16 While Paul was a missionary in the United States of
America he happened to be touring during the week leading up to the Super Bowl,
the NFL’s championship game and host of the world’s most watched television
programming. This single event contained worship of many things like sports,
music, sexuality, greed, and hyper-capitolism.
17 So he used his fame to submit articles for Time magazine,
the New York Times, the Washington Post, spoke on shows on all the major news
networks, and even recorded a sermon that could be viewed online on the matter,
and it went viral. He also went to the sports bars and the grocery stores and
struck up conversations with people who he overheard talking about their Super
Bowl plans.
18-21 The news stations ridiculed him, but a few executives
saw their chance to gain viewers by the outlandish opinions that Paul had
concerning modern day idols and the ironic religiosity of football being played
on Sundays, the day that Jesus, the true target of our should-be worship, who
was resurrected once for all.
22-28 In a surprising nationally televised address, he
spoke, and began saying, “People of ‘Merica! I see that in every way Super Bowl
Sunday strikes up worship in your heart, but your worship falls on athletes who
fade, on guacamole that last only a few chips (way too few, the guac to chip
ratio is always too low if you ask me, anyway), at a television screen that
can’t really hear you, nor a team who benefits from you, nor do you really
benefit much from them. But worship itself is not where your fault lies, but
the fault is in where you aim your worship. Your adoration, your praise, your
energy, your money, your cheering, your time-orienting should all be centered
around Jesus, for He centered His all around you so you could have football.
For it was He who created football and nachos and music and everything else
this world has to offer. He is not swayed by your cheers for one team or
another, nor does He listen to your heartfelt prayer for that field goal to go
through the goalposts or wide of them. But what He has done is this, He has
placed human beings in the past, like Adam, Abraham, and Jesus, like your
parents, their parents, and their parents’ parents, in the nations they lived
knowing that you, yes you as an individual, would one day live in a nation that
produced something like a Super Bowl and would be inspired to set your heart,
your stomach, your eyes, your energy, your wallets totally aside for one Super
Day and one Super Team, when your heart, your stomach, your eyes, your energy,
your wallets were always meant for one man: Jesus. Though it is Coldplay who
sings at halftime that “You’re a sky, ‘cause you’re a sky full of stars, I’m
gonna give you my heart… ‘Cause you’re a sky, ‘cause you’re a sky full of stars
I want to die in your arms.” It is God who feels this way about you, you are
the stars that fill His sky, and He has died for you. When you believe in His
love, His death, and resurrection it is He that sings “Lights will guide you
home, and ignite your bones, and I will try and fix you.” For He does fix us
through and through, by and by, and he fixes us a spot in heaven to eternally
worship Him as well.
29-31 “Don’t you see it’s silly to put all of your worship
eggs in this one bowl? It’s ok to enjoy the game, the music, the guacamole
because they all have God’s fingerprint on them, though they have been crafted
by mere human hands. God overlooked such silliness in the ages before Christ.
But with Christ having come, fully revealing God’s nature, through His death
and resurrection, through His forgiveness and mercy, He also has set a future
date for his reappearance to judge who or what we’ve worshipped with our lives.
It’s time to decide now on your end what He will see on His end on that day
when He comes back. What will you want to say you worshiped: the God who gives
us all these good gifts of football, music, and delicious foods, or the plate
of wings and a soon to be forgotten sporting event?
32-34 When he was finished, Anderson Cooper and Stephen
Hawking were in tears, repenting openly and recognizing the error of their
ways. The Commissioners of the major sports weren't’ convinced but all wanted
to hear more, and yet many businessmen, professors, and even some very strict
and religious Christians all snickered and said “this guy doesn’t know what
he’s talking about.” A dejected janitor named Steven had no idea his new friend
he made just the other day at the bar was going to speak on national television
and change his heart forever. In fact, many like Steven who listened to Paul
enjoyed the game (and the guacamole), but worshiped the Creator instead of the
game that Sunday.
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