1 Corinthians 9:24-27
February 15, 2008
Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I discipline my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.
What would you say is the greatest sports event ever? For me it is very clear: the 1980 USA Olympic ice hockey win against the Soviet Union and the eventual winning of the gold medal. If ever there was a David and Goliath event, this was it. It would be the equivalent, in today’s terms, of a college-aged team of all-stars from Canada beating the Pittsburgh Steelers in football. Who could imagine such a thing?
If you are old enough to remember, the USA ice hockey team went into the Olympics with a team comprised basically of college hockey players in an era when very few Americans were even making it to the NHL. Only one person in the world actually believed that this team could win a gold medal, and that was the coach, Herb Brooks. He knew that for the Americans to win the gold medal they had to beat the Russian team, which was the best ice hockey team in the world. I don’t mean that they were the best team outside of the NHL. They were the best team in the world. They had a goalie, Vladisak Tretiek, considered to be the best goalie in the world even by NHL players. They had a center considered to be perhaps the best center in the world, Valery Karlamov. What made them the best team was that it was comprised of players who would have been stars in the NHL, had they been allowed to leave the Soviet Union. Instead, they were all forced to serve in the Soviet army by serving their commission as members of the Soviet hockey team. They were by far the most talented team ever assembled. They skated and passed better than any team in the world, and their system was designed to hold onto the puck for most the game and beat you with high percentage shots. They were so good that before the 1980 Olympics they had beaten an NHL all-tar team 6 to 1, making the NHL players look incompetent in the process.
To beat the Russians, Herb Brooks devised a plan. He believed that the USA team could beat the Russians by combining an NHL style of game with the Soviet style. The players would skate, hit, and shoot like NHL players, taking the game to a high tempo, but he would also have them pass, move, and control the puck the way that the Soviets did. One other thing: he believed that if his team was the best-conditioned and mentally toughest team ever, he could beat the Russians at their own game. Thus, what made the USA team able to achieve greatness was their determination and their discipline. They didn’t have to be great players to be a great team. All they had to do was to be the most disciplined, hardest skating, and committed team.
There was one particular event, in the lead-up to the Olympics, that gave the USA team the needed grit and determination to eventually beat the Soviets, and it wasn’t even planned. They had an exhibition game in Norway against the Norwegian national team. The Norwegians were not a very good team, and it was expected that the USA team would blow them out. Instead they played a lackluster game, tying the Norwegians 3 to 3. Some of the players were so disinterested in playing the game that in the third period, instead of focusing on the game, they were talking on the bench about which women in the stands were the best looking.
By the end of the game Herb Brooks was furious. The players went to center ice to shake hands with the Norwegian team, and then skated for the exit off the rink. There they found the assistant coach, Craig Patrick, blocking the exit. He told them to get back on the ice. “What for?” the players asked. “You’ll see,” said Patrick. Brooks told the to get on the goal line. He told them if they weren’t going to work during the game, they could work now. He had them do a spring cycle (goal line to blue line and back, to the red line and back, to the far blue line and back, to the far goal line and back. These are sprints designed to burn the lungs and the legs out. When the finished the springs, Brooks sent them on another cycle. And then another. And then another. In-between he chastised them: “What makes you think you can just show up and beat a team? You don’t have enough talent to just show up and beat a team!” Again he sent them on a cycle. “You either work to win, or you can go home!” He sent then on another cycle. “When are you gong to learn that the name on the front of your jersey is more important than the name on the back!” He sent them on another cycle.
The rink manager, who wanted to clean the ice and go home, sent a message to Brooks that he wanted to leave. Brooks told him to leave the keys. In anger, the rink manager shut off all the lights. That didn’t deter Brooks. Under the dim glow of emergency lights, Brooks sent them off again to another cycle. Then another. Then another. By now some players were starting to throw up. Brooks continued to lecture them, trying to get the message across that what they were trying to do was uncommon, and that if they were going to be successful, they could not be common men. It went on and on until finally, Mike Eruzione, the captain, shouted out something stopped it all. Ever since the training camp months before, Herb Brooks would periodically ask a player to introduce himself by saying his name, where he was from, and what team he played on. They would say things like, “Mark Johnson, Madison Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin,” or Neal Broten, University of Minnesota.” Eruzione, finally getting what Herb Brooks hoped he would say, shouted out, “Mike Eruzione, Windsor, Massachusetts, the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!”
