Minor Tragedy?

This is getting out of hand.  Pretty soon we're going to have revise our cliches; the saying "American as Mom and apple pie" is going to have to add "shooting incident" to the list.  This time around (see how I said this time around, because if you look back at my blogs over the past few years you will find me lamenting several incidents very similar to the one at the Navy yard earlier this week),  I'm not going to try and analyze the causes or critique our culture for creating a stew of violence and dysfunction where this kind of thing happens about every other month; I'm just going to talk about our response.
I'm not even going to talk about the whole response, I'm just going to zoom in on one little corner of the response.  I'm not going to try and get in the heads of the victims or their families, or even their casual acquaintances.  I'm not going to cogitate on how this latest tragedy will affect the thousands of people who work at the Navy yard (a few of whom are members of my congregation and live in my community).  I'm just going to talk about sports, but not in the "hey this uncomfortable, but did you see that football game?" kind of way.  I'm going to look at how sports responded to the latest shooting and what that says about our society.
The new NFL season is upon us, baseball is coming down the home stretch towards the playoffs, hockey and basketball are about to launch, it's a great time of year in the world of sport.  And then something terrible happens, thirteen people died a few more were wounded and scores upon scores have had their worlds cracked down the middle.  So the Nationals wore Navy hats in a game against the Braves and we had a few moments of silence, and... the games go on.
You might think that I'm about to be critical of that, but I'm not.  I actually admire it.  I'm actually a little envious of it, because sport is now doing for millions of people, what the church used to do.  Think about it.  Sports provide a framework and a setting for the human community to come together and celebrate and grieve, they unite people and generate fierce opinions and allegiances.  Sport has become sacramental in our society, you can lament that if you want, but it's a fact.  Sport is actually demonstrating a consciousness of it's place in society, and taking it seriously.  The morning after the Navy Yard shootings sports center opened with a piece about the Nats/Braves game and Linda Cohn, with admirable gravitas, told us that sports help us heal from stuff like this.
They do too!  I remember after 9-11, when the games began again, it was a triumph and a heart-swelling moment.  As a representative of organized religion I am tempted to be pharisaic and negative and talk about idolatry and such, but I'm going to take Jesus' advice seriously, "whoever is not against us is for us," Mark 9:40.  It is a true fact that sports play an important part in the lives of millions of people, in fact, much to the dismay of many churchy-type people, they are whooping our butts.  Seriously, try having a church event on Sunday afternoon during NFL season, see how that goes over.
I think that sports are able to give people a whiff of transcendence, but not so much that it actually makes them uncomfortable.  In the story of the Exodus, God was present on Mt. Sinai as a fire and smoke and thick darkness, and the people were terrified and most of them wouldn't go near.  They sent Moses, their hero, their liberator, their law giver, he was the only one who could approach the mysterium tremendum.  The people were encouraged by God's transcendent presence, they just didn't want to get too close.
Sport allows us to glimpse transcendence in tiny bites; an inspiring story here, a personal triumph there, a superhuman performance that sometimes gets called miraculous every so often.  And they mostly don't require you to confront your sinfulness, or follow any really laborious moral code.  Thousands upon thousands of people will shell out $500 and deal with all manner of inconvenience in order to "be a part" of the home crowd, but if you give them one little reason, or ask for a little too much, they're going to run away from Church faster than you can say stewardship campaign.
I know all about idolatry, and I know that this probably doesn't bode well for our culture.  I know that in the waning days of the Empire the Romans had similar obsession with games and diversions, but I wonder if maybe this time things are different.  Maybe God has changed his mind and has decided that sports really are more effective at inspiring worship than a bunch of words and songs.  I'm a preacher and I watch Sportscenter every morning before I ever get to my office and start reading scripture, it just goes so well with my coffee!

Putting aside my sarcasm for a moment, I do offer my condolences and prayers to the people affected by the Navy Yard shootings.  I am glad that all sorts of human communities have taken a moment to recognize that there is no such thing as a minor tragedy.  Sometimes, in church and in baseball, all we can do is take a moment and be quiet to mark our sorrow about what has happened in this broken world.