Why Do Men Spit?

College football is winding down to the bowl games and the national championship. Baseball finished recently with the curse of the Cubs finally broken. The pro football season is fast running to its end in the big game. And my Chargers are, as usual, stinking it up; the best horrible team in the whole NFL! Not to mention the MLS soccer championship around the corner, the paramount example of constant athletic exertion, where field players run on the average seven miles per game. Seven miles! (except for the goalie, my position by the way. He or she gets to watch all the other ones running around. I always like that.)

But in the midst of all this athletic expression, one thing that I have noticed consistently is that male athletes spit. Not only do they spit, but they spit all the time. In fact I have noticed that men in general spit and, yes, they spit all the time. I really haven't seen the fairer side of the athletic equation letting loose like the guys do. They may do it, but somehow they are hiding it from the cameras.

There he was, Aroldis Chapman, entering the game, spitting as he enters. Cubs win! There are the American football players standing around on the sidelines, spitting to their hearts' content. The Sean Hannity Show website has a thread that asked the question "Why do NFL players spit, but the cheerleaders don't?" One answer was another question about what they had in their mouths that they had to get rid of so regularly. But I find it interesting that the cheerleaders don't spit! In fact, if you want to go to the pinnacle of all spittle records for sports, you must look no further than soccer (the real football). Soccer players spit at the drop of a hat!

They spit waiting for the whistle to start the game. They spit during the game, kicking the ball, preparing to kick the ball, throwing the ball in when it goes out of bounds, at a corner kick, free kick or even the grand daddy of them all the penalty! Then after the goal what do they do? They spit! They spit on the bench, they spit warming up, they spit they spit they spit. They even spit in the locker room! I swear it, I've seen it.

The real eye catcher in all this is that it seems to be a male dominant human trait. I remember as a kid we used to have spit wars to see who could hawk the farthest, the largest, the "phlegmiest." I know, all the ladies reading this are all going "Ew!" in their minds right now or even out loud. Let's play "Hawk a loogie" was one of our favorite games. And the girls were never allowed to play. Why was that? I really don't know.

I mean really, all you have to do is go to the good book. That's right, the Bible! And there he is, the perfect man, Jesus, the Savior of the world. What does he do? Why he was perfect man, so he spit. He spit, folks. Jesus spit! Don't believe me, look what the Bible says in John 9:6, "When [Jesus] had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes." Not only did Jesus spit, but he stuck it in the blind man's eyes!

Now, I am not trying to be disrespectful to my Lord and Savior. I am only trying to make the point that men spit; albeit that Jesus had a miraculous reason to spit where others of us have less than noble reasons. But the truth remains. Men spit.

Why? Why do men spit? Really. I want to know, but I don't have an answer.

All I know is that my Chargers stink and all I want to do is spit.

The Great "I Am"

I've been thinking about the church lately. Not the one I go to specifically, but generally the church and how it works in my country, the good ol' USA. Someone I know, who is a long time participant, leader, and voice for the church recently said "It is a weird church world today." Now I know the church has always supposed to me weird in relation to the world. Didn't Jesus Himself say, "My kingdom is not of this world" and "I have given them [the disciples and subsequent followers of Christ] Your word. The world hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world." Of course He did. So by extension, followers of Jesus (i.e., church people) are going to naturally look weird, strange or different relative to whatever current society in which they find themselves.

(As an aside, I believe this is one of the fundamental problems we have in the American expression of the church today. We think at some level that Christian culture is American culture and the church is shocked when the American culture doesn't follow suit. This, of course, is too deep of a subject to deal with now, but I believe it is a dynamic of our American church experience.)

The core of vital Christian faith is only found in the founder, Jesus. If it is not about Him, for Him, to Him, from Him, under Him, with Him, and every other preposition with "Him" as the object of the preposition, it is NOT a dynamic Christian faith. The Christian church without Christ as the very center of everything is NOT A CHRISTIAN CHURCH! (I hope I didn't yell too loud.) Without this foundation, church is only a club. Which brings me to my point.

