Playing to win?

When my daughter returns from a netball or football match I have to be careful not to immediately ask whether her team won. I don't always succeed in avoiding the burning question pressing on the tip of my tongue. I am slowly learning the old truth that 'it's not the winning that counts, but the taking part.' I try to ask questions like 'Did you enjoy the game? What were the opposition like?' and if by then she hasn't revealed the result I then find, irresistibly, the need to ask her the score. The competitive spirit in me isn't always obvious, but it runs deep. 

I enjoy running. I love over-taking another runner or just keeping ahead of them as they breathe down my neck in the final moments of a weekly 5km parkrun! But being overtaken by a fellow parkrunner near the finish line brings out the opposite feeling. I read recently that the late Graham Taylor (former football manager) ran the 2004 London Marathon, aged 60, in a very respectable 5 hours 5 minutes. I also read that the late Eugene Peterson (former pastor and theologian) ran the 1984 Boston Marathon, aged 52, in a very impressive 3 hours 47 minutes. These achievements sometimes give me a prod that I should be able to do likewise when I reach the ages they ran at. But then I think of the lengthy training required and how I would be glad to run Taylor's almost sub-5 hour's time of 5:05 if I entered a race in the next year... and even gladder if I were able to run Taylor's time when I, in less than a decade from now, reach Peterson's Boston Marathon age! I doubt I shall ever run a sub-4 hour marathon! 

The cricket team I play for avoided relegation (into Surrey Downs League Division 4) with two convincing wins near the end of last season. I felt the deep relief of maintaining our Division 3 status, not only due to the emotional engagement of being their captain,* but also because the pain of defeat is sometimes longer lasting than the happiness of victory. When the football team I support announced a major new signing last week it triggered within me a hope that we will now go on a winning streak of beating numerous opponents week after week after week, rather than the usual 'Watford way' of being consistently inconsistent. 

Let's be honest - for sports enthusiasts (players and spectators alike), even when we are outwardly 'humble in victory', even when we say to ourselves 'it's only a game', even when we quote de Coubertin's 'it's not the winning...' there is still a deep satisfaction experienced in beating opponents. For the Christian sports enthusiast the call is to love God and to be cautious in always labelling an opponent an opponent. An opponent is first and foremost a human being, made in God's image, to be loved as a neighbour. Jesus said "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you..." (Matthew 7:12). Only secondarily and temporarily in a sporting context is an opponent an opponent. The Christian sports enthusiast must also remember that God cares a lot less about sports results (unless a result has been unfairly fixed or the outcome achieved through cheating!) and a lot more about the people we are becoming. The apostle Paul wrote "And we know that in all things God works for good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28) and so we can confidently say that God can use sport to work his good into people playing and observing sport - honing a skill, encouraging an injured or dispirited team-mate, admiring an opponent, admitting a mistake, forgiving foul play, respecting and thanking an official. God can use an absorbing contest to bring out the best talent in us and others. God can use the pain of defeat to remind us of our fragility and limitations. God can use the joy of victory as a foretaste of the eternal joy to come. 

* I usually try to say "May the best team win!", if I remember, to the opposing captain, just after the toss before the game starts.