Teams and non teams

This past week we had the misfortune to be following two teams that didn’t really get it together as teams, when it really mattered. To be fair, Portugal put on a better performance than abysmal England, but they still lost. Both pairings, England v Germany and Portugal v Spain, were fairly evenly matched in terms of individual strengths and capabilities, and both teams had their magic talisman, as the media would have us believe, in Rooney and Ronaldo.

But having a wonder boy, who can score fancy goals is not enough when the teamwork isn’t there, and last night it just wasn’t. Being able to work together and recognise one another’s strengths, supporting one another and having a common strategy that everyone understands and follows. These are all part of good teamwork. Last night, it didn’t happen, and they were overpowered by the team that actually did act as a team. Lisbon, this morning, was a rather subdued place to be living in.
Makes me think of how it is with us working together as a team, here in Park of the Nations, and that the unity we have in God is, in the end, far more important than the sum total of our individual strengths and qualities. Once upon a time, another group of characters acted together as a team and brought down the might of Mordor even though the individuals themselves were mere dwarves and elves and hobbits.

Yes, we’re back in Middle Earth again.

Now, how did I get onto that. Well, mainly because, Tim Keller (Redeemer Presbyterian, NY) happened to refer to the Lord of the Rings in a message we listened to last Sunday. So it’s been in my mind all week. He was talking about Abraham and how God called him out to leave his home and his family even though he hadn’t a clue where he was going. Referring to this, Keller said that the Christian life is not just a “there and back again” kind of “adventure” like Tolkein’s earlier book “the Hobbit” , where we go out and do stuff for God, and then return to live our normal lives. No, it’s a full blown “quest” like Tolkein’s trilogy, where we go out, not really realising all that we have got ourselves into, except that its big and its scary and its exciting, and we NEVER return the same.

“It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance.

He went without knowing where he was going. And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith—for he was like a foreigner, living in tents.

And so did Isaac and Jacob, who inherited the same promise.

Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations,

a city designed and built by God”