Millions of people (mostly in America) spent quite a few hours escaping the real world and watched a high stakes football game instead. Watching your favorite team win or lose was a high or low for your day. For those hours men, women, children all joined to "check out" and dial in for "the" game until the next one of course. People focused on the needs and wants of the real world abandoned their causes for the day. Ignoring the unfathomable amount of money that was spent yesterday the homeless stood outside of businesses watching the games from the street while those inside had food, drink, and their friends to cheer or complain with. Where was the real world? Why wasn't anyone attending to the real world? Where were the protectors of the under trodden? They, I would suggest, were at the same place those who "cared" about Jesus went when he was being tried and then put on a cross to die. No fanfare there. Why would someone want to focus on the real world when they can focus on the unreal world?
We all do it from time to time. We abandon the real world for whatever reason. Jesus even went into the hillside alone to have time with the Father and to recharge. Though he was always in the real world. We abdicate our place in the big picture and little picture so often that it becomes expected. "Okay, for today we will drink, eat and watch TV for hours." Growing up on a farm I knew the importance of being in the same place twice a day. That was milking our dairy cows. They absolutely needed to be milked twice a day. When the electricity went out we milked them by hand. We fed the cattle, made sure they had water and kept a sheltered area for them from the winter. That was on Christmas Day, New Years Day, Thanksgiving, Easter, your birthday, and every day of the year. To do less was to expose our world to the very dangers we were expected to protect them from. I can guess that the "real world" people would have loved to have all the good food and drink that was thrown away. But for the most part, that didn't happen.
I'm not complaining about big business, overpaid athletes, or the dictates of expenses on the fans. I'm not complaining about the amount of taxes paid going to support a multi-billion dollar business that most don't get to enjoy. Nor am I complaining about the many business attached to the event for their wanting to make a "living" as well. How many millions do we need to consider we are "making a living?" Being a conservative people would certainly begin to think I was a liberal. I don't really feel comfortable with either title. I prefer "Christian." Where do you stand politically? I stand for God even as He stands for me. Where do you stand regarding wars? I stand for God even as he stands for me. Wait a second! What do I mean that I stand for God even as he stands for me? I mean that my "first" inclination should always be setting my sight on Christ and what he desires of me and secondly on others and their needs with my needs coming in at least in third place.
That's what escaping the world means to me. People may think Christianity is escaping from reality. Quite the opposite. Christianity is living in THE ONLY reality in life. The stakes are high and the cost is way more than a playoff game. The stakes involve individual lives. Each life in this reality counts the same. Doesn't matter your designation. ALL fall into the two categories reserved for man. The first is believing on Jesus and being saved. The second is not believing on Jesus and not being saved. Those who are perishing are many. Why don't we have the professional playoff game focus for our neighbor? That's why people seek to escape the real world. They don't want to have that accountability of what we did and did not do with and for our neighbor.
Now there may be some who read this and will be "kind of" convicted. So they will throw an extra $5 in the offering basket as penance and maybe go without a mocha tomorrow morning. Where did we get the idea that what we think, understand and decide is truth? Where does it say that our choices are God's choices? Certainly not in the "real world." What is your real world like versus your "unreal world?" Where do you face reality and engage so you can do the most good for others? In two weeks there is another unreal event that will once again allow us to escape the reality of our world. I'm not saying it's wrong to watch the game. I'm saying to not abandon what God wants you to do in order to avoid responsibility for your fellow man.
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