It’s just over a week to go. Everything we have been talking about, working toward and hoping for will happen in just a few days. The FIFA Soccer World Cup is coming to town! To be honest, I’m not that much of a soccer fan but it’s impossible to miss the excitement, the expectation and the controversy around the world’s largest sporting event. It’s also impossible to miss the competition. This is the heart of events like these - who will win, and who will lose.
While I don’t have a problem with competition, I do wonder what impact events like this have on how we relate to one another. I have often wondered if, instead of declaring war nations in conflict simply faced each other on some kind of sports field, if this would make the world more peaceful? The reality, though, is that all too often our “friendly” competition morphs into something more sinister - as evidenced by the violence that often follows a closely contested sports match.
What does all of this have to do with worship, you may ask? Well, it seems to me that this same competitive spirit finds its way into our spirituality. Throughout history the various different expressions and groupings within the Church have been in conflict with each other - often violently. Further, it doesn’t take a prophet to recognise that underneath many of the world’s wars lies religious competition. It seems that we are determined to prove that our religion (or our particular branch of our religion) is the right one, and that all others are condemned not just by us, but by God.
And so, we speak of our traditions, our music, our rituals and our symbols as being “better” than those of others. We claim that God’s Spirit moves powerfully among ‘us’ and deny that God is even present among ‘them’. Even within the contemporary worship culture of the Western Church today, this competitive spirit is evident through awards offered to certain worship leaders and musicians over others, through the value we place on preachers and authors who sell more books and CDs than others, or who draw bigger crowds than others. We even mistakenly believe that churches that are bigger - that have ‘won’ the church growth ‘game’ - are ‘better’ or more ‘blessed’ than others. And in it all, we lose sight of the Christ who proclaimed that “the first shall be last and the last shall be first” (Matthew 20:16).
How different might our world be if those words of Christ informed our worship. If, instead of always seeking to be the ‘best’ - claiming the seat at the head of the spiritual table - we rather sought to respect, love and serve others - moving to the bottom of the table (See Luke 14:7-11)? What if, instead of trying to be the ‘best’ church, with the ‘best’ music and the ‘best’ facilities, we focussed on serving our communities and on creating transforming encounters with God with whatever resources we have? What if, instead of preaching and praying against other denominations and religions when we worship, we rather asked God to show us how to serve them, and how to work with them for the salvation of our world?
Let’s celebrate the World Cup and enjoy the spectacle. Let’s cheer our team on (Go, Bafana!), and congratulate the winners. But, when it comes to following Jesus, let’s leave the competition on the sports field.
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John van de Laar is a Methodist minister, liturgical consultant and the author of the book Food for the Road – Life Lesson from the Lord’s Table. He holds a Master’s Degree in theology from UNISA, and is the founder of Sacredise.com, an international worship training and resourcing ministry. John is married to Debbie, and they have two sons.
Visit www.sacredise.com for more articles by John, as well as resources for personal and public worship – music, prayers, liturgies, images and drama scripts.