Eruzione finally understood Brooks’ message: To be a team we have to be willing to have the self-control, discipline, and determination to do whatever it takes to achieve our destiny. When I watch this movie, I see so much in common with the lesson the apostle Paul tried to teach in our passage. Paul describes the work of faith as being similar to the work that an athlete goes through. To grow in faith, we need determination and discipline. Otherwise we end up going nowhere.
Now I don’t want to pretend that to be a great Christian means to do endless wind sprints, but there is a lot that is in common with the experience of the 1980 Olympic ice hockey team and growing as a Christian. Let me share with you three lessons I learn from both the experience of the 1980 USA ice hockey team and from Paul.
The first lesson is the lesson of commitment and community. The reality is that just like in sports, nothing good happens without commitment, but here’s the rub: we live in a commitment-averse culture. People worry about commitment. They worry about what happens if they make a commitment and things don’t work out. They worry about making a commitment and finding it was the wrong one. They worry that making a commitment will bind them and keep them from being free. When it comes to religion and church, so many people worry that committing to a church means giving up independence, self-identity, and personal beliefs. The problem is that just as no team can do well without commitment, no individual can truly do well in faith without commitment. Faith needs commitment to do well, but it’s not just a commitment to a set of principles. It’s a communal commitment. One of the lessons that Christianity, as well as every other world religion, teaches is the importance of commitment to a community. To say that we are spiritual but not religious is a contradiction of terms to every major religion because faith is always both individual and communal. Without a commitment to community we become self-focused, creating our own faith while ignoring what a community has to teach us. It is in commitment to the community that we learn to love others. It’s in commitment to community that we find opportunity to love others. And just like on a sports team where commitment to the team is the beginning of success, so commitment to a community of faith is the beginning of real growth in faith.
Second is the lesson of self-sacrifice and perseverance through difficult times. This is much like commitment, but takes it a step further. In the incident I described above, any of those players could have quit at any time. But if they had they would have been robbed of the opportunity to do something truly great. It would have robbed them of the chance to become better. There are many people who believe that if we have faith nothing bad should happen to us. That’s a promise found nowhere in the Bible. What the Bible does teach is that if we persevere through difficult time, keeping our faith despite our pain, God will make us better. God will make life better. In order to persevere, though, we need to be willing to self-sacrifice. We need to learn that the world doesn’t revolve around “me,” and that to persevere through tough times means letting go of me so that I can follow Christ through the bad times and to be transformed through them. Ultimately self-sacrifice and perseverance leads to transformation. The U.S. players understood both concepts, and it’s what gave them to strength to overcome such long odds.
Finally, there is the lesson of learning. To be an athlete means to be a constant learner. There is no great athlete who does not devote his or her life to learning more and more about his or her craft. The USA players were constant learners, even if they didn’t want to be. Herb Brooks demanded that they learn a new system that no one had seen before. He demanded that they learn both an NHL-style of play and a Russian style. He demanded that they study film and understand the tactics of the opponent. He also demanded that they meticulously learn how to be better players through refining their technique. Just as athletes must learn, so must we if we are to grow in faith. We are called to learn by reading scripture, by reading spiritual books, and by coming to church and listening to sermons and taking the adult education classes. To grow in faith means to learn more about God and life with God. If we aren’t willing to learn, we can’t grow in faith.
When we’re called to live a Christian life, we’re not called to do it recreationally or on the side. We’re called to be like athletes who work hard at it, who are willing to commit to it, are willing to sacrifice for it, are willing to do what’s necessary for it. It’s when we do these things that we discover the rewards of a life lived with Christ.
Amen.
