A dangerous post

Most of you are keenly aware that I live in a suburb of Philadelphia. We natives fully recognize that we have a bad reputation, and if we’re honest, we sort of like it.

Take our sports teams, for instance. We are over the top ridiculous and fanatical about the Phillies, Eagles and Flyers – the Sixers have been held in suspicion since Dr. J retired, but that’s a story for another day. We were the only NFL franchise to have a court located INSIDE THE STADIUM so a judge could process all the arrests during game time, so for me to criticize my own is an extremely dangerous proposition. If there is no blog post tomorrow morning, call 9-1-1.

Naturally, I was sitting in front of my TV yesterday afternoon, with every other Philadelphian, watching the Eagles take on the Giants. It was a hard fought game, what FOX was billing as the NFC Grudge Match, and the amount of fighting and trash-talking that appeared to be going on proved FOX’s point.

Not until the last quarter was it apparent that the Eagles would win. It was a real nail biter, as my father-in-law says. In the final minutes, our quarterback, Donovan McNabb did something that I want to talk about today.

Donovan ran out of bounds with the football, and his own momentum propelled him into the Giants sideline. He took the opportunity to rub the looming defeat in a little, and picked up the Giant’s team phone to call the Giants coaching booth. It was a little immature, honestly, but not the end of the world.

But then he got my goat. During a post-game interview, when asked how he felt about the game, Donovan said, on national TV, “First of all, God is so good.”

Ugh.

Now this may surprise those of you who accuse me of being a bleeding-heart-liberal-no mention-of-sin-bending-grace-so-far-it-will-break kind of person (yes, I do read your emails) but it drives me NUTS when athletes credit God with helping them win a football game. I am not implying that it is beyond the abilities of God to intervene, but I often wonder why He would choose to do so. How would it advance His kingdom?

So, you can imagine what I was feeling when Donovan pulled his little “in your face, Giants” phone shenanigan and then credited God for handing the team a victory. I turned to look at my husband, who knows me better than any other human being, and he already had an ear to ear grin on his face, waiting for my reaction.

“Why, oh, why do they do that?” I said, incensed.

“Do what?” Steve was still smiling.

“You know what,” I replied, “with people starving all over the world, do football players really believe that God is concerned with the outcome of a game?”

“Maybe,” was all he said.

“What do you mean, maybe?”

“Maybe God likes it when players remind viewers of His name, when they represent Him on TV.” Steve braced himself.

Let me just interrupt our conversation a minute. I am not completely unreasonable even though I can come on a little strong at times. I took at least a nano second to consider my husband’s theory before passionately defending my position.

“Are you crazy?” was how I began our reasonable exchange of ideas and thoughts. “No, I should be thanking you because you have proven my point about Donovan. When he uses God’s name on TV, he must remember that he now represents Him on some level, so why that little stunt with the telephone? Would God rub someone’s defeat in their face? God may be good, but Donovan apparently is not.” I gave the last word a little extra emphasis because I was ready for the case to go to the jury.

Steve just kept smiling, because he knew I would let it all marinate for a while, over thinking it from every angle.

I do not have a profound conclusion - and I admit that I do dumb stuff almost every day - but from my current ungracious point of view, I still think to whom much is given, much is expected.

Your thoughts?