Prayer and Football or, “Did God Cost the Saskatchewan Roughriders the 2009 Grey Cup?”
Yesterday my hometown team lost the championship game in the Canadian Football League in the most heart-wrenching way possible. Overwhelming underdogs going into the game (the opposing Montreal Alouettes had finished the season 15-3, but could easily have been 17-1, had they not rested their all-star quarterback for one game and lost another on a blown call), my Roughriders did not trail until after the last second had ticked off the clock. They did not trail for 60 minutes and they still lost. Let me explain.
After taking a 17-3 lead into the half and a 20-10 lead into the fourth quarter, things were looking good. Even when Montreal started to rally (with the score now 27-11), it looked like too little, too late. They needed two touchdowns and two two-point converts just to tie. They got the first TD with the convert, but when they got the second, they could not convert. My team had a two-point lead and the ball with just over a minute to go. (With a 20-second time clock and only three downs, running out the clock was not an option.) After a two-and-out deep in our own zone, we needed a great punt to keep them out of field goal range – and we got it. Not only did our punter launch the ball, their returner bobbled the catch and they recovered again behind their own 35. It would take a miracle for Montreal to win now. Little did we know that God was an Alouette fan.
A couple plays later, with no time left on the clock, Als kicker Damon Duval had a chance to win the game from the 43-yard line. The snap, the kick and . . . he’s wide right. Riders win! Riders win! Riders win! The perennial underdog, the community-owned franchise, everyone’s second favorite team, the team that sells more merchandise than the rest of the league combined (in Saskatchewan every baby gets a stuffed Gainer Gopher when they’re born; my oldest got two), has won just their 4th championship in 100 years! To put this in perspective, it’s only an 8-team league. Everyone one of us will remember exactly where we were when this happened.
Well, at least that last sentence will stand.
Football is the most team of the team sports. And in this most team of team sports, it is almost fitting that the flags flew on a team penalty. Bill Buckner would be oddly jealous of how my Riders lost. “Too many men, Saskatchewan. 10 yard penalty. Repeat first down.” Would you believe that Saskatchewan had been the least penalized team in the league this year? Duval didn’t make the same mistake twice, and Montreal, as everyone had expected before kick-off, won the 2009 Grey Cup.
It is an odd sensation to watch the other team’s players thanking God so profusely for what feels to you like a kick in the groin. All-star quarterback, and surefire first-ballot hall-of-famer, Anthony Calvillo insisted that the first order of business was to thank “Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (as a Catholic theologian, I take some small solace in the fact that he said “our” instead of “my”). Kicker Duval, who had shanked two punts in the first half and missed the first of his two last-second field goal attempts, told us that the “big guy upstairs” had other plans than for him be the goat.
And sitting in front of our TVs, devout (in both the sporting and religious sense) Rider fans were faced with the question, “Was it God’s will for our guys to lose? And to lose like that?”
Football players (even coaches) are a notoriously religious bunch. In no other sport do members of opposing squads meet for prayer after games. In no other sport do we see so many televised team prayers. Maybe it has something to do with the game’s strong roots in the American south. I really don’t know.
What I do know is that team sports put God in an awful conundrum. Surely he loves all involved and wants what is best for each. But here we have created a scenario where what is best for one team is worst for the other. What’s a deity to do?
I have been a part of many conversations that insist something like, “God has more important things to worry about.” Why would he bother with Grey Cup, when there are children starving in Africa? But this is quite anthropomorphic. It’s not like Africa takes up all God’s time. The Christian conviction is, rather, that God is actually deeply concerned with the most intimate details in the lives of each of his beloved creatures, and for many of those creatures, football is pretty important. Some of us even count on it to feed our families.
Furthermore, if God is ignoring Grey Cup to work on Africa, why is it still such a bloody mess? Did he take some time off to enjoy the game, or is he just incompetent?
All of the standard argumentation about God and sports seems to me to be based on false ideas about what (or who) God is, and how God relates to creation. It goes back to standard Christian teaching about providence and prayer.
Catholics insist both that humans have free will and that God’s will will be done in spite of this. No matter what we do, we can’t gum up the works. Even Adam and Eve, with all their blundering, could not avoid winning for us so great a Savior. Thomas Aquinas tells us that this is because God does not operate in the world by altering secondary causes but by granting to each secondary cause its potency. As primary cause, God supports everything in existence as existing, but does not make kickers miss field goals, or players run onto the field when they shouldn’t.
