Joe McKeever

Making Believe This is Real

What started this for me was something a friend said Sunday morning.

We bumped into each other at a restaurant after church. He said, "I'll miss your sermon tonight. I'll be in such-and-such a city." Oh? what's going on there?

"Fantasy football. Our statewide meeting."

I said, "You have meetings for these things? If they're fantasy, can't you just fantasize you're there?"

He could tell in a heartbeat that I have no knowledge of how fantasy football works and absolutely zero appreciation for the sport. (Is it a sport if it exists only in the fantasy world?)

He smiled, "I have to be there. I'm the reigning champ."

Might as well have talked to me about conditions on Mars for all I understood.

Readers who are into fantasy sports will understand when I say that most people in my generation--I'm 1940 vintage--think you guys have lost your cotton-picking minds.

Now, real football--well, that's something else!

Or, then again, is it?

The hard fact of the matter is that real football--or baseball or most other competitive sports--exist in a zone completely separate from and unrelated to reality. They have nothing whatsoever to do with real life.

Oh, you can draw parallels about life from these activities. Football is a team sport that teaches discipline and excellence. Baseball is a team sport too but it relies more on individual effort. In golf, you compete not against the other players so much as against the course. That sort of thing.

However, at the end of the day (after the World Series or the Super Bowl or the BCS championship), who won all the marbles has very little to do with anything. The other teams pack up their equipment and board their buses and head back home. The family is there waiting for them, they eat dinner at Mama's and next day, the kids go to school.

In children's sermons, I used to tell the little ones gathered near the pulpit that an excellent indication a person is growing up is when he/she learns to tell the difference in reality and make-believe. That's when I got into trouble.

I said, "The Easter bunny--is he real or make believe?" They shouted, "Make believe!" "Okay, how about Frosty the snowman and Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer?" "Make believe!"

"And how about Santa Claus and his elves?" Most called out a hearty, "Make believe," but a surprising number stared at me as though they were not believing their ears. (I had to have a called meeting with some upset parents after that! They felt--rightly so--that it was their privilege to introduce this aspect of reality to their little ones, and to do so in their own timing. It was not to be done in a public setting by the pastor without their approval.)

I went on with the children, "And how about Joseph and Mary and Baby Jesus in the manger?" "Real!" They got that one right.

So, having offended not only the parents of little Santa-believers but every sports-lover in the house, let me hasten to add that I love football in the fall and baseball in the summer.

I root for most of the SEC football teams except when they play one another. I like LSU and Mississippi State best, but have a second tier of favorites populated by a whole host of teams: West Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama (sometimes), Ole Miss, Texas, and so forth.

But at the end of the day--when the game ends and we head home--we'd better know what is real and what is make believe.

If we don't know the difference, we'll make some serious mistakes in our choices and throw our private lives into turmoil.

If we do not know the difference in real and make believe, we will spend money we do not have (or should be directing toward other things) on tickets to ball games and all the trappings of our favorite teams.

If we do not know the difference in real and make believe, we will abandon our family to sit in the stands and cheer our team on at crucial times when our loved ones need us. Or, we'll coerce them into coming along against their will in order to ease our guilt.

If we do not know the difference in real and make believe, we will go to all kinds of trouble to get to Saturday's games and then skip church on Sunday because we're too tired.

If we do not know the difference in real and make believe, we will spend God's money--His tithes and offerings--on material things that will soon be old and outdated so we can identify with the crowd around us.

If we do not know the difference in real and make believe, we will proudly wear our team shirts to school or to work, but shy away from anything in our appearance that would identify us as a follower of Jesus Christ.

I don't know if I am able to say this strongly enough. But here goes:

CHURCH IS REALITY. THE MESSAGE OF THE GOSPEL IS REALITY. YOUR STANDING BEFORE GOD AND YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS CHRIST, THOSE ARE REALITY.

You will note, please, that nowhere am I denying that even pastors sometimes get it wrong and relate to their teams like they are real and offer up shoddy service to God on Sunday as though this part is make-believe.

I'm not denying that church services can be boring and shallow and insulting in their content. Not everyone who leads a worship service gets it.

But, look around at the stadium. It's the same way there. Not everyone who paid big money for a seat is following the game or even cares about the outcome. Some are there with a friend, some are people-watchers, some come out of school loyalty or for the atmosphere. But that does not stop the players from giving their all or the true fans from enjoying the competition.

Don't let the occasional boring sermon or stale service fool you. Just because they're poorly done at times does not cancel the reality they're dealing with.

One way you can tell you are mature is by your appreciation for the vast gulf between make believe and reality.

Now, just to stick the knife in a little deeper, how did the time you spent in God's Word this morning compare with the amount of time you spent reading the sports pages?

Case dismissed.