Winners and Losers

God's delight is not in the strength of the horse,
     nor his pleasure in the speed of a runner;
but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him,
     in those who hope in his steadfast love.   - Psalm 147:10-11

God may not delight in the strength of the horse or the speed of the runner, but most of us do. We are impressed with winners, and we don't have a lot of patience with losers. I went to Washington Nationals baseball game the other day. It was a close, low scoring affair until a relief pitcher "blew the game," giving up 4 runs in quick succession. This relief pitcher had been loudly cheered when he entered the game, but he left it to similar level of boos. He had lost. He had failed. Booooo!!

This is nothing new, of course, but I think it has taken on additional intensity in recent decades. Our world seems more and more competitive, more and more anxious, more and more stressed out. In such a setting, people are terrified of failing, and we worship those with superhuman focus and concentration, who flourish in the face of pressure, who "come through in the clutch."

In our hyper-competitive world, appearing weak is a cardinal sin. It's no wonder church folks prefer Palm Sunday and Easter to Good Friday. A cross is a place for losers, and we've never gotten completely comfortable with it. Some even go so far as to see it in "no pain - no gain" terms, as an extreme act of athletic accomplishment on the way to a remarkable victory. But that's not the picture in the gospels (at least not the synoptic ones). And it's not the picture Paul has in mind when he says Christ crucified is "a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles..." (Jew and Gentile covers all humans for Paul, and Jesus on the cross doesn't make sense from either point of view.)

Jesus says that his followers must take up their own crosses. In other words, they must embrace what the world sees as failure, becoming entirely dependent on God's care and grace. Yet even in the church, we tend to love winners and hate losers. "Successful" pastors and congregations often embody all the best leadership and business practices of our secular world, the things that will make us winners. At times we are so afraid of being losers that we become incredibly risk-averse, attempting nothing that could end in failure. We know better than to go to Jerusalem, raise a ruckus at the Temple, and challenge the authorities. What was Jesus thinking?

In my denomination, successful pastors - winners - get paid a lot more and have bigger pensions than those who are less successful - losers. In this we are little different from any other denomination. Not that I take much comfort from that. Part of our calling is to be like Jesus, to be different from the world that loves winners and hates losers. After all, Jesus spend a great deal more time with the losers than the winners. The losers tended to love him, the winner much less so.

When I think of the trouble I get myself into as a pastor, a husband, a father, a person, the lion's share of it comes from wanting so badly to be a winner and fearing so much being a loser. I don't want to admit failings of failures. I don't want to appear weak. I want to impress. I want to win. I want to be the reason things turned out well. And I think that the fear of losing is even more powerful and motivating than my desire to win.

I wonder how different my life might be, my relationships might be, if I wasn't so terrified of losing, of looking weak, of failing.

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