Today marks the end of my sabbatical, and I am grateful to the Methodist Church for granting me the space and time to involve myself in a range of events, activities, and experiences that would normally be out of reach because of work commitments. Last Friday (23rd June) was one such day, we were able to attend our grandson’s sports day at his school in Norwich. If I am being honest, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to going, Sports Days are not really my thing, I’m not really a sporty type of person, neither participating, nor watching, but this was supporting my daughter and grandson, so it was important to be there.
Walking onto the sports field brought back some not particularly happy memories from my own childhood, I was always hopeless when it came to anything that involved running, and I have never enjoyed football, cricket, or rugby, which I am told that ALL boys love. I was always the kid left on the touchline while teams were being picked, and was normally included out of pity or necessity, rather than skill and was normally placed where I could do the least harm. My one crowning glory on sports day was anything that involved standing still and chucking something, I excelled at the Discus and Shot Put and could normally manage to come away with a top three place, which made me feel that at least my attendance had contributed something of value.
My grandson was competing in the iconic school’s event, The Sack Race. I confess to being quite shocked when I saw the length of the course when I first set foot on the field and could see him following in the family tradition of coming in miles behind the rest of the field. I was relieved to see that the race was a relay, and my grandson was the first leg (or sack) in his team of five. I swelled with pride as he gave it all he could and bounced down the track, he had been practicing the art of bouncing on a trampoline in the back garden at home and it clearly paid off, he did a cracking job and was second out of four as he arrived at the changeover point.
Sadly, in the end, his team came fourth in that race, but that wasn’t down to him, he performed well on the day, and I was proud of him. I confess that once he had run his race, I lost interest quite quickly, there is only do much entertainment value in my opinion watching children you’ve never met before running up and down a field and I found the audience far more interesting.
My mind started to wander, and I wondered just who this event was for? The children certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves, particularly those who sped across the finish line first and triumphantly punched the air as they recognised that they were winners and who knows? Maybe one day they will fulfil their ambition and compete professionally. Some of the parents and grandparents took the thing very seriously and screamed at fever pitch as their offspring gave it their all, some of them celebrated with more vigour than their children.
As my mind wandered, I started to think about who the Christian faith is for? We talk about bringing glory to God through what we do, but who is the Church for? Who benefits from it? Sometimes, like the sports day, it can be those who excel at something, an organist, a preacher, a singer. A lot of people want to do things that are familiar to those who belong, but alien to those who don’t. In the twenty-first century where the majority of people feel far more at home on the sports field than in a Church, we maybe need to ask ourselves Who is this for? For God? For us? Or for the people who are outside searching?