” is a familiar church fellowship phrase that has, ostensibly, nothing to do with sports or rock and roll.

These are small groups of Christians – friends, couples, families – who “do life together.” Especially in large congregations where it is difficult to feel human “closeness” (except when you’re crammed into the pews), it’s typical for 10 to 20 believers to join together for Bible study, prayer, Christian accountability, social and family activities, and even vacations. They just generally share together, as Christians, in the joys, ups, downs, burdens and sorrows of everyday life.

As a side note, our church used to call them “K-Groups” after the Greek word koinonia (coin-o-NEE-ah) meaning “communion of intimate participation.” Only we old folks still say “K-Group.” The “K” has been lost, I think, because modern church management wants to avoid scaring seekers with elegant, traditional and accurate Greek words. There are 2,000 years of Christian faith and thought that too many churches, sadly, choose to ignore. But the Christian story is too big for just Sunday, and small groups help us do life with Christ and with other Christians every day.

So … my K-Group, most Sundays in fall and winter, gathers at someone’s home to watch the Colts play. And when the Pacers are behaving and winning (remember those days?), or Butler is in the NCAA tournament, we watch hoops. There are couples and kids and lots of food and fellowship.

On this score, we are sunshine patriots. Winning teams foster community; so we watch. Losing teams don’t, so we don’t. Presently, the awful spectacles of the NFL and NBA locking out players, cannibalizing themselves in the midst of great success, and claiming the righteousness of their “cause” make the sane among us avert our eyes.

We can’t watch. Scripture helps us cope:

Matthew 23:33 (“Seven Woes”) – “You snakes! You brood of vipers!”

Matthew 24:6 (“Signs of the end of the age”) – “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. But see to it that you are not alarmed.”

1 Timothy 6:10 (“Love of money”) – “… the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.”

The lockouts are a shame but not the end of the world. I believe that’s coming one day (the “end”), but I doubt it will be about sports.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) wonders if anyone at the negotiations has suggested beginning with prayer. You can bet all the vendors and sports infrastructure people are praying. Read all of Matthew 23.

Noah, Field of Dreams and the Bible

Spirituality column #84
June 17, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

Noah, Field of Dreams and the Bible
By Bob Walters

Our intellectual experience as Americans is, I think, not only diminished but crippled if we are not aware and conversant of what’s in the Bible.

By “intellectual experience” I mean the entire spectrum of thinking, from our childhood education, to our philosophical development, to our faith (or non-faith), and ultimately to our adult actions and beliefs as free human persons, both individually and as a community.

Most literature and art in the Western world has something to do with the Biblical/Christian conversation. It is too bad that so much of our society over the last century and half, and especially over the past 50 years or so, has tried to reinterpret and redefine the Western experience of freedom and individual personhood away from Biblical principles.

We often wind up missing the richness of what is being said in our artistic conversation.

I’m going to use a sports movie and a Bible story to try to explain what I mean.

Field of Dreams, a wonderful baseball movie from 1988, is a terrific morality play about faith, redemption, family, freedom, community, heaven, and God’s permanence and involvement in each of our lives.

If you think the movie is only about a guy dumb enough to plow under a couple acres of corn on the advice of an unknown voice, risks losing his farm, and gets lucky in the end … well, you miss the depth of the movie.

In Genesis chapters 6 to 9, Noah building a boat – where he built it – would have seemed even crazier than Ray Kinsella building a baseball field where he built it. It took Noah 124 years to build the ark in an area that was miles from the sea in a place where rain had never fallen.

Watch Field of Dreams for common Christian symbolism – including the New Testament truth that Heaven will one day be on earth (which obviously includes Iowa) – and it becomes a story about the affirmation of God’s promises, not just a baseball movie.
This is one small example of why it is such a big deal that such a large slice of America is becoming systematically Biblically illiterate. We understand so much less of the gifts we have … not from Hollywood, but from God.

The gifts are wonderful; that so many of us don’t recognize where they come from is a shame.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) loves baseball. He’ll discuss Narnia next week.