I was chatting with someone that I dearly love, who is a faithful follower of Christ, consistent servant of His church and a personal friend, when we got on to the subject of the weirdness of the church world today. We talked about how hard it was, at times, to be faithful when our personal desires get in the way of those from Christ (by the way, you can find out what Christ's desires are for every believer by reading the Bible). Our "likes" tend to move many of us to action more than any overriding and contrary truth. In fact, this tension seems to be, at least by my casual observation, the rationale for much of the American church's choice in worship practice, preacher fame and other not so biblical reasons for commitment to Christ in a specific local church. It was somewhere at this point that the above friend said to me, "It's hard to have a "me centered" relationship with Christ."

I almost fell over when she said this to me. What a sublime statement of truth!

How this flies in the face of  Jesus saying, "I am the way..."! Sure, we read this, but don't we often say, under our breath, "There has got to be a different way"? If not out loud, don't we at least say this sometimes in our hearts? Really, Jesus, is it really ALL ABOUT YOU? Is it really all about Jesus in sorrow, pain, disappoint, travail, loss, and unmet expectations on God, rather than doing it our way?

I don't know about you (although I suspect you are the same as me), but leave me alone for 5 minutes without the grace of God and I am like the extension cord pulled out of the closet to be used for that special project needing electricity (you know the one that the wife has asked you to do for at least a month). It comes out all neatly wound up in a circle only to get tied in irreversible knots of its own making by just trying to extend it out of its serene rest. How does that happen? I think I know...left to our own desires, devices and dynamism, we are doomed. We will be doomed to the limits of the human condition, our own mental capacity and personal power. Without Christ, we are bankrupt.

The great "I Am" is not me or you. Submitting to this truth is probably the most difficult and liberating choice one can ever make. The Bible says that the Lord proclaims, "I will never leave you or forsake you." With the confidence that only a Holy, Eternal and Loving God can give us in and through the fray, it is "hard to have a me centered relationship with Christ" when it is all about Him. Let's consider, at least, the giving away of ourselves, shucking the me-ism of our culture and the lifting of His name in our hearts, homes and congregations. It may transform our culture. The real Great I Am would have it no other way. 

Finding Older

There I was, pontificating with the best of them; waxing eloquently before the kind people of Canyons Church, Salt Lake City. Then, all of a sudden, in the very midst of an incredible section of erudition, I totally (and I mean, totally) forgot where I was going with my story and, thus, the point of my sermon's point went out the proverbial window. To quote the eminent lay theologian, Homer Simpson, "Doh!"

A little background to help you get the power of that homiletic moment. There I was recounting my recent experience of flying at 35,000 feet in an Embraer 175, describing to my spellbound parishioners my absolute fear of altitude (aka heights), when I realized that we had as our church's guests this last Sunday, the Brazilian Bobsled Team. They were there for the Park City Bobsled North American Cup that is being held this week. And I wonderfully introduced them to the whole congregation, talked about their event, talked about their faith in Christ and "Doh!" Nothing. Absolute vacant brain moment.

I failed to tell you that I had already appraised the congregation of my previously bilateral hearing having under gone a transformation in said airplane, leaving me mono-hearing in only the left ear (you know that the word "left" in Italian is the word "sinistra" and the root of our word sinister). This did not bode well for me, being partially deaf at that moment. Since having gone brain dead right before the eyes of the whole congregation of God's most blessed people, I did the only thing I could. I asked the church folk what I had been saying before I interrupted myself with my cordial presentation of our guests. Several people began to inform me what, I assume, I had been saying. The only problem was that I could not understand what they were saying. It all sounded like people yelling at me with mouths full of marbles.

It wasn't until I saw at least one person gesturing with their hands from high to low, like an airplane landing, that I finally got it. Wow. Or to quote said theologian, "Doh!" I was talking about the Embraer 175 airplane that I had flown in. The Brazilian made Embraer 175 airplane.

Now you know the depth of my brain's machinations; and the probable foreshadowing of old age memory in the ever increasing aging of the current writer.

All I can say is "Fluffy Duck."