Or, as Augustine puts it, God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. God does not relate to creation in the same way in which the different parts of creation relate to each other. When we treat God as simply one more actor in history, however powerful, we have stopped using the word ‘God’ in a meaningful way (except when discussing the Incarnation, when God actually was a creature and an actor in history in the manner to which we are accustomed).
The upshot is that the results of football games are the product of human free will working with the God-given raw material of existence. They are not the result of divine interventions in the regular working out of physical laws, nor the result of some divine clouding of enemy minds.
So, given that God also wants what is best for the Riders and did nothing to alter the outcome of the game, is it all right for Anthony Calvillo to thank Our Lord when he wins a championship?
I think the answer depends on what he means to do by such thanking. Let’s think about life in general. Do you thank God that you got a job? That you got into the school you always hoped for? That you missed the plane that crashed? I should hope that you do, but in each case someone else lost out. If you got a job, someone else is still unemployed. If you are going to Harvard, someone else got a rejection letter. That plane wasn’t empty. And when the Alouettes won the Cup, my Riders lost.
If the implication is that God dislikes the Roughriders (or that he really had it out for that other jerk who applied for the same job as you), such thanking is non-sense. And that’s what it looks like to a Rider fan that just saw his team lose the biggest possible game in the worst possible way. But of course this is not what Calvillo intends. He is thanking God the same way as you or I when we get a job. The difference is that the loser in our situation is invisible, not hunched on the sidelines or staring off in disbelief.
But praise and thanks are just half of prayer. The other half involves what theologians call supplication. In other words, asking for stuff. How many of us have thrown up a real Hail Mary when the game is on the line? I have.
We are constantly asking God for things that are much more trivial than to feed the starving children in Africa. And we should. We are told to pray without ceasing and to bring all our needs before the Lord. We are assured that nothing is too small for God. But how is God to respond when 5 of his children are praying for one job? Or when two of his favorite teams are praying for the same championship? (In the first example you can cop out and say he can make 5 jobs, but that doesn’t work in the second. It is impossible, by definition, to have two champions. That’s what makes boxing such a joke.)
I think that the answer begins when we recognize that praying (and supplication in particular) is more about acclimating ourselves to reality than getting what we think we need. Every Christian prayer ends with “Amen,” that is, “Thy will be done.” The fruit of prayer is the gift of being able to see reality from God’s perspective. That is why there is no such thing as an unanswered prayer. Even when God says “No,” as he logically must in the case of winning a sporting event, he is still answering – whether we choose to listen or not.
It is the Christian conviction that we must give thanks to God in all things. We all know those saints in our lives that manage to do this. The person who can thank God when they fall and break a hip. The one who glorifies the Lord in their illness or unemployment. The grieving parents who praise God that they were given just a month, or a day or an hour with their now dead child. The conviction that all things work together for the good of those who love God, sometimes in ways that we cannot understand before Judgment Day, means that we must all learn to say with Job, “The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
The real question is not whether Christian athletes can thank God for victory. Of course they can. And they should. The real question is “How do we form people who will thank God in defeat?”
Maybe, just maybe, one Rider fan had a terrible weekend. He had a huge fight with his wife. He swore and yelled in front of his kids. He lost his temper in public and embarrassed himself in front of his neighbors. And he settled in for the game thinking, “At least one thing has to go right for me this weekend.”
And maybe, after watching his team lose in a way that the most devious (archrival) Blue Bomber fan could not have scripted, that fan came home and saw his sleeping children and thanked God for them.
Stranger things have happened.
God can make robes out of rags and grace will squeeze its way into the world through the slightest of cracks. Losing the Grey Cup does not mean being out of God’s favor. It might be the way that God shows his favor even to the losers.
At least that’s what I’ll tell myself until next year.
Brett Salkeld is a doctoral student in theology at Regis College in Toronto. He is a father of two (so far) and husband of one.
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Such a good post, Brett.
I really appreciated the various Rider comments in this Leader-Post article: http://www.leaderpost.com/sports/football/roughriders-football/Mistake+costs+Riders+Grey+victory/2284276/story.html. I’d like to see your responses to Stevie Baggs’s comment at the end. (I love that Ken Miller spent the after-game time caring for the players as individuals, and making sure they were okay.)
Ken Miller is a saint.
Good for Stevie. Especially if ‘prosperity’ means “I can see God even in the depths,” (perhaps in the person of one Coach Miller). Not so much if it means, “We’re owed something for next year.” I don’t think that’s what he meant.
