Peyton Manning, Myself, and Worship

It's a common cliche that being a fan comes from the root word fanatic. Color me fanatic then.

I blame my parents, really. I grew up mostly in Knoxville, Tennessee, home of the University of Tennessee, also my alma mater. My mom graduated from there. Both my sisters graduated from there. So I'll pass some of that blame to my sisters too. On top of that, my dad was always a huge sports fan. Ever since I can remember, I was wearing orange and rooting for the Vols.

Some things just always seemed constant: the Vols had a great quarterback, we always beat Kentucky, and I always told every other elementary school kid that Tennessee was better than their school (especially when I lived in Ohio for a while).

My journey with Peyton (for he only needs one name to be known in my parts) began when I was in fifth grade. Already being fanatical about the men in Orange and White, I was at the very first college football game that Peyton ever started, against Washington State in 1994. I remind you, fifth grade.

I suppose it's rare that someone's boyhood sports hero grows all the way into adulthood with you. I mean, I'm a father now, and Peyton is still playing football. And I'm still fanatical. I went to the Broncos-Colts game 2 seasons ago with a close friend. Did I wear a Broncos shirt? Yes. Yes I did. Under my #16 Peyton Manning jersey from the University of Tennessee. Some loves seem to only grow with the sweet passage of time.

And now my boyhood hero "follows" me to Denver to play his remaining days of professional football. Truly, I love the Broncos. They were the first and easiest team to rally behind once I moved here. Loving this city meant loving it's teams. But some loves have a ceiling when the one you really want is so far away. But no longer. Now I really love the Broncos.

I'm not sure if I can get to the place in my sports-fan experience to truly comprehend the day when Peyton Manning will no longer play football. It's an emotional place I'm probably not prepared for. So, I'll enjoy these waning days like there is no end. I'll just be naive about the deeper things.

The deeper things: what an odd phenomenon sports and sports heroes are.

I used to never understand the concept of idolatry. All over the Old Testament people find wooden poles or golden things and they worship them. Always seemed bizarre to me. A wooden pole isn't that exciting, after all.

So when I read the passage in Exodus about Moses and his people, I'm confused. Moses is hanging out on the top of a mountain with God. It's quite the thunderous experience as Moses receives the law with which to give his people from his God- the exclusive, the God. God tells Moses to go down though, because the people are practicing wickedness. They collected everyone's gold and decided it'd be a good idea to melt it and make a golden calf and talk about how awesome it is.

Over 400 years of slavery, and the golden calf they just made gets all the credit for the miraculous events they've witnessed. That story used to make no sense to me. That is, until I understood sports in my life. Until I came up close and personal with my emotions and with my boyhood idol.

When my beloved Volunteers won or when Manning won, my heart was filled with glee. When they won. Oh, when they won. Joy. Inexpressible joy. But, when my beloved Volunteers used to lose or when Manning lost, I'd be sad. I'd be angry. There wouldn't be words. I wouldn't want to talk to anybody about it. But since when did the outcome of a game have to affect my whole sense of contentment? How did that happen?

Consider Aaron. He responds to Moses about the whole calf deal:

"Do not be angry, my lord...You know how prone these people are to evil. They said to me, 'Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him.' So I told them, 'Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.' Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!"

I'm not sure if my sense of contentedness, as it's so connected to Manning, is so different from people throwing some gold into a fire.

We humans will worship anything. We all worship. My temptation is to not make Peyton Manning god, but just let him be a guy that throws an oblong ball to other people, and to enjoy it as mildly as possible. That's so hard for me.

There are other gods afoot, most of them of my own creation, you see.

Rooting For Your Team

Pictured to your left: the much revered Peyton Manning, the best QB of all-time and Tennessee Volunteer faithful.

If you are familiar with Christian parlance at all, you know that evangelical Christians often note that they have accepted Jesus into their heart as Lord and Savior.

If you are familiar with the South, and East Tennessee in particular, folks will also say that they have accepted Peyton Manning into their heart. Maybe not as Lord and Savior, but definitely as favored son. You'll find more Indianapolis Colts fans in East Tennessee than you will Titans fans. I am one of those Colts fans.

That little illustration is one example of how strong our allegiances can be to sports teams. In an entertainment culture shaped by the television, major sports drive much of our time and interests and money. My biggest hobby outside of reading in general is reading about Tennessee football and basketball.

On the day (today) of Tennessee's historic biggest rivalry in a game we probably won't win (Alabama) in a year that isn't so good, I would like to submit that this love is a double-edged sword.

First, the bad. Sports teams absolutely are an idol in our culture. We worship those players and teams we follow so avidly. Stiff and traditional people in church on Sunday morning are often the same people who scream and cheer at a television screen when their favorite NFL team is playing. Even worse, tons of Christians in the Denver area skip church to watch the Broncos play. Since we believe God Himself indwells Christians, why on earth would we skip church to care as much about a game with little-to-zero life consequence? But we do, and sports thus become an idol. But there's a redeeming value to sports as well.

That's because most rooting interests are arbitrary. Notice this: I never made the choice to become a Tennessee fan. I have always been a Tennessee fan. Ever since I can remember, my favorite color has been orange. My rooting interests were and are essentially arbitrary: I was born into a family that went to the school and lived in the town where the school was. Now you say, "how can an arbitrary interest be a good thing? Doesn't it make us all sectarian and unnecessarily divisive?" Well, yes and no. If an arbitrary interest means others will actually hate people of the other team or region, then that's another manifestation of the idolatry in sports. But many people don't actually hate individuals or fans of the other team.

Here's the issue: the beauty of the arbitrary love is that it's constant. For no reason, I love Tennessee. I cannot not love Tennessee. I will love Tennessee no matter what. We are 2-4 in football this year and will probably get mauled by Alabama tonight, but I do not care. I will watch Tennessee this week and next. My love cannot and will not be taken away, no matter what Tennessee does. They have not earned my love.

And in that way, rooting for your team is a small mirror of the way God loves his people. Why does God love us? The Bible often gives a very simple answer: simply because he chooses to and out of no good thing in ourselves. God explains his love to Israel in Deuteronomy 7:6-8 (which Christians also believe apply to them as well now):

For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

The Westminster Confession of Faith, the faith beliefs of my church, says it this way in chapter 3.5:

Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, hath chosen, in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of His mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith, or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving Him thereunto: and all to the praise of His glorious grace. (emphasis mine)

It's not an easy truth to realize- this idea that there is nothing inherently lovable in us and yet God loves us anyways. And despite what I insinuate above, I'm not saying that God's love for us is arbitrary or capricious. What I'm saying is that God's love for us isn't based on anything in us. Believe me, there's nothing to love about my team this year, and yet I love them. I will always be a fan. And maybe God put that love in me so that he could teach me a little something about His love.