The 2013 Ashes series is about to begin. Cricket Australia has been running a new TV commercial to drum up excitement for the series featuring a whole host of ‘representatives’ Australians, including ex-Prime Minister John Howard and singer Jimmy Barnes. The final screen of the ad describes the Ashes as ‘the rivalry that unites Aus’, with the ‘A’ of ‘Aus’ written in a different colour, presumably to emphasise the play on words: the rivalry that unites us/Aus.
It’s a great aspiration, isn’t it? The idea that we would be united by sport.
We live in a world that is increasingly segmented. Our capacity to build, nurture and sustain meaningful and quality relationships is under enormous pressure, even just from the sheer pace of life if nothing else. A neighbour commented to me recently that we all seem to rush from one activity to the next, with barely a moment even to stop and talk to each other. Technology has completely revolutionised our communications with each other, to the point that the number of interactions we can have on any given day can quickly overwhelm us. Social media brings with it enormous potential for connecting us to communities that may have been previously out of reach. Yet often these communities can simply represent smaller and more highly specialised niches, with the result that society is simply dissected more finely than it was before.
Into this space, sport regularly steps forward promising to deliver that which we long for: a sense of not being alone, but rather of being united with others in something bigger than ourselves. Just think of the way that soccer – excuse me, football! – is affectionately referred to as ‘the world game’. Or then there is the symbolism of the coloured rings on the Olympic flag, representing the world’s different continents. Or we all just get excited about this upcoming Ashes battle against England.
Truth be told, sport does have a great ability to draw people together. And as a fairly typical Aussie man – whose enjoyment of sport is disproportionate to my involvement in it – it’s a readymade topic of conversation virtually guaranteed to deliver me from too many awkward silences when I’m talking with other men. There is a definite sense in which sport unites us.
Actually, however, that’s only half the story. For sport unites us in order to divide us. In fact, the more successful it is in uniting us, the more successful it is in dividing us as well. For the unity that sport brings, especially at the top end of town in professional sport, nearly always pits ‘us’ against ‘them’. In other words, sport unites us into a ‘tribe’ that is then pitted against other ‘tribes’. As an avid rugby league fan, this has always been most apparent to me in the annual State of Origin series, whose tagline is ‘mate against mate, state against state’. But even if we are thinking about the upcoming Ashes series, whatever unity is to be found is not absolute, but rather conditional on just the right amount of disunity. Not surprisingly then, the final screen of the Cricket Australia ad does not proclaim cricket as ‘the sport that unites us’, but rather the Ashes as ‘the rivalry that unites us’.
Sport unites us in order to divide us.
In many ways, the gospel is quite opposite to this. Although it is tempting to claim that where sport fails to unite us, the gospel succeeds, this would be too simple by far. In fact, once we stop and think about it carefully, we are forced to recognise that in some respects, the gospel divides us more significantly than even sport does. Isn’t this what Jesus points to when he says that he has not come to bring peace but division and to divide even families, because of the greater commitment to him that he demands from people (Mt 10:32-42)? Jesus doesn’t just turn state against state and mate against mate. He turns father against son and mother against daughter. And Jesus doesn’t divide families like this just for three nights across eight weeks every year. It is a fundamental division that Jesus brings, even between family members, as a result of the great commitment that he demands for those who follow him.
And yet once this fundamental division is in place, Christians are then taught, with respect to each other, to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace (Eph 4:3). Unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God is now the goal to which we are heading (Eph 4:13). From being united with Christ, we are now to be united in mind and spirit and purpose (Php 2:1-4), serving each other according to the pattern that Jesus has given us. And for a church quick to judge each other over disputable matters, Paul prayed that God would give them a spirit of unity as they follow Jesus Christ (Rom 15:5).
Passages like this become even more significant when we recall that the early church was made up of both Jewish and Gentile believers (e.g., Eph 2:11-22). But for Christ, this centuries old division was virtually insurmountable. Yet the early church had gospel reasons to overcome it. Even more wonderfully, when we look forward and see that the heavenly multitude will be made up of people from every nation, tribe, people and language (Rev 7:8-10), it’s clear that whatever division Jesus brings ushers in a profoundly new unity that overcomes every old human tribalism. And the reason is clear: since the Christ who divides us from the world is the only one through whom salvation has come to any of us, all of us who find salvation through Christ have him as the great leveller between us, and who therefore does away with every old distinction that once divided us.
I love the Ashes. I really do. I love State of Origin even more. I’m even beginning to enjoy soccer.
But sport unites us in order to divide us.
The gospel divides us in order to unite us.
Feature photo: Stuart Hamilton