God cannot make both teams win, God cannot give the job to all 5 applicants. God’s “miracles” are limited to the laws of physics.
I actually think logic is more of a limitation than physics. I think that Jesus walked on water, but I don’t think God could make a 4-sided triangle. But that’s probably another post.
In any case, limiting God with only ‘physics’ looks a bit too much like saying only the material is real.
I take Stevie Bagg’s comment the same way, and it reinforces your point. We have seasons of tragety and prosperity, and both are for our good. I also appreciated that the coaches refused to identify who was the 13th man. Miller and Reed know who it was, but their refusal to throw a player under the bus is another sign of character.
I think it’s obvious that God was communicating his blessing upon Franco-Catholic Canada and visiting his wrath upon Anglo-Protestant Canada. You bring up some interested ideas though. ;-)
Fr. Komonchak wrote the following over on dotCommonweal, largely in response to my questions about prayer. I think this may be very relevant here, but I confess I haven’t figured out what it means!
That was a brillant commentary on praising God topic. I’m impressed. Way to go Brett.
Sorry MZ but if God is communicating his blessing on Franco-Catholic Quebec then he is approving of the even lower level of church attendance and belief in Quebec than in the rest of Canada.
No human is perfect, that means no faith is perfect, therefore we all doubt. In order to truly believe in grace, in God, and in the sacraments, we need devine intervention.
So in that regard I can logically accept a miracle.
In terms of physics, try praying to God that the Riders win last nights Grey Cup. We don’t waste our time praying for these things because we know they are impossible (my first argument). We only pray for things that we know are possible, otherwise our reason would eventually destroy our faith. Unless of course we have blind faith.
I fail to see the merit in thanking God for a perceived blessing (Als), because in doing so we also thank God for the corresponding suffering (Riders).
P.S. thanks for your blog, and your insight, I look forward to reading more.
We only pray for things that we know are possible, otherwise our reason would eventually destroy our faith.
The idea of “possible” miracles is an interesting one. Someone with a spinal injury who is told he or she will never walk again might reasonably pray to miraculously regain the ability to walk. But it is hard to imagine someone who lost both legs on the battlefield or in a car accident praying for them to grow back. Why?
It seems to me that alleged miracles are such that you need faith to believe they really are true miracles (that is, interventions by God). Cancer sometimes disappears completely without any apparent cause. (According to Wikipedia, “In a carefully designed study on mammography it was found that 22% of all breast cancer cases underwent spontaneous regression.”) If it happens and you’ve been praying to someone who has been beatified, it may be considered a miracle and get them canonized. If it happens to someone who hasn’t been hoping for a miracle, it may be seen as just a relatively rare unexplained scientific phenomenon.
There does not seem to be much miraculous at all about the alleged miraculous cure of Monica Besra attributed to Mother Teresa, at least to the doctor who treated her. But the Church accepted it as a miracle.
From The Little Flowers of Saint Francis:
One winter day St. Francis was coming to St. Mary of the Angels from Perugia with Brother Leo, and the bitter cold made them suffer keenly. St. Francis called to Brother Leo, who was walking a bit ahead of him, and he said: “Brother Leo, even if the Friars Minor in every country give a great example of holiness and integrity and good edification, nevertheless write down and note carefully that perfect joy is not in that.”
And when he had walked on a bit, St. Francis called him again, saying: “Brother Leo, even if a Friar Minor gives sight to the blind, heals the paralyzed, drives out devils, gives hearing back to the deaf, makes the lame walk, and restores speech to the dumb, and what is still more, brings back to life a man who has been dead four days, write that perfect joy is not in that.”
And going on a bit, St. Francis cried out again in a strong voice: “Brother Leo, if a Friar Minor knew all languages and all sciences and Scripture, if he also knew bow to prophesy and to reveal not only the future but also the secrets of the consciences and minds of others, write down and note carefully that perfect joy is not in that.”
And as they walked on, after a while St. Francis called again forcefully: ‘Brother Leo, Little Lamb of God, even if a Friar minor could speak with the voice of an angel, and knew the courses of the stars and the powers of herbs, and knew all about the treasures in the earth, and if be knew the qualities of birds and fishes, animals, humans, roots, trees, rocks, and waters, write down and note carefully that true joy is not in that.”
And going on a bit farther, St. Francis called again strongly: “Brother Leo, even if a Friar Minor could preach so well that be should convert all infidels to the faith of Christ, write that perfect joy is not there.”
