March 4, 2012
"Tim Tebow, Jeremy Lin, Jesus Christ"
Jason W. Crosby, preaching
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Mark 8:31-38
Tim Tebow, Jeremy Lin, and Jesus Christ. I hope my seminary preaching professor does not learn that I preached a sermon with this title. Her pet peeve is sermons that rely too heavily on sports themes. No two people in popular culture, however, have stimulated more conversation about Christianity in the past six months than Tim Tebow and Jeremy Lin. In case you are unaware, Tim Tebow played football at the University of Florida. He is arguably the best college football player of all time. He won the Heisman Trophy, college football’s highest honor in 2007, and led the Gators to two national championships. However, the pundits doubted whether or not his quarterbacking style would work in the pros. Despite his success in college, it took nearly a year and a half before he was given the opportunity to become the Denver Broncos starting quarterback mid-way through last season. When he became the starter the Broncos were 1-4. Tebow did struggle once he assumed that role. He had trouble completing passes. However, he had a knack for keeping his team in games and pulling off miraculous last-minute comebacks. Under Tebow’s leadership, the Broncos turned their season around and surprisingly made the playoffs.
Jeremy Lin’s ascension to sports stardom took a different route. Lin is an American-born son of first generation Taiwanese immigrant parents. He was a basketball star in high school, but was overlooked by college recruiters. He played his college basketball at Harvard, where again, he shined. However, like most Ivy-League athletes, professional scouts did not take him too seriously. No NBA team drafted him out of college. He refused to give up on his dream of playing professional basketball. He landed in the NBA’s minor league. He made it to the NBA two times with two different teams, but was cut by both teams. Earlier this season he ended up back on an NBA squad for a third time, this time with the New York Knicks. The Knicks were on the verge of cutting him, but due to unexpected injuries they were forced to keep him on their roster. Out of desperation, the Knicks put him in a game on February 4. Lin, to say the least, made the most of his opportunity. He scored more points in his first several NBA games than any player in history, including the likes of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, and now the once down-trodden Knicks are in the hunt to make the NBA playoffs.
Both Tebow and Lin are outspoken Christians. Tebow is the son of missionaries. He was born in the Phillipines. He often leads mission trips and speaks to groups about his faith. Lin’s parents are active members in their church in Palo Alto, California. Both Tebow and Lin regularly give, what I discern to be, sincere thanks to God for their success in interviews following games. Their accomplishments on their respective fields of play, combined with the fact that they wear their Christian faith on their sleeves, has generated a great deal of discussion about the role of Christianity in their success. I’ve heard some argue that their achievements are God’s will. As if God is actually the one is enabling them to throw a perfect pass at just the right time or sink a game-winning shot as time expires. I am a born and bred Kentuckian and I recognize that perhaps there is no more controversial statement I could make from this pulpit than the following: I do not believe that God favors certain athletes, or certain basketball teams, more than others. I don’t think God rewards anyone for their faithfulness by empowering them on the football field or on the basketball court or in the board room or dining room. I’ve heard others argue, that while God may not be directly working through them, the perspective they have gained through Christianity has helped them develop characteristics that has enabled them to succeed. Christianity has taught them humility, has helped them see what is really important, has taught them discipline and self-control, which in turn has helped them become sports stars. Christianity, indirectly, has brought them success. There may be something to this argument. However, if the conversation stops here, the lesson that one most directly gleans is that the Christian faith is primarily a vehicle one may ride, if one works the puzzle correctly, to fame and glory. There is much more to the Christian faith than this, however.
In Mark’s gospel through the first eight and one half chapters, one gets the impression that the disciples were of the thinking that they were about to ride the coat tails of Jesus Christ to the championship. In the first part of Mark’s gospel, Jesus heals the sick, fed thousands with a few scraps of food, walked on water, and told parables. Life looked pretty good for those on Team Jesus. In Mark 8:29 Jesus asks Peter, “Who do you say I am?” Peter, enthusiastically responds, “You are the Messiah.” On the heels of the good vibes Jesus had generated through his healings and teachings in the first part of Mark, who can blame Peter for enthusiastically proclaiming you are our Savior; you are our champion; you are the one who will elevate us to a place of glory.
But, then, smack dab in the middle of Mark’s gospel, in the middle of the 8 chapters out of 16 in Mark’s gospel, Jesus reveals to his followers the other side of discipleship. This passage is literally the pivot point on which all turns in Mark’s gospel. Jesus tells them that he will suffer and die. Peter, who is still of the mindset that all this will end in some glorious fashion; that Jesus, himself, and the other disciples will be celebrating some victory in a locker room one day soon, tries to contradict Jesus. Jesus has none of it and rebukes Peter. Jesus goes on to say that those who follow him will not always live in the light, but that his disciples are those willing to turn their backs on the good times and take up their crosses and follow him. Those who lose their life will gain it. Those who walk away from what they perceive to be glorious, and walk toward the cross will eventually find God’s true glory.
Martin Luther, in his 1518 Heidelberg Disputation, wrote at length at about the distinction between the theologicia gloriae and the theologicia crucis. Joseph Small summarizes Luther’s thoughts. Small writes, “The theology of glory is built on what appears to be self-evident about life and on assumptions about the way a god is expected to act in the world. The theology of the cross, however, is ground in God’s self-revelation in the weakness and suffering of death.” Mark 8:31-38 revealed to the disciples then and reveals to us today that in the cross God contradicts what we may expect our glorious Messiah to look like. Reflecting on Mark 8:31 and following, Small adds, “The truth is that God’s mercy is given to sinners, not reserved for the righteous; God’s strength is exposed in weakness, not displayed in power; God’s life is disclosed in death.”
This brings us back to Jeremy Lin. Lin’s fame is newly found. He has recently begun wrestling with the contradiction between the theology of glory and the theology of the cross. David Brooks in an editorial in the New Times a couple weeks ago quoted Lin as recently saying, “I’m not working hard and practicing day in and day out so that I can please other people. My audience is God. ... The right way to play is not for others and not for myself, but for God. I still don’t fully understand what that means; I struggle with these things every game, every day. I’m still learning to be selfless and submit myself to God and give up my game to Him.” Brooks goes on to argue, and I agree with him, that Lin will probably never figure it out. For the moral ethos of sports and nearly every aspect of our lives is victory, self-aggrandizement, and glory, which stands in irreconcilable tension with the moral ethos of religion – humility, self-effacement, and weakness.
This brings us back to us, in this room, this morning. We are one week closer to the cross where Jesus suffered and died. As we move closer and closer to that point, will we divert our eyes and deny Christ’s weakness, preferring instead to keep our gaze cast on what we perceive to be glorious? Will we continue to live under the allusion that Christianity is merely a mechanism that we can manipulate to achieve the glory we envision in our professional lives, with our peers, among our families? Will we try to rebuke Jesus like Peter? It will be hard to make this journey if we do. It’s hard to carry a heavy crosses while looking off to one side or another. Or, we will make the pivot and lean into this grand conundrum, accepting that God’s glory looks nothing like what we envision, and do our best to live at peace in between the theology of glory and the theology of the cross.
David Brooks. “The Jeremy Lin Problem,” The New York Times. February 17, 2012.
Joseph Small. Feasting on the Word. Ed. David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Talyor. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010.