Winners and Losers by Stewart Perry
Most people would probably know, after almost 10 years here with you in this community, that I love sport! There’s not many sports that I don’t enjoy watching, following or participating in. For a sports lover, last weekend was a landmark weekend. As much as I love preaching, I was a bit disappointed in myself that I was still finishing off my sermon last Saturday and I couldn’t devote myself fully to the AFL grand final, instead having to have it on in the background & pausing to check every once in a while to catch sections of the game.
But Sunday night was fabulous, watching the NRL Grand Final and then immediately following that, the Ryder Cup golf (Europe vs USA) was finishing… I was in heaven… Leanne for some reason did not share my enthusiasm…
It was an interesting weekend for me too because, to use a sporting analogy, I didn’t have a ‘horse in the race’. None of my teams made the Grand Finals so I was really just happy for good games which both were. I was actually most passionate about who’d win the golf, I’m not European, it is my ancestry though (Scottish, English, Irish and German – I think) and nobody really wants the USA to win do they?
Because I wasn’t as deeply invested in who’d win this year, I did pay a little more attention to the reaction of both the winners and the losers. For the winners it was sheer elation… but for the losers it is utter devastation.
As I was reflecting on the examples of both elation and devastation I started to ask myself: How do we measure success… and failure?
Although it is all sport and entertainment, we do live in a world where it seems that for someone to win another has to lose. That same world seems also quick to categorise others as ‘winners’ or ‘losers’ based on often arbitrary measures.
We’ve been journeying through some of the parables in Matthew’s gospel in recent weeks and we have another one this coming Sunday. A number of times, around the parables, Jesus will conclude with words similar to: “the first will be last and the last will be first”.
I don’t think Jesus is validating a paradigm where there has to be a winner and there has to be a loser. What Jesus is doing is challenging our preconceptions of how we measure success and failure and who we recognise and call winners or losers. To do this Jesus will regularly point to those who society had labeled failures or losers and say how important they are to God.
I don’t know about you, but for a highly competetive person like me, living in a culture full of winners and losers, I find this a really challenging teaching. It was back then and it still is now. We all want to be on the winning side… if we’re honest…
In Christ, no one has to lose for another to win. In Christ, success is not measured by recognition or affirmation of another. In Christ, all are invited and accepting the invitation is all we need to really win. But our winning is always then shifted to the attention of others… our winning is not just for us, it’s also for those who can benefit because we have a relationship with Jesus. Winning is not getting them to have a relationship with Jesus too – of course we can hope and pray that happens but conversion is not a competition. We shouldn’t want to help another just so that they end up being converted, we should love others because that’s what Jesus calls us to do with no extra or hidden agenda.
I pray we can push against this winners and losers culture (while still enjoying the joy of sport) and not take it into our relationship with Jesus and with others… can we continue to be brave for the benefit of others?