God Wants Me to Make a First Down

Sometime during the holiday season, after watching umpteen hours of football on television, I found God. I can’t be certain of the exact moment--I can’t be certain about anything after responding faithfully to all those beer commercials--but I do know this revelation was related to the Vikings’ wild-card victory over the Giants.

Remember the miracle of those last 90 seconds when Randall Cunningham snatched victory from the jaws of defeat with 10 quick points? Being of little faith, I had turned off the TV with four minutes to go and the Vikings faltering. I didn’t know that God now roots for the Vikings the way he used to favor the Dallas Cowboys, and sure enough, Minnesota won.

Winning is not only everything; it’s divine. “Let me ask you something,” quarterback Cunningham challenged reporters from the secular media after the game, “Why would God have me sit out last year, bring me back to be in the playoffs and then to win a playoff game? That just doesn’t happen. It’s awesome.”

The reporters present, lacking the inquisitive spirit once a trademark of their profession, failed to interview the losing quarterback Danny Kanell about God’s screwing up the Giants’ game plan. Did Kanell offer an insufficiently sincere pregame prayer? Or did the Giants fans not pray hard enough? As Cunningham remarked, “I felt a lot of people praying for me and it’s just an awesome feeling. God didn’t bring me back to drop me off short.” Perhaps it is not enough for Giant wide receivers to kneel and pray in the end zone if the tens of thousands of fans watching fail to really get into the spirituality of the moment.

My own view is that God punishes any team that plays in New Jersey but still calls itself the New York Giants. As the pope often reminds us, God loves the poor, and he therefore would not be inclined to reward those who desert inner-city stadiums.

And don’t forget that the Lord works in mysterious ways, and what he gives he can take away. Just consider the Cleveland Indians this year. When Tony Fernandez hit the game-winning homer to defeat Baltimore and put Cleveland in the World Series, it did seem truly miraculous to Fernandez, who said at the time, “I believe this was guided from above. I feel it in my veins. I believe that God has given us the World Series.”

A sentiment echoed by Indian pitcher Orel Hershiser, long known for his piety: “Tony Fernandez got into this game for a reason. Everyone can have his reasons, but after everything I’ve seen the last few days, I’d say God had a hand in this.”

Well, the Indians went on to lose the World Series, proving either that God is a Florida Marlins fan or that, like many of us, he finally lost interest in baseball.

Clearly God is more into football. Take the witness of Green Bay Packer tackle Ross Verba, a league leader in getting into fights: “I play the way I play and I think the Lord honors that. If Jesus played left tackle for the Green Bay Packers, he’d want to go out and do the best he could, for sure.”

While I hesitate to dispute doctrinal matters with a 6-foot-4-inch, 300-pound tackle who sports a barbed wire tattoo encircling his biceps, doesn’t a careful reading of Scripture, beginning with that bit about the meek inheriting the Earth, suggest that God might prefer a good loser?

Heresy, I know, but how else to explain Mike Ditka’s winning record when he was the profane coach of the Super Bowl-winning Chicago Bears as opposed to the dismal performance of his new team, the New Orleans Saints, after Ditka’s much-publicized religious conversion? Last May, Ditka told a Christian men’s meeting: “God puts people in places for a reason. Gang, I had no intention to coach again. I’m here because it’s his will.” The gospel according to Ditka: “Strong spiritual beliefs are essential to get through life, but that don’t mean we’re not going to try to kick the other guy’s ass.” So much for turning the other cheek.

Which brings up a larger point. Considering the variety of sports in this world, does God really have time to track all of the scores? Does the Almighty hear the prayers offered up for seniors’ shuffleboard, mixed couples’ badminton, girls’ volleyball and all those weird foreign sports? Or are those markets not big enough to warrant his attention?

Isn’t it demeaning to sell religion like sneakers, claiming that it provides the winning edge? Surely, if there is a God, he or she is about something more profound than fixing football odds.