Now when he had been talking this way for a distance of two miles, Brother Leo in great amazement asked him: “Father, I beg you in God’s name to tell me where perfect joy is.”
And St. Francis replied; “When we come to St. Mary of the Angels, soaked by the rain and frozen by the cold, all soiled with mud and suffering from hunger, and we ring at the gate of the Place and the brother porter comes and says angrily: ‘Who are you?’ And we say: ‘We are two of your brothers.’ And he contradicts us, saying: ‘You are not telling the truth. Rather you are two rascals who go around deceiving people and stealing what they give to the poor. Go away]’ And he does not open for us, but makes us stand outside in the snow and rain, cold and hungry, until night falls-then if we endure all those insults and cruel rebuffs patiently, without being troubled and without complaining, and if we reflect humbly and charitably that that porter really knows us and that God makes him speak against us, oh, Brother Leo, write that perfect joy is there!
‘And if we continue to knock, and the porter comes out in anger, and drives us away with curses and hard blows like bothersome scoundrels, saying; ‘Get away from here, you dirty thieves-go to the hospital! Who do you think you are? You certainly won’t eat or sleep here’–and if we bear it patiently and take the insults with joy and love in our hearts, Oh, Brother Leo, write that that is perfect joy!
And if later, suffering intensely from hunger and the painful cold, with night falling, we still knock and call, and crying loudly beg them to open for us and let us come in for the love of God, and he grows still more angry and says: ‘Those fellows are bold and shameless ruffians. I’ll give them what they deserve.’ And he comes out with a knotty club, and grasping us by the cowl throws us onto the ground, rolling us in the mud and snow, and beats us with that club so much that he covers our bodies with wounds–if we endure all those evils and insults and blows with joy and patience, reflecting that we must accept and bear the sufferings of the Blessed Christ patiently for love of Him, oh, Brother Leo, write: that is perfect joy!
‘And now hear the conclusion, Brother Leo. Above all the graces and gifts of the Holy Spirit which Christ gives to His friends is that of conquering oneself and willingly enduring sufferings, insults, humiliations, and hardships for the love of Christ. For we cannot glory in all those other marvelous gifts of God, as they are not ours but God’s, as the Apostle says: ‘What have you that you have not received?’ But we can glory in the cross of tribulations and afflictions, because that is ours, and so the Apostle says: ‘I will not glory save in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ.’”
In conclusion, and if we are to conclude anything about the football events mentioned above in the context of the Saint, then the Roughriders are blessed beyond compare. Chin up, Brett.
We still have next season to win 2 out of 4 Grey Cups, making an appearance in 3 of 4. You can’t win them all, but you can sure try.
God was watching the NFL.
Seriously though, I find people insufferable who thank God/Jesus for sports victories. Let alone the one guy who survives a disaster thanking God, it’s an insult to those who died.
Here’s a true story from Austria. A devout Catholic man was trapped in an elevator and prayed that he’d be freed. He got out and went to a church to give thanks to God. He embraced a pillar, causing an 850lbs altar piece to fall on and kill him.
Brett.
You made me cry at work. Thank you.
“Seriously though, I find people insufferable who thank God/Jesus for sports victories. Let alone the one guy who survives a disaster thanking God, it’s an insult to those who died.”
That’s a little harsh. I’d rather think that since we (are supposed to) trust in God in all circumstances, we should thank Him in all circumstances.
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (Rom 5:16-18)
Susan,
Um, you’re welcome?
Glad you liked it.
MZ,
Saskatchewan is full of eastern European Catholics who were brought in to farm what the Anglos couldn’t. Our climate is quite similar to the Ukraine. They made us speak English, but they didn’t make us leave our Churches. The Protestants where I grew up were mostly Swedish or German Lutherans, at least historically speaking.
Oh, and the Fransaskois will be choked if I don’t mention them. ;)
There is a difference between being thankful/happy and an “I’m special, God/Jesus picked me”. If one team thinks God favored it over the other, it’s arrogant. Not to mention when priests invoked God before battles against other Catholics.
Losing to a team called Alouettes must hurt :-) Skylarks ? By the way, that song is evil, detailing how one will pluck a bird.
Who believes that God favors the winning team? You’re grasping.
And, details about how I pluck a bird can be found here.
I used to sing that song all the time. Had no idea what it was about until some kindly Francophone clued me in. It’s catchy.
Funny how the Alouettes’ logo looks more like an eagle than a skylark.
Still laughing at the idea of Canadians playing football.