As I write these words early on Monday morning, the echoes of joy are still ringing through Chicago streets. The Chicago Bears have won a playoff game for the first time in fifteen years, and they have defeated their oldest rivals, the Green Bay Packers, in the process. Years ago Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass, frustrated with the Green Bay Packers ability to come to Soldier Field and defeat the Bears year after year after year, suggested that we build a wall along the Wisconsin border to keep the Packers out. People in Chicago are hungry for a winner. It has been 41 years since the Bears won the Super Bowl This may be small potatoes compared to the Cubs going more than a century without winning a World Series; but if they do go all the way, it will be the first time it will have happened in the lifetime of most Chicagoans,  And I might even count myself in that number, since I was serving in a parish in far-away New Jersey when the Monsters of the Midway were triumphant..

Of course by the end of this weekend, the Bears playoff run may be over . . . or maybe not. And that raises an important point. For every winner, there must be a loser. No one wamts to be labeled a loser. President Trump, who talks a lot about winning, likes to label people with whom he disagrees as “losers.” He knows it hurts. Yet when we move away from political rhetoric and sports into the spiritual realm and talk about the super bowl of life, we find that being a loser puts us in very good company. By any objective standard, Jesus Christ was no winner. He came from a small town known only for its mediocrity, worked in the building trades, and then had a few good years as a preacher and a healer. But in the ultimate showdown with the religious and political authorities, he was a loser. He was crucified and made an example of by Roman authorities for anyone else who may want to make pretentious claims and divine authority. A convicted criminal given the death penalty is no winner. Only in the eternal sphere can Jesus be considered a winner, triumphing over sin, suffering, and death in the resurrection..

What about Christ’s followers? Are we winners or losers? By the standards of the world many of us may also be considered losers—especially if we fail to take advantage of every opportunity to claw our way to the top, regardless of the cost to our family or the harm we cause others. But to share in Christ’s ultimate victory over death, we have to move beyond self-interest and self-glorification.  Buffalo area Lutheran Pastor Michael Borgstede once wrote that he likes to refer to Christians as losers for two reasons: first because we can be losers in the eyes of the world and real winners in God’s eyes, but also because calling ourselves losers makes us realize that we really do need God’s help and forgiveness.

“I think the term ‘loser’ carries more weight in our minds than sinner. In church jargon I believe we have sanitized the word sin. When we  use it we think of it as having made a mistake or ‘being human.’ That is too weak of a view. Sin is the condition that we are in. It is our brokenness, our corruption, our lostness in the eyes of God.” Loser is a term, Borgstede points out, that we hate, but it also a word that can inspire us to action, to take seriously our need for forgiveness and reconciliation. “People enter into counseling to gain some healing in their life. But to do that they have to admit that something is wrong. They have to take off their mask that says ‘I am OK’ and realize that their life does have problems. And in admitting they are flawed or broken, then true healing can take place. It is a difficult process, but one that is so renewing.”

Just as we can sometimes surprise ourselves by the heroic things we can do in an emergency, so we sometimes surprise ourselves with the temptations that we fall for and the sins we fall into. These surprises make us more aware of God’s mercy in our life; it. Having a winning sports franchise is good for business. It is good for hotels; it is good for civic morale; it is good for restaurants; and it is especially good for bars and taverns. But in the game of life losing and failure can be powerful teachers, even though we hate them at the time. They also remind us of what we truly value and whom and what we still have They call us back to what is essential in life, love of God and love for people.

                       Fr Joe