I am not an especially competitive person. My husband is. We learned quickly how to make that work for us in our marriage. I think this is likely due to his easygoing and adaptable nature. I learned how to win graciously (I am definitely the type to let other people win if it will make them happy, despite the fact that I’m not a people-pleaser). My husband learned how to lose graciously (he wasn’t much fun to be around when he was on the losing end, particularly when watching professional sports).
Something that has been nagging at me lately is the way loving, generous, kind Christians can turn into rather hateful beasts when it comes to competition, most often related to professional sports. I often hear comments (or see them in print) that are in sharp contrast to Christ-like behavior. They range from name calling to derogatory comments to declarations of “hate” for a rival team. People teach their children to express the same negativity. They make excuses for their behavior by saying it’s “all in fun.”
Really? You could have fooled me. Perhaps my definition of “fun” is vastly different from my friends and acquaintances. I don’t find it fun to attend a sporting event and shout obscenities about the other team every time they make a play. I don’t find it fun to make hateful statements about rival teams into a Facebook status update. I don’t find it fun to teach my children on Sunday morning to turn the other cheek, but qualify it Sunday afternoon at the ball park by teaching them that the opponents “suck.”
The thing is, I do understand friendly rivalry. As far as I can tell, this is actually how the players themselves view the game. After all, they could be playing for that team following a trade. I understand wanting to win and wanting to see your favorite team succeed. That’s what makes the game exciting. I even understand disappointment when it doesn’t happen. My husband and I have a joke that we can’t go see the Yankees play live, because they lose every time we do. The difference is that we keep a better handle on what comes out of our mouths.
There are three things we ought to keep in mind. First, minding our tongues is a pretty common exhortation in the Bible. Our words can hurt or they can heal. Even if we have reduced a sports team to an entity, it is still made up of people. I am sure that most professional athletes are used to it, but I can imagine that it is pretty tiresome to hear your team’s name twisted into a derogatory term, for example. We also might consider what our aim is when we speak that way. Is it to appear cool? Are we trying to show loyalty to our team? In either case, using nasty words and foul language about the other guy doesn’t further those goals. Simply put, it isn’t nice and it isn’t what the Bible tells us to do.
Second, we should, as Christians, always be in the business of considering the other person. Imagine how it would feel if you were at your daughter’s soccer game and the parents of the rival team members were calling your daughter and her teammates “stupid sluts”? (That shouldn’t be hard to imagine, actually, as it does really happen.) How would you feel? How about if someone shouted obscenities and told your son to “go home, you suck!” when he stepped up to bat at his Little League game? Is this the behavior we want to encourage? Aiming those comments at professional athletes is no more appropriate than aiming them at children. And failure to watch our mouths, even when it’s “all in fun,” demonstrates that we haven’t moved beyond foolish schoolyard bullying.
Third, what kind of example do we want to be for our children? If we expect them to play sports with respect for the competition, we might try doing the same with our favorite teams. It isn’t wrong for competitive people to go after a goal. Playing sports is a great outlet for that spirit in kids, and it can shape their ability to do the same as adults in other areas of life. But teaching our kids to hate their competitors isn’t a wise move and it doesn’t help them sharpen their skill in respectful rivalry. Like it or not, our kids are sponges for our words and deeds. Even when we think we are being “private,” kids pick up on our attitudes. We need to use care.
If we are called to be mindful of our speech in other areas of our lives, then it stands to reason we ought to do the same when it comes to our pastimes and pleasures, too. Today, let’s consider how we can lift others up with our words–even when they are our “enemies” on the playing field.
