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Lessons from the Olympic Games

The Olympic Games have helped lift our spirits this week and provided a welcome distraction from the grim news elsewhere, especially the ongoing and worsening Covid situation in NSW. On one hand, it’s easy to be cynical about the parochial coverage of the Olympics and the emphasis on winning gold medals. On the other hand, I’ve noticed more attention on two other aspects this week.

First is the emphasis on teamwork, even for individual sports. All the athletes are part of a wider group of people helping prepare and sustain them. There are coaches, fitness trainers, physios, psychologists, teammates, family and friends all working behind the scenes. So while we focus our attention on the athlete in the spotlight, it’s actually much more about teamwork.

Second is a recognition about the importance of maturity. The mental side of sport has long been recognised, but we’ve seen athletes stay focused and calm in the heated moments, handle disappointment, setbacks and losing with grace, champions withdraw from their event due to mental stress, and others show great flexibility and adaptability. These are all signs of maturity for athletes who in the past have been raised with the motto that winning is everything.

The apostle Paul calls us to show similar attributes in our walk of faith. The goal, he writes, is for us to grow up and come to maturity, attaining to the full stature of Christ. But this goal is for the whole community to achieve, not for just a few individuals. So it involves teamwork and utilising every person’s gifts, working together for the common goal. Perhaps the athletes we see at the Olympics can inspire us to dream and achieve our goal.

From the Minister

Adopted into the family

I wonder if there’s anyone in your family who was adopted? My grandmother Vera was adopted and her birth and early life were always a mystery, as records were not always kept or made available. Despite the uncertainty about her origins, Vera was always loved and was always part of the family.

In the letter to the Ephesians, Paul is writing to a community of Christians who are mostly Gentile, that is, non-Jews. He begins the letter with a grand prayer or poem that outlines the many blessings we have received from God through Jesus Christ. One of these blessings is to be adopted into God’s forever family and to be known as God’s children. For Paul, this is one of the great mysteries of the gospel message, that the privileges once bestowed on the Jewish people are now freely available to all. And one of the most significant of these privileges is to be considered God’s children. This honour is ours through grace, one of the key themes of this letter. We did not earn this privilege – rather it is a gift – along with forgiveness and acceptance. Grace is the unique aspect of Christian faith that no other religion offers. We don’t have to strive or become anxious about pleasing God – we are accepted as we are. But we are re-created in Christ to be people who want to follow God’s ways and embody God’s character of love and justice. We’re part of God’s family and so are called to reflect this in how we think about ourselves and in how we live.

From the Minister,

The challenge of leading in the easy times

When it comes to leadership, is it more difficult to lead during times of crisis or when things are going well? Certainly the public scrutiny of leaders is high when times are tough … think of the focus on State and Federal government leaders during the Covid pandemic with their daily press conferences and rapidly changing health guidelines. Every comment and every decision is reported and analysed and awkward questions are asked. Tough decisions need to be made under real time pressure that won’t please lots of people.

Tough times don’t last forever, thankfully, and eventually easier times will return where there is less attention on leaders. These easier times allow focus on the important rather than the urgent, for leaders to be proactive rather than reactive. But I wonder if it’s actually harder to lead well when people aren’t watching so closely … since complacency can set in and decisions can be made by routine or habit.

King David was a strong and effective leader for tough times. He was a courageous and shrewd soldier. Yet his most glaring failures happened when he was taking some R&R time. While the army is off fighting Israel’s enemies, David is relaxing in Jerusalem. He spots a beautiful lady bathing and in quick succession, he desires her, enquires after her and brings her to the palace where he has sex with her. Was in consensual? We’re not told. More likely, it was a powerful and entitled man taking what he wanted. It gets worse. When the woman, Bathsheba, becomes pregnant, David conspires to have her husband killed in battle and he then takes Bathsheba as his wife.

So David dismally failed the challenge of leading in the easy times. He became distracted by seeking after selfish pleasure and lost his moral compass. His integrity failed when no one was watching. There is a lesson for all of us here. We all have weak spots where we can be tempted. It’s why there is a line in the Lord’s Prayer that says ‘save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil’. May God give us strength to act righteously even when no one is looking – and grace when we do stumble and fall.

From the Minister