Professional sports are almost always about the winners: the strongest, the fastest, the toughest, the cleverest, the quickest, the most resourceful and sometimes the devious. In the Olympics we applaud athletes for their efforts as well as their successes, and sometimes even for their brokenness and failed attempts. Perhaps it is easier for us to relate to those who do not appear to be super-human, but who are trying to do their best, in spite of their humanness.
On September 5, 1972, in Munich, Germany,
Yossef Gutfreund, an Israeli Wrestling Official placed his 300 pound body
between his Israeli teammates and a group of Palestinian terrorists known as
Black September. He saved some of his
friends, but eventually died in the process along with 10 other Israeli
athletes and coaches and a West German policeman. Five of the eight Palestinian
terrorists were killed in the hostage crisis.
Gutfreund means “good friend.”
This year’s 2012 Olympics in London mark
the 40th anniversary of that tragedy.
Jesus placed His body between us and the
sin of the world. He did so to save us from death.
Being a good steward is about being a
“good friend.”
The tragedy in Munich would not be the
first, nor the last time, that the Olympics would be leveraged to make a
political statement. It is hard to resist a forum which provides an audience of
over a billion people.
However, though they have been sometimes used
as a political instrument the Olympics may be the single greatest opportunity
for world peace — a peace which arises out of friendship and mutual
respect. Prior to the 2008 Olympics,
Russia and Georgia were on the verge of all-out war. And yet Russia's Natalia Paderina and
Georgia's Nino Salukvadze hugged and kissed each other on the cheek after
winning silver and bronze medals in the women's 10-meter air pistol
competition.
Afterward Salukvadze said simply: "If
the world were to draw any lessons from what I did, there would never be any
wars."
Being a good steward is about being
friends with the people with whom you are not supposed to be friends.
This year there has been much attention given
to double-amputee runner, Oscar Pistorius, who did not reach the finals of the
400 meter event. After Pistorius failed to qualify, world champion Kirani James
walked over to him and asked to trade name bibs, to keep as a souvenir. The
pair shook hands and hugged. ''He's an inspiration for all of us,'' James said.
''He's very special to our sport. He's a great individual — it's time we
see him like that and not anything else.''
Being a good steward is about seeing
everyone as being of value — as gifts from God.
Elie Weisel, a Holocaust survivor and writer, once wrote: “…the duty of our generation… is solidarity with the weak, the persecuted, the lonely, the sick, and those in despair. It is expressed by the desire to give a noble and humanizing meaning to a community in which all members will define themselves, not by their own identity, but by that of others.” It means being friends with everyone.
Friendship is not simply a state of being. It is a call to action — a call to be stewards of one another. When we are called daily to be stewards, God is telling us to get off the sidelines, to reach out to those with whom we don’t feel comfortable, to be a hall monitor to the world, to not worry about perfection, to do the best we can, to be a “good friend,” to not be a bystander.
Dear God, never let me look on and do nothing, even if all I can do is be a friend.
“The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or
confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can
tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of
our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.” ~ Henri
Nouwen, Dutch-born Catholic priest and writer (1932-1996) from The Road
to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey
©2012
James E. Carper. All rights reserved.
“90 Second Stewardship” All rights are reserved. You are welcome and encouraged to forward
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