We are the Champions

This past week college football found itself enmeshed in a controversy. The season is over, and it was time to pick the 4 best teams to play for the championship, and who would play in which bowl games. But they had a problem. The Florida State team never lost a game. They were undefeated. But their star quarterback was hurt, and no one thought they were that great without him, despite the fact that they won their last three games without him. So even though they played an undefeated season, and overcame great challenges to do so, they were left out of the championship because the “selection committee” looked at their “analytics” and decided they weren’t as good as 2 other teams that had lost games earlier in the season. Needless to say they cried foul, but to no avail. 

So what does this all have to do with Christmas? Why are we so consumed with who is “best?” Why do we need a championship playoff? Why is every facet of our culture built around some structure that elevates some, while pushing others down? Why do people commit so much of their lives to stand on the “winner” stand, to get that trophy, so they can say for this brief moment in time they were the best at something? 

When God chose to enter this world, he deliberately violated this human pattern. He didn’t choose the best team, the best country, the best political party, the best town or county or even region. He deliberately chose the marginalized people and places. “Can any good thing come from Nazareth?” He wasn’t born in a palace, or even a hospital. Later as he chose those for his “team,” he chose fishermen, tax men, ethnically mixed displaced people, prostitutes… he picked all those who never got picked on the playground.

Which creates an internal conflict for us humans. Because while we like that He picks us, we don’t always like being identified with those marginalized people. We still want to be at the top. We’ve tried to make organizations, which we’ve called churches, supposedly to pursue God and create communities around God, yet they often miss God in the midst of their competition for the pretty church, the best church in town, the place to go if you want to meet God, where the prophetic words will change your heart and give you better life, and you’ll get to play for a championship. 

The scripture tell us that “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” I am increasingly realizing in my own life that God is found on the margins of whatever this world sees as important. He’s not in the winner circle telling everyone that it’s God who makes me the winner. He’s outside the arena, picking up “losers,” healing the sick, repairing the broken, encouraging the hopeless. 

Father, this Christmas I want to somehow find the margins and see you. I want to find the community and life you made me for in a place different than what my broken heart and mind tells me to pursue. Forgive me for all the ways I have pushed others aside to stand at the top, to be first and best. My pursuit of championships leaves me tired and empty. Your Kingdom doesn’t just play by different rules. You offer a completely different set of values and perspectives. 

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” (Eph 1:18-19)