The Role of Black Spirituality in the Church

This Sunday is the Super Bowl and I can really enjoy a game where I don't care about the two teams playing. I'm just here for the commercials, halftime show and the food!

If your watching the game with a lifetime of fandom for one of the teams playing it will likely be much different. You'll likely view every penalty against your team as a gross violation of justice. Fans of two opposing teams can watch the same play and have vehemently different interpretations of what happened, usually through the lens of their fandom. 

The energy and anxiety levels of a person just watching the game for the love of the sport is hopefully more balanced and fair. They don't have the same lenses impacting their version of events and can really just celebrate the quality of the game and the impressive feats of any player. There's no reason to feel defeated by a great play by the opposition, because there is no opposition. 

I wish I could say that this kind of anxious or defensive participation was just limited to sports. Sadly when it comes to any number of "teams" there is a lens that we carry that can impact our version of events, Whether these are the "teams" of country, ethnicity, gender or political affiliation. 

One of the great hopes we carry in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the elimination of a "team" mentality. We can instead experience the whole of humanity as God sees them and hear stories from other perspectives as necessary insights into the story of us.