The Audience Worth Pleasing; thoughts on Christianity and football
If you have had your television on in the past couple months you have probably witnessed the rise of a young football player by the name of Tim Tebow. The attention he has received has brought a tension with America’s two great religions: Christianity and Football. The young quarterback of my beloved Denver Broncos intertwines the the two in such a way it has made some followers of each faith uncomfortable. His post-game interviews start with a statement of his faith, “I would like to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for all He has done for me,” and he frequently drops to one knee like George Washington crossing the Delaware in prayer, a posture now officially called Tebowing.
Tim Tebow’s behavior on the field has raised questions about prayer and how Christians ought to practice it in public settings. Many non-Christians and Christians alike have criticized Tim saying his public prayers violate Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) where he taught people the power of prayer as a private practice of faith:
[5] “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. [6] But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
(Matthew 6:5-6 ESV)
Andrew Sullivan, blogger, writer, and political analyst asked the question, “why do Christians repudiate the God they worship?” The questions are there simply because I believe people aren’t criticizing, but rather curious. But the answer is more complicated than the critics and curious may prefer.
The short answer is, Jesus didn’t prohibit public prayer. In fact Jesus prayed publicly on many occasions. He prayed in public before meals (Mark 6:41). He prayed among a crowd prior to raising Lazarus from the grave (John 11:41-42). In Luke 11 he prayed so that people could hear Him. Their response brought the plea, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1).
For Jesus to prohibit prayer in public through His words in Matthew 6 would be the equivalent of calling Himself a hypocrite. What Jesus does reject is hypocritical prayer. The word hypocrite comes from the Greek meaning actor. It literally means one who pretends, or one who fakes. This is what Jesus found detestable among the religious by using prayer as a platform to display a false devotion to God in order to gain the approval of man. This was a day and age in which religiosity was an extreme value in the Judean culture. The tide hasn’t really changed in past or present as we continue to see great emphasis on the external proof of our internal devotion to God. This sadly fuels hypocrisy.
At the core of Jesus’ teaching we always find the motivation of prayer (why), rather than simply the mechanics of prayer (who, when, where).
Are we to pray to win the applause of man, or solely on our devotion to God?
I have no clue the powers the critics have to see inside the soul of Tim Tebow, but if Tim Tebow is simply praying in public for the applause of man, then scripture is clear that he has already found his reward. Unlike the critics and haters, I tend to give Tim Tebow a little more space to prove that his motivation of prayer is truly of the heart.
Last Saturday night he proved that his faith doesn’t waiver based on the who, when, and where, because his heart was reflecting the why. As the Broncos revealed their inability to play with the big boys of the NFL by losing 45-10 in humiliation, Tim Tebow proved his ability to stay true to the words he routinely expressed in his success by saying in his post-game interview, “First of all, I would like to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ…”
It’s easy to pray in public as a proclamation of the success you currently possess, but it’s harder to pray in public when your life suddenly is being drubbed. True prayer isn’t defined or bent by a setting. True prayer is defined by a heart that is devoted fully to God, therefore resulting in prayer that is sustainable in all things.
I don’t know of one person who doesn’t want their lives to exemplify purpose and meaning. Sadly, we feel our purpose only means something if it is noticed by someone on Facebook or Twitter. As I write this, I wonder if this is the very thing that causes me to write? Maybe this is what fuels you to be on Facebook, Twitter and the other countless social networking mediums. Is your external life more important than your internal and eternal foundation? We are so desperate to have anyone take notice of us, care for us, and just simply reply to our existence, that we find ourselves living for praise of man rather that the creator of man. We long for words like, “you matter, your life counts.” If this is the motivation behind our public appearance on a football field or on Twitter, which I think it is, then it only reveals our hunger for God and walking with Him as our securest hope for today and tomorrow. One cannot be satisfied with the empty praise of man, but can be fully satisfied by the fuel of God’s promises.
This type of intimacy can only be satisfied in private communion and solitude with God our Creator.
As the Psalmist says,
[139:1] O LORD, you have searched me and known me! [2] You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. [3] You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.
(Psalm 139:1-3 ESV)
I fully trust in God’s sovereign economy that there is not a single thought, feeling or emotion that is wasted. There is nothing unseen to Him, nothing unrecorded. But in our current culture of multimedia and image saturation, we find ourselves falling into the trap that if it’s not in print, paper, Facebook, or Twitter, it isn’t real. Privacy in prayer and meditation helps me discover that my life really does matter, not because someone read about it, heard it, or saw it, but simply because God was my witness, and He is the only audience worth pleasing.
Pastor Donnie
Replies
Likes
