The Trouble with Teams

My husband is an avid University of Louisville fan.  He wears the U of L spirit attire, watches every football and basketball game, listens to sports talk radio shows about the Cards, and does extensive online research analyzing team statistics and expert commentary.  When we were first dating and I told him that I was a Louisville fan but pulled for the University of Kentucky when the Cards weren’t playing, he looked at me like I had just admitted to kicking puppies or tattooing infants.

Team sports are fun opportunities for bonding and growth, both for the players and fans alike. And the teams we’re on at work or through our hobbies are necessary for organizing our activities, achieving shared goals, and creating community.  Give me a T, an E, an A, and an M . . . what’ve you got?  

You’ve got an incredible means of both entertainment and personal development in the right context . . . and a recipe for disaster in the wrong one.  This week’s readings feature a clever mix of cautionary tales with a singular message – save your teams for the grid iron or the conference room.  

The first reading from the Old Testament book of Numbers tells the story of God “taking some of the spirit that was on Moses” (11: 25) and sharing it with 70 elders.  But uh oh, there were two guys, Eldad and Medad, who received the spirit along with the rest but weren’t part of the original gathering.  An aide to Moses tells him to stop them from prophesying because they aren’t part of the right team.  Moses responds with some version of “Dude, you missed the whole point.”  He goes on to say, “Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets!  Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit on them all” (29)!  Put another way, we’re all on the same team here.

Fast forward about five centuries and you’ll see a nearly identical encounter described in this week’s gospel reading, only this time the protagonist is Jesus, not Moses.  John says to Jesus, ‘Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us’” (Mark 9: 38).  I can almost hear Jesus thinking the same thing – “Dude, you missed the whole point.”  He corrects John and makes his famous statement, “Whoever is not against us is for us” (40), even if that person hasn’t paid the membership dues or didn’t make the team orientation. 

These Scripture readings could not be timelier.  In today’s hyper-partisan, us-versus-them culture of blame and vitriol, they could also not be more important.  Perhaps we should heed the lesson from both Moses and Jesus this week.  We can wave our foam fingers and shout our team cheers until we lose our voices when it comes to sporting events.  But outside of that context, perhaps we are being called to remember that at the end of the fourth quarter, we’re all on the same team.