Not Watching the Super Bowl

No, I’m not. It’s a fact! I’m even a Seahawks fan, to the extent that I’m a fan of any sport. I’ll check the results a couple of times during the evening, but I won’t be watching.

Now don’t fit me out for a halo. A certain number of people probably figure by this time that I’m diligently demonstrating my holiness by going to church. That’s not the case. I just have other things to do. In fact, we don’t even have regular television available in our home. We get things we want to watch via the internet.

I’ve seen or heard people complain about Super Bowl. Churches cancel services. People fail to attend Sunday night services. Such disregard for worship! How can they possibly do that? (It would be those people who might want to fit me for a halo since I’m not watching. But since I’ll doubtless be in my recliner, and may even be watching a British mystery, I don’t qualify.)

There are even those who would claim that canceling church in order to attend the Super Bowl is some kind of idolatry, putting football ahead of God. What it actually is, is putting football ahead of the church’s calendar. One night in the year. Just one.

The idolatry, I think, is the idea that the church calendar is sacred, that the stuff we do on a regular basis cannot be adjusted for any merely human interest. It goes along with the sacredness of church buildings, church regulations, church furniture, and so forth. It’s not all that sacred, except in our minds.

So at heart I’m with the folks who are at Super Bowl parties. I really don’t enjoy that sort of thing myself. I certainly don’t go to the actual games. The crowds are way too big for me to be comfortable.

But I don’t think God has a problem with the folks at the Super Bowl parties. I doubt he was quite as wedded to our schedules as we are. After all, we can easily adjust them to add things to the church program, such as the few days of meetings we inaccurately call “revival” each year.