World Cup Blogs 28: Spain

Writing this on a blisteringly hot day in London, I remember a journey in similar heat to visit this place in Barcelona.


It is impossible not to be impressed by the Nou Camp Stadium. History, in the football sense, has been made here time and again. It is the largest stadium in Europe and somehow creates a sense of excitement even when the only thing that is currently happening is that the grass is growing!

Then there is the Motto.

Most stadia have seats coloured to spell out something - frequently the club's initials or nickname. Not so Barcelona. Instead it spells out, in Catalan, the Motto,

MORE THAN A CLUB

The motto reflects the Catalunyan pride in Barcelona such that the club came to represent the Catalan nation and culture. This was especially true in the days of Franco's dictatorship when most expressions of Catalan culture were suppressed. Supporting FC Barcelona was a political act.  It has continued and been revisited in the Catalan pressure for independence since the last World Cup.

Football - other sport too of course - is often a MORE THAN.  Even this summer, England's unexpectedly extended stay into the semi-finals of the tournament did something positive in the unifying mindset of the country.

Life is never as compartmentalised as we are inclined to think.  Football Teams are never just football teams, houses never just houses, holidays never just holidays, churches never just churches; the weaving of life demands that we seek God's ways in it all.

Jonah Lomu et al.

The especially unwelcome death of Jonah Lomu aged 40 is an awesome human moment for followers of sport.  Rugby is a fundamentally physical team sport in which, at its elite level, man mountains clash in frightening contests of strength, power and speed so that you know that to be challenged by two of them would be the downfall of anyone.

What Jonah showed when he burst into elite international rugby was that one man could on occasion make the going tough for eight others - singlehandedly.  He was simply a physical peak of human power, a man among boys when those boys were by normal standards themselves men among boys.

If anyone needs to be reminded of the power of death, Remembrance Week, Paris and Jonah in their three different ways have revealed it.  Many gallant memories are recorded, many tributes paid, in the case of the Paris attack people are sometimes demonstrating astonishing rejection of bitterness against the planners of the evil.  As so often in a large corner of Rock culture the Eagles of Death Metal Band gave an appearance of embracing death with their motifs and titles.  Until they ran from it off stage.

But real death?  There is nothing we can do.  We cannot stop it, we cannot forgive it, we cannot live with it, we cannot deny it, we cannot move on away from it, we cannot win over it, we cannot play with it, we cannot get past it.

We need(ed) help.

Wrong Way

 

Here's the YouTube clip we showed in Church on Sunday.  What is truly amazing, as the reporter points out, is that not only does the player run the wrong way when he was on the verge of a touchdown: everyone on the field seems to join in the mistake.  So he gets tackled by the team that stood to gain if he kept running, his team-mates help him to run the wrong way too.

 

When we head the wrong way in any area of life, there's no telling how we disorientate others around us.  Well, there will be a telling one day in fact  . . .

Namebearing

This week I'm off to a Sports Chaplaincy Conference.  It has come at a very difficult time . . .

Now even a cursory knowledge of Sports Chaplaincy would surmise that its conversations and pastoral care are exercised without regard to the position or performance of the Club in question.  There might be nuances but whether the chaplain to Lancashire Cricket Club or Gloucester Rugby or Wycombe Wanderers Football Club or Manchester United - the essence in each case is surely the same and equally worthy?

After all, we all know that the Lay Pastor of the chapel with 12 members (the same as the number of the apostles) is to be as honoured as the Senior Executive Supreme Leader Pastor of Multiple Campus Mega Church of London, Paris, Sydney and Los Angeles.  (Though we really only want to check out the website of the latter actually.  And ask him (it would never be her) to write books.  He speaks at World Prayer Events too).  But that's not to honour him above the Lay Pastor of course (or Jesus).  Anyway . .

 

The thing is, Wycombe Wanderers aren't doing very well.  Is the Chaplain responsible?  In my defence they have managed an unlikely Cup Semi-Final and promotion on my watch.  No, of course I'm not responsible.  But there is this strange association thingy.  When I go with other slightly chuffed chaplains whose Clubs are doing things like winning games and scoring I sense a pastoral pity descending upon me.  As though I needed to be chaplained!  This has happened in the League above but now, as the team in the second-worst position in mainline English football I feel the enveloping pastoral sympathy from 48 hours away.

Never mind that we had a great Harvest Celebration today, that I spoke to people about faith last week, welcomed in new members to our Church, visited a young family moving closer to God, had a great Elders Meeting, even had a great day of conversations at the said Football Club.  All these pastoral joys are submerged at the Chaplains Conference as I wear the badge.  It says REV JOHN ROBERTS.  And then.  WYCOMBE WANDERERS.  You can see it in their pastoral eyes.  "Poor old John".  "You're having a hard time, aren't you?".  "What's gone wrong?"  The sympathy is so strong - it hurts!

When heaven looked at the Word made flesh - what was his name? Yeshua of Nazareth - it must have been hard not to feel an overwhelming sympathy that he should have taken upon himself such a name.  The good news is, he took the name and led its humanity to salvation.

The bad news is - I don't think I'm going to be able to repeat that for the name I bear!

Losing when winning

Home from holiday!

Among many visits we visited a house that had a plate in the bedroom just like the one below.  It had been owned by a successful businessman who had lost his faith (having previously intended to be a priest) - he then lost his house to the National Trust but that was a smaller loss according to the plate. 

It reminded me of the British Olympic Gold Medalist Triple Jumper Jonathan Edwards who I had just seen talking on television about his own loss of faith.  He found virtue in the thought that his faith had really helped him to win the Gold Medal at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 - "It was where I was at the time - it's not where I am now" - 'it does seem incredibly improbable there is a God'.

Ah well - better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Or maybe not.

We shouldn’t need to keep talking about why we ought to turn from deeds that bring death and why we ought to have faith in God. And we shouldn’t need to keep teaching about baptisms or about the laying on of hands or about people being raised from death and the future judgment. Let’s grow up, if God is willing.  But what about people who turn away after they have already seen the light and have received the gift from heaven and have shared in the Holy Spirit? What about those who turn away after they have received the good message of God and the powers of the future world? There is no way to bring them back. What they are doing is the same as nailing the Son of God to a cross and insulting him in public! [Hebrews 6, CEV]

Just a Second

These two scenes from yesterday have something in common.  Two women crying almost uncontrollably.  Ah, well. Such is life.

But no.  They have something else in common.  They have just both won silver medals.  Gemma in Judo, Victoria in Gymnastics.  You can see how upset they are to have not won gold.

But no again.  Gemma Gibbons (top) is crying with joy.  Victoria Komova is crying with dismay.

Same Olympics, same medal, same intensity of emotion, opposites.

Cometh the day when we all see humanity's Messiah.  His the Golden Glory, ours the silver lining as the consequence of being human but second best dawns on every other one of us.  For all humanity tears.

Tears of joy or the opposite.