Super Bowl Sunday

Super Bowl LVI will draw the largest TV audience of any event this year. The game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals will hold the attention of the vast majority of this nation for much of the evening. Fans that have no interest in either team will choose sides and yell with joy over with the success or groan at the failure of their chosen team. They will gather in homes for Super Bowl parties, something that has become a tradition in our culture. Advertisers have spent millions of dollars developing and running creative ads that will catch our attention and generate conversations as an alternative narrative to the game itself.

All the time, energy, and money we invest in this event leaves me wondering: what about this event creates such interest? (Would the word obsession be a better term than interest?)

It seems to me the annual Super Bowl embodies the values of our nation. We are doing more than watching a game. We are celebrating our nation’s values.

Looking at our nation through the eyes of the Super Bowl, it seems to me we as a nation value . . .

·        Competition. We are passionate about anything that pits us against them. Us-them thinking and relating is deeply embedded in our culture. It goes far beyond the game of football or sports. This kind of us-them thinking plays a huge role in our sense of who we are.

·        Winning. We don’t like to lose. We want to be the champion, #1, second to no one. We tie our sense of value to being at the top of whatever hierarchy we are in. As a result, anything other than winning means we have failed. When we fail, we look for someone to blame. (Coaches will lose their jobs, players will be traded based on this season’s win/loss record.)

·        Power. In order to win, we have to be better than the other. We have to use our power to defeat them. We use our power over, down against them so that we can win. We over-power them. Our winning comes at their expense.

·        Self-reliance. Our success is tied to our effort, our discipline, our level of commitment.

·        Winners. Losers have no value or place in our culture.

·        Wealth and affluence. We reward those who are the strongest, the fastest, the best at their position, the smartest, the most successful. They are the highest paid because we value winning.

·        Keeping score. Keeping score is the way we know who wins.

It strikes me that all of these values have to do with the ego. These values suggest we are seeking to establish a sense of identity based on something outside of ourselves. We are seeking to fill an inner void. We are seeking to prop up a fragile sense of self. (Notice how we piggy back on the Super Bowl champion as though we ourselves had won the championship?) These values suggest we are worshipping at the altar of the false god of our own ego.

 As I reflect on these values, I call to mind the teachings of Jesus.

·        If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their own life? (Mark 8:34-36).

·        Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all (Mark 9:35).

·        You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many (Mark 10:41-45).

Jesus taught an alternative way of thinking that produced a different way of thinking. Rather than living out of an ego-based identity, he taught his followers to die to that sense of self — “let them deny themselves.” His followers reject the hierarchal, us-them ways of the world — “take up their cross.” Rejecting the way the world measures greatness, the standard they use to determine greatness is a servant spirit. Rather than using their power over others for their own benefit, they use power to serve, addressing the needs of others, often at great cost to themselves. 

It seems to me that Super Bowl Sunday offers us an opportunity to reflect and reevaluate if we have ears to hear and eyes to see.