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"?