Tonight, I join college football fans across the country
when I tune into the inaugural College Football Playoff Championship Game. Ohio State and Oregon are facing off with
great pageantry to claim the title of “best college football team of 2014.” It promises to be a great matchup – but it
was one almost no one predicted would happen.
This was the bracket for the first College Football
Playoff. First, there was supposed to be
no way that the #4 Buckeyes would topple the Alabama Crimson Tide, truly the #1
team in the land…except, they did just that, and with a third-string
quarterback, no less! Then, despite
their #3 ranking, many people picked undefeated Florida State to outlast #2
Oregon. I tuned into that game in the
second half, just in time to watch the Jameis Winston-led Seminoles
self-destruct. Thus, I tune into ESPN tonight
to watch the 13-1 Ohio State Buckeyes and the 13-1 Oregon Ducks square off for
the national championship. (By the way,
the one Ohio State loss? My Virginia
Tech Hokies!)
At the start of the season, almost no one would have
predicted this matchup. In fact, just
two weeks ago, almost no one predicted this matchup. Yet tonight, the improbable has
happened. Who could have guessed?
Sports are a constant reminder to me that there are almost
no sure things in life. Take two teams, put
them on the same field or court, and usually the favored side will win. They won’t win all the time, though – in fact,
as Malcolm Gladwell suggests, underdogs
win a disproportionate amount of the time.
There is no sure thing in sports, just as there is no sure thing in
life.
Jesus knew this. He
told a parable once about a rich man whose fields produced an overabundance of
grain, found in Luke 12. The rich man
was making plans for the future as he went to bed that night – but Jesus called
him a fool. It would have been better if
he had been rich towards God.
Jesus went on to share words about worry that seem a bit
strange to our modern ear. We worry
about everything. We make plans for
every hour of the day, every day of the week, and every week of the year. Yet Jesus reminds us of our impotence to find
surety in life by asking the rhetorical question, “Can any of you by worrying
add a single hour to your span of life?”
(Luke 12:25)
The answer, of course, is no. There is no sure thing in life. We live in a world where planes can crash
unexpectedly, cancer can strike an apparently healthy person, investments can
plummet overnight, and underdog teams can beat juggernauts of the game. So what can we do in such a crazy world?
Jesus says that we can concentrate on the work God wants us
to do. “Strive for his kingdom,” he
says. Show people love. Help your neighbor. Stand up for the weak. Give sacrificially for those in need. Proclaim what you know about Jesus. Strive for God’s kingdom. That is the formula, Jesus says, to make
sense of this incredibly unsure world. Why? Because, as he says a few verses later, “where
your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Luke 12:34) When we make God’s kingdom our
focus in life, all the things that seemed so sure (but weren’t) in life fade
into the background. We begin to look to
the only sure thing – God – as our guiding light in life. Then, Jesus says, it doesn’t matter what
happens – we will be okay, because we are in the care of God, no matter what
happens to our wealth, our health, or even our life. God will take care of us, in this life and
the next, because we are striving and seeking his kingdom. Even when nothing else is sure, God is.
In Christ,
Adam
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