Learning to Lose Well

Earlier this fall, I found myself coaching my son's YMCA soccer team.  This was unexpected (I signed up to be an assistant coach and got 'promoted') - I played soccer when I was five and a couple of intramural games in college.  Needless to say, I know next to nothing about soccer.  But seeing that this is a team of 5-6 year olds, that has proven to not be that big of a deal.  I quickly began catching up on the basics (thanks YouTube!) and took comfort in the fact that teaching the basics and things like teamwork and sportsmanship were what was expected of me.  I will say that I have a great time coaching the kids.  It has been a joy to learn their personalities, their strong points and growing edges, and I love it when I can encourage them and give them praise, even for something minor.  To see their faces light up when I tell them "good job!" is a delight.  Also, it's kind of cool to have kids and parents call me "coach"...I didn't see that one coming…

After our first practice, one of the older boys on the team ran up to me and said, "This is my third season and I've never lost a game!"  My inside-the-head voice said "Your streak is OVER!"  I actually said, "Well, I can't make you any promises.  We'll just play hard and have fun!"  Ahh, coachspeak.  Orwell would be proud.  The team has played well and, while we don't technically keep score at this level, these kids can count.  Our current record stands at 1-3-1.  And I couldn't be prouder of Team Vortex!  They play, laugh, fall, run, cry, play their hearts out times, and other times stare at the clouds.  In other words, they're being kids.  Anyway, I was thinking about this particular little boy and how I could help him.  He is the most talented player on the team and could easily play in the next age bracket.  I decided that I could help him be a leader and help him learn how to lose.  If you're going to play sports, that's a very important lesson.  You have to learn how to lose well, because it's going to happen.

As a pastor and, more importantly, as a disciple, this resonates with me deeply.  If you take Jesus at his word in Mark 8:34 ("If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.") and if you hear what Paul says in I Corinthians 1:27-28 ("But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world…") you understand that Christians need to know how to lose well.  After all, Jesus says later in Mark 8 that if you want to save your life, you'll lose it for the sake of the Gospel. 

One of the greatest insults that one could hurl when I was a teenager was "loser".  "Poser" came close,  but "loser" was the one I really didn't want to hear.  That's a harsh word and designed to make a person feel worthless and small.  And we live in a win-at-all-costs kind of world.  Power and victory are chief among the "virtues" in our culture.  These don't sit well with the Christian faith, at least as it relates to the vision of discipleship we get from Jesus and Paul in the Scriptures I quoted.  You see, God doesn't measure success and victory the same way the world does.  In God's eyes, victory looks like a slaughtered Lamb.  In God's eyes, victory looks like a desperate person longing for salvation and grace.  In God's eyes, victory takes the shape of a cross.  These the world calls weakness, fairy tales, childish.  This is what I call God's triumph.

The flip side of that coin is that what the world considers winning looks an awful lot like losing, if you're looking at with the eyes of a Christ-like faith.  What does it mean to "win" in our culture?  How does that square with what Jesus teaches us?  What do we lose when we make winning the most important thing?  The Christian church in America has long enjoyed a place of prominence and power.  We've played a large role in shaping the culture, shaping politics, shaping the American identity.  While Christians still enjoy a great deal of public influence, that influence has been greatly diminished.  I think that's a really, really good thing.  It's a good thing for us to reclaim a counter-cultural position that speaks a prophetic word about an unjust, greedy, shallow, mean-spirited, unhealthily-competitive, pornographic-posing-as-empowering, petty, destructive culture.  When we speak up and work for justice and mercy and generosity and love and grace in the face of prevailing culture, then we are undertaking what the world considers a losing proposition. 

How can we Christians learn to "lose well"?  

The Impossible Call, Part 2 - Genesis 22:1-19 - A Brief Note on Being a Christian Reading the Old Testament

For the Christian reader of Genesis, it is almost impossible to read the story of Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac without thinking of Jesus' crucifixion.  I was taught in seminary that an appropriate reading of the Old Testament was not shaped by the New Testament or my commitments as a follower of Jesus.  I was trained to not see Jesus in the Old Testament (well, the attempt was at least made to train me in this way).  To be clear, this was not every professor I had, but this was part of my education in seminary.  The foundation for this approach was the historical-critical method of Biblical studies.  There is much to be learned in using this approach to studying Scripture.  Here are some good things about that approach:

1. You're able to see perspectives other than your own.  Studying Scripture in this way allowed me to see the limited nature of my own interpretative lens and had the important consequences of making me a (hopefully) humble, responsible, and respectful interpreter of Scripture. 

2. It is a rigorous academic discipline.  I treasure the skills that I gained in my graduate work and I use them on a regular basis, admittedly with varying degrees of success.  The historical-critical method does not pay that much attention to devotional aspects or emotional responses.  Actually it doesn't pay any attention to that.  The one thing that I was taught that I still hold to tenaciously is the admonition to the let the text speak for itself.  It takes effort to resist imposing meaning onto Scripture, but it's definitely worth the effort.

3. It allows (forces?) the interpreter to struggle with issues of history, culture, the limits of interpretation, Biblical authority, the nature of prophecy, on and on.  For me, the method of Biblical studies that I was taught in seminary was akin to a wrestling match with God that occasionally put me out of joint.  There were classes in seminary that I left with a mental and spiritual limp.  Sometimes it is still noticeable in my walk. 

Those are some good things.  Here are some things I struggle with:

1. I can't help but read the Old Testament as a Christian.  I am a Christian.  Unapologetically a Christian.  I believe that Jesus is the promised Messiah sent by God to save the world.  I believe that some of those promises are found in the Old Testament.  In his chapter in the book The Art of Reading Scripture, Robert Jenson has a quote that has stuck with me for a while:  "Be entirely blatant and unabashed in reading Scripture for the church's purposes and within the context of Christian faith and practice.  Indeed, guide  your reading by church doctrine."

2. While I gained some important academic skills by learning to interpret Scripture historically-critically, I can't and won't surrender a devotional reading of Scripture.  I was taught that Scripture is the Living Word of God.  I still believe that.  I believe that the Holy Spirit speaks to us, instructs us, convicts us, and confronts us through Scripture.  So, I can't read Scripture with complete academic detachment. 

3. If I truly believe that the Old Testament ultimately points us to God's redemptive work in Christ, I cannot ignore what I believe to be Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament.  Now, I will readily admit that it is definitely possible to read the Old Testament without reference to Jesus of Nazareth.  It's just not ultimately possible for me to do so.  Historically speaking, I understand that when Isaiah or Jeremiah or Micah or whoever wrote Genesis wrote the words of Scripture, they were not thinking of Jesus of Nazareth.  But the thing is, when I read Isaiah 53:4-6, I cannot help but believe that's about Jesus.  I can study the historical context and understand perfectly well that Isaiah would not have been thinking about Jesus Christ.  I'm thinking about Jesus and an academic interpretation is not the only way I interact with that text, or any text for that matter.  

So, as I'm reading/wrestling with the story of Abraham and Isaac, I do so humbly as a follower of Jesus Christ.  I do so as one who believe that Jesus was crucified for the sake of my sinfulness.  When I read the story of Isaac, I indeed see Jesus.  More on that next time...