Against whom do we compete?

Chapel at RVA is a daily event, with all 500+ students attending between 6th and 7th period, giving them an opportunity to listen to devotional thoughts from a variety of staff members throughout the week. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are required attendance chapel meetings; Tuesday and Thursday are optional praise and prayer meetings respectively. As you can probably imagine, some enjoy, while others tolerate. Either way, kids are getting ample opportunity to hear different voices as the staff share life experiences and challenges with the students. Our hope in this is that through our shared experiences, we can offer guidance, hope, and encouragement to our students. What follows is a transcript of my recent chapel presentation, which was inspired by a desire to encourage encouragement and unity among them:

Some people love competition. Competition or more accurately, victory in competition, is the source of identity and pride that keeps them going. Their emotions rise and fall on the success or failure of their favorite athletic teams. Success in their academic careers consists not only of doing well, but of doing better than their peers. They are driven by the victory, or the promise of success that it brings.

Not me. I am kind of a sore loser. I hate competitive activities. Competition, I’ve noticed, brings out an ugly side in me that I am, frankly, disgusted by. It’s not so much because I am not good at competitive things (which is true), or that I imagine myself better than I actually am (which is probably also true), or even that when I compete and fail, I feel miserable and base too much of my self-worth in that failure (also, sadly, true). It’s really more because of the spirit that often accompanies competition. Divisiveness. Disunity.

I think that even as a kid, something about competition deeply troubled me. I simply didn’t belong in a competitive environment. I wasn’t born with the sports gene – I possessed no interest, nor any skill, that could benefit me in the athletic arena. While I did wrestle in high school, it wasn’t for any love of the competition – in fact, I came close to barfing before every meet (and not because I was trying to make weight!). Oh, I worked hard, and I was proud of being a wrestler in the great state of Wisconsin, where babies don’t wear onesies, but rather, wrestling singlets. I tried to see myself as a good wrestler, but the fact was, when I entered the mat against some of the incredible athletes I had to face with my 105-pound self, I just didn’t have what it took. And too much of my identity was wrapped up in that truth for me to handle.

I remember a meet during my freshmen year against Arcadia - a rival high school known for its champion wrestlers. Ross Potzner, a 105-pound ball of muscle and speed, was the previous year’s state champion in his weight class. Unlike most of my teammates, I had not grown up wrestling, but was a literal newbie. I was strong and fast, but I had much too little experience as a wrestler to have it benefit me much. Potzner knew he could pin me in moments, but he wasn’t going for the pin. He was working his stats – he wanted to be known and recorded as the “take-down king.”

Try to visualize this meeting. Potzner, confident and bent on personal glory for his skill in take-downs, and me, my third or fourth match ever. Let me tell you, guys on my team and in my weight class, who had been wrestling for years, had come down with mysterious illnesses that week to avoid this match. And so it began with the referee’s whistle.

It was like catch-and-release – Potzner would take me down, then he’d let me up. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. It was infuriating and humiliating.

Finally, I’d had enough. At the top of my voice, bracing myself by holding the backs of my legs (a technique I acquired in youthful disagreements with my brother), I bellowed, to Potzner’s stunned surprise, “If you’re gonna do it, do it!” And this in front of a gymnasium full of spectators. Let’s face it – I was alone in that room, facing utter humiliation and torment, with no hope at all of victory. Bad sportsmanship? Probably, but I was desperate!

Within another minute, it was over. I guess ole Ross decided to get his take-down record on some other poor soul. He pinned me and I gratefully walked off the mat to my team benches. Honestly, I was so embarrassed at my lack of self-control, at my outburst, I wanted to go straight to the locker room rather than face my teammates and the gathered crowd in the stands. I braced myself for the ridicule I was certain to receive from my teammates and my coaches.

But to my great surprise and relief, I was greeted not by stunned stares and snickers and criticism, but by warm and generous encouragement. My team embraced me and lifted me up – despite my awkward moment of exasperation and despair. They knew where my heart was. They felt it too. In that moment of what I felt was my utter defeat, my team honored and welcomed me into their protective fold, complimented me on lasting as long as I did, talked smack about Potzner for me. You know, I’ll bet Potzner remembers that time, years ago, when this freshman kid screamed at him on the mat!

So why do I tell you this story? To illustrate an important biblical principle as it applies to the Christian life.

Competition should unite, not divide. A picture of Christian community is reflected in the response of my teammates when I so awkwardly fell. We should do this for each other as Christian brothers and sisters – as 1 Thessalonians 5:10-12 describes:

¹⁰ He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. ¹¹ Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

And Hebrews 3:12-14 further elaborates:

¹² See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. ¹³ But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. ¹⁴ We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.

And Hebrews 10: 24-25:

²³ Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. ²⁴ And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, ²⁵ not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Divisiveness is a spirit that says, “I am better than you.” It is a spirit that says, “I deserve success more than you do.”

Unity says, “We are in this together.”

How many of you feel like I did, standing on that mat, alone against seemingly impossible issues? Facing unbearable humiliation and failure?

Who of you will stand with that person – encouraging him or her, lifting up and embracing, strengthening.

We are in this together. We face a formidable adversary who hates us as much as he hates God himself. As God’s Creation, his beloved, we are the enemy’s prime target. And yet, it is written that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church.

So don’t misunderstand – nothing is wrong with competition. Healthy competition can grow character and built stronger people.

But a right perspective is essential. Christian brothers and sisters are not in competition with each other. We compete together to receive the crown of honor that waits at the finish line.

⁷ For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. ⁸ If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. (Romans 14:7-9, NIV)