Firsts. This season, the Colorado Rapids will encounter many firsts – moments where the team and organization find themselves as never before. For example, 2014 is the first season that the team is being coached by a former player (Pablo Mastroeni). This past Saturday’s game was the first point for the new head coach, it was also the first time that two homegrown players started the same match, as well as the first professional start by Goalkeeper John Berner, and more.
Many times, the firsts in our lives are memorable for one reason or another – first kiss, first girlfriend, first job, first child, etc. The same is true in terms of our faith – when someone comes to faith in Jesus Christ it is a first – a rebirth, likened to a first love. Do you remember your first love? This metaphor has stood throughout time as a reminder, as a question of accountability.
In Revelation 2:4, Jesus is speaking to the church in Ephesus and he comments on the state of the church – lamenting that the church has “left [their] first love.” In leaving one’s first love, priorities become askew. Secondary things with secondary importance start to replace and attempt to fill the void – but they are empty and unfulfilling. C.S. Lewis put it this way:
The woman who makes a dog the centre of her life loses, in the end, not only her human usefulness and dignity but even the proper pleasure of dog-keeping.
The man who makes alcohol his chief good loses not only his job but his palate and all power of enjoying the earlier (and only pleasurable) levels of intoxication.
It is a glorious thing to feel for a moment or two that the whole meaning of the universe is summed up in one woman—glorious so long as other duties and pleasures keep tearing you away from her. But clear the decks and so arrange your life (it is sometimes feasible) that you will have nothing to do but contemplate her, and what happens?
Of course this law has been discovered before, but it will stand re-discovery. It may be stated as follows: every preference of a small good to a great, or partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice is made.
. . . You can’t get second things by putting them first. You get second things only by putting first things first.
—C.S. Lewis, “First and Second Things,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (Eerdmans, 1994), p. 280.
As a chaplain, much of my role is to remind people of the first love – the love of God to humankind. That God would sacrifice himself and die to reconcile all of humanity – that even from the beginning of time, God has been moving toward you and me to love us, to restore relationship with us – that is a first love worth dedicating one’s life to. So many times in professional sports, there are secondary things that attempt to replace the first thing – whether it is fame or fortune or pleasure. In the end, these things, found wanting can leave one emaciated and destitute.
What does this mean for the professional athlete, the coach, or even the fan in the stand – all of the passion and love of the game will eventually be found un-gratifying to the deep longings of the soul if the first love, the first thing (God) is not first. But with God first, then all other things find their proper place of importance and can be enjoyed to the fullest.
Blessings,
Rev. Brad Kenney
I had the privilege of attending portions of the recent ID camp held for Colorado high school student athletes at Valor Christian High School this past week. The camp was put on to give students and college coaches an opportunity to be observed in hopes of receiving scholarships or invitations for possible openings on college teams. Of the 100-some students and 25- some college coaches participating in the event, there was an air of anticipation and hope – perhaps this might be an opportunity to receive an offer from a college to study and play the sport that they had come to love.
As I reflected further, I was reminded of the life of Jesus and his own ID’ing that took place as he set out to begin ministry. We read in Luke 6:12 that Jesus spent some intentional time praying to God before he chose the twelve men that would walk closest with him while he was here on earth (maybe you are thinking about the 11 true apostles – but I am not trying to make soccer team parallels here, honest). From history, scholars surmise that these apostles and disciples that Jesus called were probably young men – maybe even teenagers, who having not made the grade for further religious instruction were settling into life as tradesmen (fishermen, tax collectors and more).
Of course, as team chaplain, I see similar moments when professional athletes and coaches and staff face decisions that are seemingly monumental – choices about career, family, retirement, contractual negotiations, and other life issues can be difficult to discern and choose the correct path. These are moments – moments when we are looking toward the future – that we ought to seek God. We need to find mountain top moments and spend nights praying to God about what we ought to do. And in those spaces, we need to listen and hear the voice of God so that we might make wise choices, wise decisions because we cannot accurately ID the future on our own.
If you know anything of the Greek word uses for love – there were four: 
Part of my personal experience with this was when the Colorado Rapids won the Major League Soccer Championship game in 2010. I was there, on the field, as the players and coaches their families and the fans celebrated the first championship in team history (still one of only two championships to come to Colorado since those ’98 Broncos – National Hockey League Av’s in 2000-1 being the other). It wasn’t 45 minutes after leaving the field that coaches were having to determine which players on the roster would be unprotected for the MLS expansion draft – players didn’t even get to celebrate the championship before being told that they might be traded or waived.
The Colorado Rapids have been in the news of late, particularly over the situation with the head coach, Oscar Pareja. For the last couple of months, there have been stories that surface about Pareja’s pursuit by his former club FC Dallas. Beginning in November of 2013, 
On the last day of 2013, there is occasion to pause for reflection. There is much debate around looking backward in order to move forward in our culture. Some criticism – that the only reason we look back is so that we can make more efficient our practice or modernize our mechanistic attitude. Some wisdom – that we ought to learn from mistakes and strive to not repeat them, to teach our children how to overcome them. Some practical application – goal-setting, resolutions, and the like. Some fantastical dreaming – see above.
When the whistle finally sounded, it was 
In reading, perhaps you have experienced this for yourself – an achievement in the academic setting or the workplace or home. Maybe you have seen loved ones go through the deflation of hope that has come when a personal or professional achievement was found to lack the meaning and significance that was believed to be inherent within. These all point to the human need for something greater, for something transcendent. In truth, it points to our need for God – greater than shiny silverware and trophies – God’s presence and work in our lives is about Divine mastery and artistry. C.S. Lewis, mentions this in his work, The Problem of Pain: