@EUCC Sermons

This new year and new administration offer some promise for healing in our nation, but promise is not enough. We need concrete steps and specific behaviors that contribute to the uniting of our nation and the healing of our global village. Since today is Super Bowl Sunday, I’m going to share a sports illustration.

The late great Vince Lombardi, coach and general manager of the Green Bay Packers when the Super Bowl was founded 55 years ago, is remembered by Cheeseheads everywhere for leading his team to three NFL championships and two Super Bowl wins in 1967 and 1968.

Coach Lombardi was passionate about winning. He was a talented coach and a class act. He not only wracked up a lot of wins, Lombardi also taught his players how to be winners on and off the field by teaching good sportsmanship. Consider this quote that Lombardi is most remembered for: “When you get to the endzone, act like you’ve been there before.”

Lombardi taught his players how to handle success in a manner that fostered respect, rather than garnered resentment. Sadly this teaching has been kicked to the curb by many professionals these days, and I’m not just talking about sports.

Athletics at its bests is an arena in which individuals can develop fitness, build skills, learn strategies, and most importantly develop social habits and behaviors that contribute to the success of their families and communities, our democracy, and the healing of the nations.

In some ways, talking about the value and importance of sportsmanship seems like expressing a platitude, and yet, I assure it is not. Professional sports today are often bereft of examples of good sportsmanship. And, Inauguration Day, January 20, 2021 reminds us what happens when our leaders either don’t develop or don’t practice good sportsmanship. We end up with national leaders who can’t acknowledge defeat, or look a fellow citizen in the eyes and congratulate him on his win. Why? Because they’re sore losers, and bad sportsmen.

Pain pushes people to the edge, causing them to ask fundamental questions such as “Why is this happening?” and “How can this be fixed?” Pain brings out the best in people along with the worst. Pain strips away all the illusions required to maintain the status quo. Pain begs for change, and when those in its grip find no release on earth, plenty of them look to heaven--including some whose formal belief systems preclude such wishful thinking. Pain makes theologians of us all. If you have spent even one night in real physical pain, then you know what that can do to your faith in God, not to mention your faith in your own ability to manage your life.

You see, in today’s chapter, Paul was determined to settle a dispute within the burgeoning Christian community in Corinth. It seems that there were some who thought they were better than others, because they had a fancy education and were more erudite spokespersons on Christian theology. Paul wasn’t having any of this. While he did not discount the value of education, he saw education and formation as a both-and not an either-or, and he was determined to bring some balance to the discourse and the hierarchy of beings in that fledgling congregation.

The way that modern Chrstians sometimes paraphrase Paul’s teaching here is to say that the Christian life is not just about what you know, it’s about who you know.

This holiday weekend as our nation observes the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we have occasion to reflect on life and contributions of a great man who courageously testified to his faith in the public square.  

In celebrating Dr. King’s birthday, it behooves us to remember that he wasn’t alone in his mission, and we ought not sit on our hands waiting for someone else to carry it on. We must each, in our unique ways, step up and do our part. 

The story of Jesus’ baptism is central to the celebration of Epiphany. It is also the story on which the Christian sacrament of baptism is founded. In the United Church of Christ, our denominational tradition, and in Protestantism in general, we celebrate two sacraments: Baptism and Eucharist.