Super Bowl

Listen to me, dear brothers: God has chosen poor people to be rich in faith, and the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs, for that is the gift God has promised to all those who love him.  And yet, of the two strangers, you have despised the poor man. Don’t you realize that it is usually the rich men who pick on you and drag you into court?  And all too often they are the ones who laugh at Jesus Christ, whose noble name you bear                                                                                 James 2:5-7 (Living Bible)

Along with about 115 million other people, I watched the Super Bowl Sunday night. The game was exciting, the halftime show with Usher and friends was very entertaining, and the commercials were… well, maybe just a bit under expectations. Nonetheless, most were entertaining. The spectacle, all in all, was as usual, over the top. Everything about the Super Bowl is bigger than life. Indeed, it is more like a departure from life- a diversion.

Before the game I texted in our family text group that the “Bread and Circus” part of America was about to begin. I hearkened back, of course, to the cliché about acts in the Roman Colisseum, where emperors would put on shows for the Roman populace to entertain them as a diversion from the increasingly decadent Roman life they endured. The emperor also distributed bread to the plebians and slaves who were poor and could not afford the luxuries of the upper-class Romans.   

The Super Bowl is an institution and a spectacle. However, it is a fantasy trip that allows us to take a respite from other mundane, but stressful life experiences. I suppose we need that. Indeed, the size of the audience and the attention the spectacle receives says that it has a place in our world.

But now we get back to the realities of 2024 America. We have another circus that we call the United States Congress that we must deal with every day. That circus is not entertaining- it is nearly tragic.

Brothers and sisters, we must always remember that our hope and our salvation is in our relationship with Jesus. No political party can offer such hope, nor salvation, nor freedom. Align with principles, not political parties. Advocate principles that affirm people, the just treatment of others, caring for the stranger, feeding the hungry, accepting those whom we may not understand, or those not of our particular “tribe”, whatever that may be.

Let’s keep this in mind as we begin the Lenten season this week.   

Prayer: Lord, help us to see past the noise into bringing Kingdom principles to earth, Amen