Just today, we found out which teams will be facing off against each other in the Superbowl, and soon we will find out which companies will be sending their commercials in to face off with the world. I'm greatly relieved that no team that I've ever cared about will be making it to the big dance because I'm still in conflict over the place of football in an American Christian's life.

Watching football on FOX (yes, we have watched football this year), my sons know what retching sound to make when the commercial comes on profiling the men "who have never missed a Superbowl."  They look over at me to make sure I see, because they know that I hate the glorification of such mindless devotion to such an insignificant event. "Idolatry!" I say, and usually switch the channel to something less offensive (like Barney or an infomercial for a nasal hair trimmer). Yet, we all continue to watch the game, one of the even more insignificant games leading up to the insignificant Superbowl.

When John wrote that we should "not love the world or the things of the world," could he have pictured the Superbowl conversations among Christian men in churches around the United States?  The careful memorizing of stats, the theologizing...I mean theorizing...about the best offensive and defensive strategies, the fervent prayer sessions...hope sessions...for the team the Christian has chosen, usually because that's where he or an ancestor used to live?  

I have watched football, on and off, much of my life, and I have put in some minor time in playing football, so I'm very familiar with the beauty and the beastliness of the game.  I have fond memories of doing bone-crunching form tackles on running backs who dared to sweep to my side, and of blocking some defensive tackle right into oblivion.  The sight of a spiraling football dropping perfectly into a receiver's hands after a thirty-yard flight is always awesome.  However, all of these beauties are perfect executions of completely artificial skills in a game that strikes no blows for righteousness nor turns anyone's heads to God (despite all the crossing and upward finger-pointing in the end zone).  

The first part of this season I had forbidden football, but I relented in the second part of the season.  Now, I am again regretting that I let my boys anywhere near this particularly American Tower of Babel.  They know that it's idolatry, but they can't help but worship.  They have been told that the games are of no importance, but they cannot help but weep when their team loses.  Their father tells them that God should be the Lord of all their lives, but the time spent watching football keeps pace with the time spent in seeking God, through prayer or the Word.  

I believe that the capability to be obsessive is from God, but how we direct that obsession can mean the difference between us being relevant eternally or being a wisp of vapor.  And I wonder if it's possible to let football into my house without it becoming one of those parasitic obsessions.  

I have about seven months, again, to make a decision.