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The Rev. Christopher Brdlik
February 4, 2007 - Fifth Sunday after The Epiphany

Well, it’s Super Bowl Sunday in the US of A today, the weekend of the year when even the amateur fan reads the sports pages and becomes a football expert. Drive around Summit later this afternoon — once the last minute dash to the store for more chip and dip is over — and you’ll notice very little activity  — an uncommon quiet in the streets even for a Sunday afternoon — as people settle down before their TV’s to watch the big game. I sat next to Bishop Counsell of New Jersey the other night at a dinner. He remembers the same statistic I do for the Super Bowl from a couple of years ago. On the day after the game the NFL loves to boast about the size of its TV audience, which usually sets a record. Back in the ’90’s, when I first heard the stat, that figure for the Super Bowl (the biggest day of the year in football) was 150 million viewers. But on that same day, an ordinary Sunday for Christianity, attendance at worship was almost the same: 135 million believers rolled out of bed, dressed the family, got in the car, and made their way to church and Sunday school for weekly services. The point is, despite the hype of the NFL extravaganza, ordinary Christianity was holding its own, without publicity, without recognition. Religion still has the power to engage and to inspire, even if it doesn’t catch the attention of the popular culture and commercial media. 

Another observation inspired by Super Bowl Sunday: Late in the game, especially if the crowd is partisan and the favored team opens up a wide lead, you may hear a distinctive chant. Yes, it’s more a chant than a cheer.  The audience will begin to stomp their feet and clap hands in rhythm to a song (I guess) by the rock group “Queen”: BOOM-BOOM-CLAP…  BOOM-BOOM-CLAP…  Then they will sing in time with the rhythm: “We will, we will rock you!”  While the chant is less common at a game played on a neutral field like the Super Bowl, most of us have heard it and know where it comes from.   

Or do we. The lead singer of Queen is Iranian.  Did you know that?  The chant was inspired by his memories of a Shiite Islamic observance called Ashoura, in which men parade down the streets stomping their feet in unison and flaying their backs with a whip of steel chains. BOOM-BOOM-CLASH… BOOM-BOOM-CLASH… Ashoura was observed this past week, and you may indeed have seen these processions of men on TV, whipping their backs in unison. They are commemorating the martyrdom of Hussein, grandson of the prophet Mohammed, and founder of Shia Islam, who was brutally assassinated in 680. 

Now how a political assassination became a mass religious observance then became a rock song and now an American sports cheer over about thirteen centuries – well, that’s all fascinating.  Self-flagellation is not unknown in other forms of religion.  As a practice of piety intended to remind a penitent of the extent and depth of his sins, flagellation has a long history in some Roman Catholic monastic traditions, and some preparation for Catholic ordination.  Even the simple breast-beating of someone during confession — mea culpa — finds similar roots, though it’s obviously much less extreme. 

There are other parallels and similarities between Shia Islam and Catholicism: Shia tradition has saints like Hussein and others who are thought to be intermediaries between humans and God. Many of these are depicted in representational art, paintings and drawings (like Christian icons), and there is an elaborate liturgical calendar to remember them all — holy days not celebrated by Sunni Islam.  Ashoura is similar to the Way of the Cross during Holy Week. Shia Islam has a clerical hierarchy with Ayatollahs parallel to bishops and Grand Ayatollahs equal to archbishops and cardinals. In many respects Shiism is the “high church” form of Islam, though it has always been the minority of Muslims in the world. 

Drawing parallels across religions like this helps us to understand that religious phenomena have a way of replicating themselves in human experience. Different eras and different cultures have tapped into the same patterns of religiosity.  Certain Jungian archetypes beat within the human soul, and their rhythm, at times, crosses wide chasms of human history. Recognizing these patterns increases our understanding of other people, and maybe even our appreciation of them. 

Now let me point out another parallel: The connection between religion and sports, known since the time of the Greeks and Romans. Baseball may be called the national pastime, but the spectacle of football inspires devotion in some fans of an intensity approaching religion. The stadium is like some grand cathedral and the players engage in a dramatic liturgy on the field. Super Bowl Sunday binds the nation in a great annual pageant like a holy day. Sports may be said to be like American civil religion. Other sports provide other kinds of spirituality, like golf, for instance, for the contemplative, for the quiet type. We’ve all known golfers who claimed the links were their church. You get my point. Something about sports taps into the same archetypes of soul that religion does.

And mostly sports does it peacefully. Once the game is over, once the score has been settled, people go home and look forward to the next contest. My point would be: Emphasizing the unifying features of sports competition helps defuse human conflict, the passions of politics that create war between cultures and, unfortunately, between religions. Finding the right outlet to express our innermost emotions without jeopardizing peace presents itself as the most critical problem facing humanity today. The shared experience of sports like football helps Americans become unified, even when they root for different teams. Finding all those commonalities between different peoples and cultures would help unify the world. 

But I want to extend my point: Emphasizing the unifying features of religion and spirituality would help defuse human conflict as well, if we could identify the passions that drive us in matters of theology as the same patterns that drive those we think are very different from us. The psalmist today shared that vision. “All the kings of the earth will praise you, O Lord,” says Psalm 138, “when they have heard the works of your mouth.” All of the kings. Unified.   

There is a unifying theme — a unifying purpose, I would say designed by God — to the great varieties of human religious experience. It’s not unlike a shared interest in the drama of sports. When finally we discover that theme, when finally we understand that unity, when finally we appreciate God’s purpose, all the kings of the earth will join in union praising the One God who created us. And only then will all the people of the earth chant and cheer together.  That indeed will be a Super Sunday. 

© copyright 2007, Christopher Brdlik

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