Sports as Prayer & St. Paul on Athletics & Spirituality

Sports can be prayer because they can be a radical response to life. 

Sport can be art as meditation.  Sport and art often overlap.  The Paris Olympics excelled at mixing the two, surely in the opening and closing ceremonies.

French philosopher Gabriel Marcel insists that the artist is not just one who sings a song or paints a painting or acts on stage.  The artist is also one who receives the music, appreciates the painting, or enjoys the theater. 

Does the same obtain in sports too?  Are the fans who participate in some way receivers of the beauty and excellence and craft of the athletes?

Sport unites people.  All peoples, nations and tribes have sports.  Just as all peoples have art.  It is part of our humanity, a positive part.  It unites generations—most athletes are in the prime of their physical lives, late teens to early thirties and this is wonderful for athletes who can train and develop their bodies to a kind of perfection. 

For those who are younger, sport offers motivation and aspiration—“I can do that someday.”  And for those who are older it’s a reminder of how mystical it was to play physical sports in the past.  Sports are also a uniter of generations, therefore. Sport is a uniter of generations as well as of nations.

It is interesting how St. Paul went to Corinth at the time of the Isthmian Games in the spring of AD 51.  Held every two years, they included footraces, wrestling, boxing, discus, javelin, the long jump, chariot racing, poetry reading and singing.  Women competed as well as men.*

One Biblical scholar has said that St. Paul’s epistles are “peppered with athletic terminology”** and of course sports were a big part of Hellenistic culture, as the French reminded us at the recent Games in Paris.       

Paul’s final words to his friend Timothy written from jail before his execution were these:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who love his appearing.  (2 Tim. 4:6-8)

It is significant that near the very end of his life, Paul called on the metaphor of sports to name his life’s spiritual journey.

* Gordon Franz M.A., “Going for the Gold: The Apostle Paul and the Isthmian Games.” BibleArchaeology.org.

** See Phil. 3:12-14; 1 Cor. 9:24-27; Acts 18; 2 Tim. 3:12; 1 Tim 4:7f.; 2 Tim. 2:5; 2 Tim. 4:6-8.

See Matthew Fox, Confessions: The Making of a Postdenominational Priest, pp. 19f., 26f, 49-52, 60.

Also see Fox, Prayer: A Radical Response to Life.

Also see Fox, Whee!  We, wee All the Way Home: Toward a Sensual, Prophetic Spirituality.

Also see Fox, Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet.

Banner Image: Early in the 1956 championship race before the Melbourne Olympic Games, John Landy doubled back to help fallen competitor Ron Clarke. Clarke got back to his feet and started running again; Landy followed, incredibly making up a large deficit to win the race. The commemorative statue stands in Olympic Park, Melbourne. Photo by Ben Terret on Flickr.

Queries for Contemplation

What do you see in Paul’s frequent employment of the metaphor of athletics to name the spiritual journey—and especially in his last letter to his companion Timothy knowing that he was very near death?

Recommended Reading

Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest (Revised/Updated Edition)

Matthew Fox’s stirring autobiography, Confessions, reveals his personal, intellectual, and spiritual journey from altar boy, to Dominican priest, to his eventual break with the Vatican. Five new chapters in this revised and updated edition bring added perspective in light of the author’s continued journey, and his reflections on the current changes taking place in church, society and the environment.
“The unfolding story of this irrepressible spiritual revolutionary enlivens the mind and emboldens the heart — must reading for anyone interested in courage, creativity, and the future of religion.”
—Joanna Macy, author of World as Lover, World as Self

Prayer: A Radical Response to Life
How do prayer and mysticism relate to the struggle for social and ecological justice? Fox defines prayer as a radical response to life that includes our “Yes” to life (mysticism) and our “No” to forces that combat life (prophecy). How do we define adult prayer? And how—if at all—do prayer and mysticism relate to the struggle for social and ecological justice? One of Matthew Fox’s earliest books, originally published under the title On Becoming a Musical, Mystical Bear: Spirituality American Style, Prayer introduces a mystical/prophetic spirituality and a mature conception of how to pray. Called a “classic” when it first appeared, it lays out the difference between the creation spirituality tradition and the fall/redemption tradition that has so dominated Western theology since Augustine. A practical and theoretical book, it lays the groundwork for Fox’s later works.
“One of the finest books I have read on contemporary spirituality.” – Rabbi Sholom A. Singer

Whee! We, Wee All the Way Home: A Guide to Sensual Prophetic Spirituality

Years ahead of its time when first published in 1976, this book is still bold and relevant today. Perfect for anyone who thinks mysticism needs to get out of the head and into the body. Matthew Fox begins the Preface to this book by stating, “This is a practical book about waking up and returning to a biblical, justice-oriented spirituality. Such a spirituality is a way of passion that leads to compassion. Such a way is necessarily one of coming to our senses in every meaning of that phrase.” One of Matthew Fox’s earliest books, this title explores the importance of ecstasy in the spiritual life. Fox considers the distinction between “natural” ecstasies (including nature, sex, friendship, music, art) and “tactical” ecstasies (like meditation, fasting, chanting); he goes on to consider that a truly authentic mysticism must be sensuous in its orientation, so to cultivate the maximum amount of ecstasy for the maximum amount of people.

Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet

Because creativity is the key to both our genius and beauty as a species but also to our capacity for evil, we need to teach creativity and to teach ways of steering this God-like power in directions that promote love of life (biophilia) and not love of death (necrophilia). Pushing well beyond the bounds of conventional Christian doctrine, Fox’s focus on creativity attempts nothing less than to shape a new ethic.
“Matt Fox is a pilgrim who seeks a path into the church of tomorrow.  Countless numbers will be happy to follow his lead.” –Bishop John Shelby Spong, author, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Living in Sin