Hello,
God roots for the Fighting Illini of the University of Illinois!
The reason that I know this is what happened a couple of days ago. When I woke up and opened the shade the covers our western looking window and saw the entire ridge bathed in orange. Actually, this was not the first time that I have seen this sight. It happens every morning when the sun rises. Because (I think) of the curvature of the earth, the dawning light gets refracted a bit, and orange becomes the dominant color, thus the orange draped ridge out my window.
But on this particular morning, the sky that was touching the ridge was a brilliant blue…thus….orange and blue, the colors of the Fighting Illini of the University of Illinois! Obviously, a sign from heaven that God bleeds orange and blue and roots for my team!
Of course, I am joking. Not about the beauty of the sunrise and its colored dawn, but about the assumption that such a thing is a heavenly message of God’s allegiance. But all joking aside, such assumptions are often spoken with heartfelt belief, placing God on the side of one person or group and not on the side of the other. I remember some years ago when the national church of which I am a part was meeting in Minneapolis and during the debate on issues of sexuality a tornado bounced over the arena, knocking the cross off of the large church next door. Some were quick to pronounce this a sign of God’s ire about the direction of the debate, a direction that was moving toward more openness and diversity. But was it? Could not have the topping of the cross and the opening of the steeple roof have been a sign of God’s blessing, much akin to the ripping of the temple curtain at Jesus’ crucifixion?
Who does God root for? I tend to think that a far more clear message from God as to his allegiance is seen in Jesus dying on a cross. The Bible tells us that when Jesus died on that cross he died for all (Romans 6:10). Question: is there anyone not included in “all”? If the answer to that question is “no”, then it seems to me that we have the answer to the initial question, “Who does God root for?” For all.
I take great comfort in that answer, because in that answer I find out that God roots for me. No matter my devotion, my rebellion, my goodness, my evil, my wisdom, my stupidity, my gifts, my flaws….on and on…God roots for me. Which also means that God roots for you….no matter if you are sailing smoothly through life with a vibrant faith, or if you are stuck at the bottom of a deep pit of your own making or of your accidental stumbling and faith is hard to find. God roots for you.
And (this may be the hardest thing to crack through my thick skull) God roots for those with whom I disagree. I don’t mean that God roots for the rightness or wrongness of how I see things verses how others see things, but rather that God’s heart is linked to each of us. I find that helpful, so that when I am in disagreement with others, I might involve myself in that disagreement, not as people on different teams, but as people who stand on the same side of the field, the Good Friday field, under the cross of Christ.
It is a good thing that God roots for all, because the Fighting Illini of the University of Illinois are in need of someone to root for them (it’s been a long stretch of years on the football field), but even more so you and I are in need of someone to root for us, because it can be a long stretch of years on the field of life.
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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