The Law of Conservation of Energy, Religion, Politics, and Sports

My undergraduate degree was in Chemistry. I was studying to become a doctor until I surrendered to the call that God had placed upon my life. I like to joke that if the Lord had planned to call me into ministry all along, He could have given me an easier major. In truth, I enjoyed Chemistry; it appealed to my analytical nature. I enjoy chatting with students from church who are in Pre-Med, and I often tell them that Organic Chemistry is the class that culls the herd. You make it through it, you’re probably good. You don’t, it’s not going to be much fun.

As much as I enjoyed Chemistry, I could not stand Biology, and Physics was even worse. For whatever reason, they did not click with my brain. However, I did learn something from each of them. One of the things that was most interesting to me in Physics was something called the Law of Conservation of Energy. I don’t want to pretend to know anything about Physics, but in short, this fundamental law says that energy is constant; it can neither be created nor destroyed. Energy is transferred from state to state, from potential energy to kinetic energy, and so forth. But energy remains constant. It is unchanging.

We are spiritual beings. There is a quote often misattributed to CS Lewis, but actually from George McDonald,

Never tell a child, ‘you have a soul. Teach him, you are a soul; you have a body.

In Ecclesiastes 3:11, it says

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (NIV)

I love that phrase: “He has set eternity in the human heart.” I think that is a perfect description of who we are as humans. We are spiritual beings. There is a growing area of research called “neurotheology,” which studies the link between the brain and spirituality, and while it is debatable, it is generally accepted that all cultures have some form of religion. CS Lewis did talk about how Jesus is the myth that is fact. It seems as though every culture has a myth of some powerful being who sacrifices themselves to save all others. For us Christians, Jesus is the incarnation of that ancient myth. Spirituality and faith seem to be common human traits.

It all goes back to where we started with Ecclesiastes: we have eternity within our hearts.

I think this is where the law of conservation of energy can jump over into our spiritual lives. We have this, shall we say, spiritual energy. But it appears as though we are in an age of religious decline; America is in a religious decline. I know anecdotally here in the buckle of the Bible Belt, fewer people are going to church, specifically in person.

Yet, we still have this spiritual energy. We have this apparent pull to something higher than us that gives us purpose, that gives us community. If energy is neither created nor destroyed, then where does this spiritual energy go?

I believe that it is going to places that cannot support that energy, specifically politics, sports, and sports fandom. Think about how many people you know who have their entire identity wrapped up in their favorite (or least favorite) politician, or in their favorite college or professional team. Their entire lives, schedules, and finances are tied to these things, and they seem not to provide a vacation from the stresses of life but to be the totality of a person’s life. They are functioning in a way that they cannot support. They have become load-bearing walls to our souls, and they cannot support that weight. They will crumble and leave much emptiness.

They cannot handle the weight. These things cannot support this. Politics should not be identity; it should be about fixing potholes and things such as that. It should be practical. It is not designed to become our identity. When it becomes more than that, it can become dangerous.

Notice, I am not talking about patriotism or love for our nation. That is a good thing. Now, nationalism can be dangerous. I think the distinction between the two can be seen in one of my favorite hymns we often sing at St. Matthew’s, “This is my Song:”

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,

And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.

But other lands have sunlight too and clover,

And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.

I deeply love my country, and while I have not served, I have dear friends who have, as well as many church members who have served. I also have dear friends who have served as missionaries in Central America, Europe, and Africa. Because Jesus died for them too.

I am also not talking about morality. I want to be careful; moral issues are often bound up in politics, but they shouldn’t be. I want to, as a pastor, speak to moral issues, not political issues. I remember being very outspoken on social media in 2020 about our need for a new state flag. Someone told me they were surprised, I have never spoken about political things before. I told them I did not believe this to be political; I saw it in terms of morality. Now, maybe I’m being naïve, but I do believe that to be true.

Our social focus should always be tied to our theology and to our morality. As a Wesleyan, Wesley called the Methodists to always consider the poor. He worked himself to end slavery in England. But he also gave these rules for voting for his Methodists:

1. To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judge most worthy.

2. To speak no evil of the person they voted against.

3. To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted on the other side.

Wesley called his Methodists to be aware of the needs around them and be driven by their call to love their neighbor. But Wesley knew this truth as well: politics itself could not support their deepest need for identity.

Likewise, we are seeing an explosion of what is known as “toxic fandom.” Where it moves from being a fan who enjoys games to an unhealthy obsession and identity with the format of teams and players who have little to no connection to one’s actual life.

I, as well as many other pastors, have church members who will not come to church on the Sundays after their teams lose out of fear that good-natured ribbing could turn painful.

As our world and we ourselves become less religious, we find that Christian identity is not going away, but being transferred. That energy is not being destroyed; it is part of who we are as humans. As a Christian pastor, I would say it is part of how God made us. We need it.

We need community. We need identity. We need our people. We need something beyond ourselves. It is part of who we are, and when we are living into this, we are truly alive.

Think about how many of your best memories and experiences involve community, whether it be a church worship service, a community service, a concert, and yes, even a ballgame. In these moments, we find an identity beyond ourselves, an identity that is beautiful, that is life-giving, something that truly makes us alive.

But we need to be careful where we are placing this identity. Politics cannot provide us with identity. It can’t support that weight. Sports fandom cannot provide us with identity. It cannot support weight.

Our identity, in all things, must first be Jesus. In nothing else. Not our politics. Not our fandom. Not in our work, in our play, in any such thing as this. Even though those things are not bad, they cannot support the weight of our identity.

Only Jesus can do that.

When our identity is wrapped up into these things than cannot support it, it turns those who have an opposite identity, those who may vote different, or find different allegiances into our enemies. When these temporal things become who are it can change us. One of the ways that it changes us is that it makes us harder for us to love those who disagree with us. When the mark of our identity is found in these things, then those who do not have that same mark as us are not truly worthy of our love.

That is a dangerous place to find ourselves. And a word to us who are steeped in our religion. Let’s be very careful to make sure that we do not shift our identity off of Jesus. Sometimes it just as easy for us to shift who we are.

Our true identity is found only in Jesus. When that is first, everything else falls into place, including politics, sports, and fandom.

It’s only always about Jesus.

In our Baptism liturgy of the United Methodist Church, after a candidate is baptized, the congregation will often respond with these words:

Through baptism

you are incorporated by the Holy Spirit

into God’s new creation

and made to share in Christ’s royal priesthood.

We are all one in Christ Jesus.

With joy and thanksgiving we welcome you

as members of the family of Christ.

We are incorporated in God’s new creation, Christ’s royal priesthood. If you are a Christian, that is your identity. That is where it must be found.

That identity will show itself. It always does. Today, who are you? Whose are you? The energy of that identity will show itself. May our identity, only, always, be found in Jesus.