About 5% of people in the UK attend church on a Sunday (that does not include weddings and funerals). About 32 million people went to watch a football match in 2021/2022. I am one of the those who has a foot in both camps. I was at Wembley on 2nd April among 79,389 supporters of Bolton Wanderers and Plymouth Argyle. This was the best attended football fixture in Europe that weekend, beating the likes of Bayern Munich and Barcelona - all for two teams in the third tier of English football! (If you are curious, Argyle got thrashed.)
Clubs such as Fulham and Everton were founded by churches; footie songs include When the Saints go marching in. Abide with Me is sung at every FA Cup Final. People who watch Premier League football are used to seeing players crossing themselves before coming onto the pitch and openly praying. John McKenna, a Roman Catholic blogger has chosen his fantasy football team from those who play for the glory of God: Edeson Moraes has tattoos of a dove and the words I belong to Jesus; Joel Ward is also tattooed – his is 1 Corinthians 2:9. David Luiz stated: Everything in life belongs to God and after a Champions League final, his t-shirt said Deus e fiel – God is faithful. Raheem Sterling tweets Bible verses and Benteke, Willian and Sturridge look Heavenwards when they score. Sturridge was shown on TV clearly saying I love you Jesus, I praise you Father.
We are a multi-faith society. Mo Salah and Sadio Mané visit a mosque weekly. Is it the fact that they are high scorers that has caused fans on social media to post that they are thinking of becoming Muslim? A terrace song about Salah is: If he’s good enough for you/he’s good enough for me/if he scores another few/then I’ll be Muslim too. The Premier League reportedly changed to giving a trophy for man-of-the-match instead of champagne as Yaya Touré kept winning it; it’s curious then that Muslim Touré pleaded guilty to drunk driving in December 2016!
How is this all topical? In two ways: first, the football season is nearly at an end, so those with no interest in soccer have a few months of peace before the media begin another ten months of coverage; second, although religion is evident in football, as Christians, we have a long way to go with getting our message across. When I have worn a clerical collar to matches, those around have commented: better watch our language! No-one has said: she’s come to convert us, to tell us the Good News.
Whatever we do outside our churches, we do for the glory of God. We don’t get days off from being a Christian or a person of prayer. We belong to God wherever we are and our chances to evangelise are constantly around us.
Heavenly Father, we are not all good at sport; some of us are even lousy spectators.
Jesus our Saviour, we are not all good at seizing every opportunity to show those around us how much our faith and relationship with you means to us in our day-to-day lives.
Holy Spirit, prompt us relentlessly to spread the Good News, that whatever happens to our team on the pitch, court, field or ground, God is constant, true, endlessly merciful and loving. Amen.
Elaine Kinchin
コメント