More Than Gold • 1

I'm not what you would call a "sports fan." I enjoy many different sports, but I'm not one to follow a particular team or sit down and watch a lot of games. I enjoy going to a live game now and then, but I can't quote statistics or win/loss records. I don't watch sports—except when it comes to the Olympics. I love the Olympics. Winter or Summer, it doesn't matter. I will sit glued to the television, watching every moment I can.

One thing I love about the Olympics is that so many nations come together and, with a few exceptions, get along well for the two weeks or so during which the games are on. You see competitors from nations that are, perhaps, enemies on the political front hugging one another and congratulating one another before and after an event. Compete they will, and fiercely, but they are bound together by this sport. Last night, as we were watching the swimmers achieve impossible speeds in the water, my daughter said, "Wouldn't it be great if, instead of wars, we would just compete like this to settle our differences?" Yes, it would, Rachel. Yes, it would.

Perhaps there is something these athletes understand that our politicians simply don't get. On a common ground, around a common goal, with common rules and methods, we really are more similar than we are different. And though, even in sports, some athletes try to cheat (did you hear the "boos" when Russia came to the pool last night?), by and large there is a honest competitiveness that brings people together and sets other differences aside.

It's no mistake, I think, that Paul uses the Olympics as an image for the Christian life. We're in a race, he says, and we're competing for the prize. But, as Paul reminds us, we are competing for more than gold. And more than a wilted celery stick (which is what winners at the ancient games were crowned with). We run, we compete, we wrestle and walk and strive for a prize that will last forever (see 1 Corinthians 9:24-25).

So the question comes down to us as Christians, same as it does to those who are competing in Rio: if we're all working toward the same prize, why do we divide ourselves so much? If athletes can put aside political differences, why can we not do the same between denominations, among believers? (I was told by another pastor the other day that, he had decided after studying Wesley and the Methodist movement, that Methodists aren't going to hell just because they believe differently than he does. I got the impression this was a change of heart, but nevertheless, I was relieved!) What might it look like if all who claim the name of Jesus actually strove together for the same prize and stopped worrying as much about the things that separate us? Not that those divisions aren't real, or important. But even more important is the call of Christ to "run in such a way as to get the prize" (1 Corinthians 9:24).

After all, we "run" for more than gold.