The Steelers fans in my house would have me believe something along the lines of they lost on purpose - now I am not claiming that the Skins have suddenly gained miraculous abilities but it would be more honest to say that having your two best players sidelined might have some impact on your ability to win.....not that you deliberately played the bottom of your rosta.....well enough of that.
But it did make me wonder what happens in the Bible when the Team Israel find themselves unable to get back on the rails or beat out the latest attacking nation. The answer is God often provides an unexpected hero, Moses, Elijah, David. But that only works for two reasons - one that the hero is paying attention and secondly that the nation trusts God to send deliverance in whatever unlikely form it turns up.
A boy with a pocketful of rocks, a man back from exile with a staff who is scared to speak publicly - God seems to choose with a sense of humor or perhaps knows that in this apparent lack of strength there may also be less presupposition and self-will.
The Gospel at morning prayers tells us to keep our eyes open and be ready - be ready for Jesus. So are we the unlikely hero in this Christian story? The answer is yes - all in our own way. The follow on from this is that the heroes had to keep going back to God for the answers and when they made excuses they had to say sorry. Saying we are willing to fail in our mission for the sake of our pride in admitting we need to acknowledge that even heroes have weaknesses - seems short sighted.
We pick at each other about football and even about our annoying habits in our house - but the underlying assumption is always that our strength does not come from within but from the God who we are called to play for.
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