The Liturgical Calendar of Sports

It’s more metaphysical than we imagine.

Sports has often been called a religion.  Sometimes that’s merely a metaphor, but other times observers seem to take it literally, as if sports is a non-theist religion.  The same is often said about politics or science or poetry and so forth.  I suppose those who make such assertions assume theologian Paul Tillich’s definition of religion as something of ultimate concern. I’ve never been a fan of these references, nor of Tillich’s definition. Religion to me includes a deity or deities who transcend our earthly existence (I get the debate over Buddhism, but this is my definition). Sports, politics, and such have elements that remind one of religious devotion, but there is never any claim about a transcendent being.

But I do think it is interesting how sports in particular mimics religion, and in America that means Christianity. I’m thinking today of the liturgical calendar.

For many Christian traditions, the church year begins with the season of Advent, a four-week period when we recall the first coming and look forward to the second coming of our Lord.  This is followed by the season of Christmas, twelve days in which we celebrate the incarnation. This is followed by either Epiphany (Protestant) or Ordinary time (Catholics), then Lent, then Easter, then Pentecost (Protestant) or Ordinary time again (Catholic).  And then we return to Advent, when the cycle begins again.

That phrase “when the cycle begins again” is crucial.  Because while the seasons of the church year are cyclical in one sense, they have this fundamental notion of beginning. And we have a fundamental notion that these seasons progress to a climax at Easter, which foreshadows the climax of history in the resurrection of the body at the end of time.

The sports liturgical calendar, on the other hand, is purely cyclical. It clearly has seasons. In my youth, there were simply baseball, football, and basketball seasons.  I wasn’t raised in the Midwest, so hockey season wasn’t in my consciousness.  Today, of course, the seasons for golf, soccer, tennis, and so forth conflict with and/or overlap with the former trinity.  Today, for commercial reasons mostly, various sports festivals punctuate the calendar and are hyped in the media as extraordinary events that we mustn’t miss.

Earlier in my life, I fell for the hype. I’d watch every game of the World Series, college football on Saturdays, NFL football on Sundays or Mondays, NFL playoffs, bowl games, and then of course, the Super Bowl.  But after that cycle came a sports desert, more or less like Lent, when nothing urgent demanded attention.  But soon comes the NCAA Tournament, and the NBA and hockey playoffs, with a brief intermission for major league baseball’s opening day.  Mid-summer we have baseball’s all-star game, and this year, the women’s soccer World Cup. And then in the midst of all this we’re treated to the summer or winter Olympics every two years! Oh yes, there are the Tour de France and the men’s World Cup.  And on it goes.

As I said, I once fell for the hype and found myself watching sports endlessly throughout the year, as each event pitted the greatest against the greatest, something you just shouldn’t miss. This is the purpose of the “sports corporation complex”—to entice us to stay glued to the TV and to spend money on tickets and merch.

There are many salutary aspects of sports, of course: they are entertaining, and who can’t use some of that now and then? It’s a sheer pleasure, sometimes bringing goosebumps, to watch a highly trained athlete perform some extraordinary feat. And what a joy to have one’s home team win a championship. Also, sports are one of the few things that unite Americans; the brackets in the NCAA tournament are found in every office and school, and the Super Bowl is watched by people who don’t watch any other football during the year.  Such events are the talk of the country. It’s fun!

Yet there are two aspects, at least, that give one pause for thought.  The sports world today is just an endless cycle of events, with no sense of an event being the beginning of a year. It just keeps repeating itself year after year after year. There is opening day in baseball, which used to signal a psychological beginning of something new, but today it is drowned out by the opening days/games/tournaments of so many other sports at various and sundry times.  The seasons and festivals don’t point to anything ultimate, though they do point to each sport’s climactic events—like the national championship, Super Bowl, World Series, and so forth.  In this respect, they are eschatological—interested in last things—and so reflect something of Christian metaphysics. But fundamentally the sports liturgical calendar is cyclical, like the ancient Greek and Roman religions, an endless cycle that doesn’t go anywhere and doesn’t signify anything beyond the cycle itself.

Christianity, of course, is a historical religion, with a beginning and an end.  In the meantime, it shares something of the cyclical nature of life, but as noted above, there is always a connection to the beginning and ending of a great story that will culminate at the end of history. The Christian calendar points to something transcendent.

Another thing is this:  Sports is about celebrating the strong, the talented, the victor.  It never ceases to amaze me how much attention we lavish on the victors and how quickly the losers are lost and forgotten.  And how devastating it is for the losers of the last great festival.  Being the second best (sometimes of the world) is considered worthless, as if the entire season of excellence was for naught. And the media mantras afterward are often cliches that lie: the winners triumphed because “they really wanted it” or “sacrificed so much in training and throughout the season”—a kind of works righteousness.  But I’m pretty sure the losers felt and did the same, and they came up with supposedly “nothing.”

Christianity, naturally, celebrates the common, the poor, the weak, the losers (1 Cor. 1:26-31).  Yes, Jesus rose from the grave a victor over the most dangerous enemy.  And yes, his presence in us makes us spiritual victors over our weakness, poverty, and suffering.  Still the heroes, the MVPs of Christianity, are poor in spirit, mourners, and humble. They don’t pound their chests or give high-fives or fist pumps when they win a moral or spiritual victory, but instead bow their heads in thankful prayer. They don’t try to overcome their adversaries but turn the other cheek and go the extra mile when their opponents taunt them. They believe their greatest victory is not to conquer but to die in the field of battle for their Lord.

Some try to keep sports in check by reminding themselves that “football [or whatever] is just a game.” Well, yes and no. The sports liturgical calendar, and the hype surrounding it, are not only trying to get us to spend money and time, they are teaching us values that are, well, questionable at best.

I haven’t the interest to watch much sports anymore.  I follow the occasional Sunday NFL game but usually turn off the TV after a quarter.  NFL playoffs, yes, one or two.  Super Bowl, of course (I am a patriotic  American!)  NCAA tournament, here and there and maybe the Final Four.  Baseball, hardly ever, and I have no interest in the World Series as I used to have.

I think this mostly has to do with age.  I’ve seen many star athletes and team dynasties come and go and, despite the hype about “being sure not to miss the greatest matchup” or watching “the best that ever played,” I’m more in the mood of Solomon: there isn’t anything new under the bright light of sports. So I won’t try to impress you with my piety, as if I’ve put away childish things because of some grand theological reason. I’m mostly bored with the whole business.

It nearly goes without saying that I don’t think it is immoral to watch or play sports, or to engage in competitive contests, or to strive for athletic excellence—one can see much evidence human and divine goodness in all of it. I just find it helpful, and just plain interesting, to compare and contrast the two liturgical calendars, and to what ends they are trying to shape us.

Grace and peace,

Mark

Photo by David Köhler on Unsplash