New Year Spirit: Team Triniy by The Rt. Rev. Andrew D. Smith
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First Sunday of Advent B Trinity Church Hartford December 3, 2017
Happy Advent!
If I were a fly, and I wouldn’t want to be a fly, but if If I had to be a fly on the wall, I would like to be a fly on the wall of the locker room, say after a practice, or — even better yet, at half time, when the team is in there with their coaches, and Geno Auriemma and the UConn women have had a so-so first half, turnovers, missed baskets, not much hustle on the floor and they are in real danger of falling behind in the game.
Because I wonder what goes on in there. Something happens in that locker room, for when they come out onto the floor for the second half, it’s a different game. Defense has been adjusted and tightened, some new players are in the mix, the women play with new confidence, making shots, grabbing rebounds: they’re back on their game.
Something happens in that locker room.
I’m sure a lot of it is what comes from the coaches. They’ve been watching, noting who is as he puts it, sleepwalking, out there, and they’re thinking, and planning while the players are been playing the first half. That’s their job, to make the players see what they can’t see out there on the floor, to remind them of the playbook, to help them adjust their game, reset the offense and defense, to push for corrections, even to bench players when they need rest or they just need to sit out and learn. The same is true in the off-season, to discipline them in the best sense of that word, to watch their diets, care for their their emotional health, to help them grow not only in the in the game but personally in life.
But I imagine a lot also comes from the players too: they are smart people; they know what’s going on out there on the floor, up close in the quick rough and tumble of the basketball game. They hear and see and feel the game. They encourage each other — you can see that when they’re on the floor — and from those who have to stay on the bench — in abundance. So I imagine in that locker room half-time they the players too have things to say, questions to ask .
Whatever it is, it’s clearly working. The UConn women have started their new season with a fierce rush. Division One Team. Although defeated once at the end of last year’s season, a hard loss, with no trophy. Yet, in the world of basketball, coming out now with a strength and an effectiveness and spirit that have made them undefeatable so far this new year. You can see their joy as they play. A championship team.
Yet without that training, without the coaches, without those evaluations and interventions and locker room corrections and that spirit, it never would happen. Go Huskies!
Happy Advent. Do you see the metaphor?
Here we are, Team Trinity: The First Sunday of Advent; for us it’s our new season, the beginning our new (church) year.
What f we would think of Advent as a locker-room sort of time. A time a little like half-time, to get off the playing floor, and think together about who we are and what we’re about and how we’re playing the game.
For the game we play, team Trinity, is much more than an NCAA game.
As the lessons today and through the next three Sundays will hammer home for us, we are a team engaged by God in a contest against all the evil powers which would corrupt and destroy the creation and the creatures which God has ordained. The discernment and vivid visions of Isaiah, of a world gone awry, brutally far from the love and peace that God intends, and warnings of the consequences, wake us up. The word from Jesus is to be on the watch, preparing ourselves and others to take our part in winning against evil. In the weeks ahead, John the Baptist, will be calling on whoever will listen to change the way we live, he bids us all to share in the victory over the opposition.
Ours is not a season of games in the NCAA but a Cosmic Arena of competition against everything that is evil.
I am feeling it in this time more and more acutely. We are in a time when personal and community grace has been replaced by name calling and personal demeaning, when lying is legion, truth is refuted in spite of its overwhelming evidence, when people who differ are disparaged and slandered, attacked and killed, when patterns of interpersonal exploitation surface daily, so that we become habitually wary and suspicious, more divided, more ready to mistrust than to accept, to condemn than to rejoice.
Well it is that we have prayed to God that we cast away the works of darkness, and put on us the armor of light, now. And to get onto the floor to represent and push for what by God is right.
So, let’s think of ourselves as a team, nw at the start of a new season, and here we are in Advent in our locker and training room. If there were a fly on the wall of this room, or anther visitor today, what would she see?
The team is gathered in — every one a player, each with different skills, (forward, guards, post layers), some more experienced, some new recruits, together equipped and training to become more versatile, well-rounded, cover all the positions. (Saint Paul makes very clear in his epistles to the Corinthians and Romans that we all are gifted in the Spirit.) I hope from all she would ee the joy of being on the court. And some have moved on, transferred to different teams, or graduated into the larger Sky League
Coaches. We don’t have Geno, but we do have Coach Don Hamer — with some other coaches assisting — nurturing the players, teaching us, training us, encouraging us, pushing us, helping us to see the bigger picture and play on the court more effectively.
I was tempted to say that the coaches are “player-coaches” — but as I think about it, it seems more that the clergy are like Geno and Marisa and Shea and Chris — not full-time players, in the sense that we are out there in the work world day by day, in the same way as the rest of the team. No, the Church in God’s name tapped some focus on building the team. That’s probably not entirely correct, but that certainly was what I felt when I served in the episcopate: early on I realized that I was living a life different from what most people live day by day.
The Game Playbook — Holy Scriptures. Not a play-by-play manual by any means. But the One Source through which we get to know the story of what the game’s about and how life in God through Christ is offered and can be lived. Like Jesus telling us not to sleepwalk out there, but to stay awake! We read a lot from it every time we’re together.
And yet it’s not all up to the “coaches” in the locker room. The dynamic for victory is not a one-way street. The players have lots to offer and say, and questions to ask, just as they do, I think, at UConn. If I have a dream of our Advent in-house training and sharpening up time, it is that we set up occasion so the players could ask more questions — offer more insights.
Sermons are so one-way. Forums start out one-way. I wish we could have some open times, when as we gather players and so-called coaches, we begin with stuff that is on the team’s mind, stuff that would move us into perhaps unexpected areas of the game.
Now, to really pull back the curtain, and open the scene hugely wide, all of this team’s life and effort is played out before the God of heaven and earth, in communion with that same God who loves and nurturers us far more than any earthly so-called coach could ever do. In Christ Jesus we are fed in the Holy Eucharist. In the Spirit we are filled with direction, resolve, energy — and drive, spirit. We pray and we listen in prayer, for God is the epotter, we are the clay. And we know, fo sure, who is going to win: it is God of all, with the host of heaven and God’s various teams on earth — not competing against one another, we trust, but competing against evil that would seek to diminish and separate and destroy.
Every metaphor, every comparison, falls short, of course. This one does.
I pray the fly on our wall would see here especially in Advent a team eager to begin its new season, knowing the greatness of the challenge, deep in training, eyes on the prize, spirited, engaged joyfully, actively seeking to be a National Champion Division One team, disciplined and prepared for the encounters ahead.
In the glory of God:
Go Trinity!