Boston, Cleveland, and the Throne of the Heart
What sports fandom taught me about Matthew 6:24.
I grew up in West Virginia, which meant one thing when it came to sports: there were no hometown professional teams.
No NFL team down the road. No MLB ballpark an hour away. No NBA arena you could point to and say, that’s ours.
So if you loved sports, you had to choose.
Everyone did. Some people adopted Pittsburgh teams. Others leaned toward Washington. A few went all in on Cincinnati. In West Virginia, sports fandom isn’t inherited by geography. It’s chosen.
Somewhere along the way, I chose Boston.
Part of that probably started with video games. As a kid I spent hours playing RBI Baseball on Nintendo, and Wade Boggs was my guy. I had never been to Fenway Park, but I knew Boggs’ swing like I had watched him for years.
Then came Madden 95. Drew Bledsoe’s New England Patriots were the team I always played with. Season after season I picked them. When you’re a kid, those little habits shape your loyalties. Before long I wasn’t just playing as those teams. I was rooting for them.
The Celtics came with the territory. Green jerseys. The parquet floor. The banners hanging from the rafters. Even from far away, that franchise carried a sense of history that drew you in.
By the time I was older, Boston sports had become my teams.
And the greatest sports moment of my life came in the fall of 2004.
If you know baseball, you know exactly what that means.
The Red Sox were down three games to none to the Yankees in the ALCS. No team had ever come back from that deficit in postseason baseball. Everyone assumed the series was over.
And then they did the impossible.
Four straight wins. History rewritten. The curse finally broken.
If you were a Boston fan at that moment, it felt almost surreal. Decades of heartbreak washed away in a single week.
Those teams were my teams.
Cleveland Has Entered The Chat
Then life took a turn.
In 2013 Jen and I started dating, and I moved back to Ohio.
And something unexpected happened.
Cleveland sports caught my attention.
Part of it was the timing. That same year LeBron James returned to Cleveland. The story had a strange symmetry for me. As LeBron came back to Ohio, I was coming back to Ohio too.
So I watched.
Then I started cheering.
Before long I cared.
I followed that Cavaliers team closely. The 2016 Finals run still feels unreal when you look back on it. Down three games to one against the Warriors, and somehow they came back to win it all. Cleveland finally had its championship.
Then there are the Browns.
The Browns are… the Browns.
But I rarely miss a game.
And the Guardians have pulled me in on many summer nights too. There is something about baseball in the evening. A quiet game unfolding inning by inning. Another Cleveland team slowly working its way into your heart.
At some point I realized something had happened.
Cleveland sports had become a love of mine.
But Boston never stopped being one too.
When Your Teams Finally Meet
Most of the time this divided loyalty works just fine.
The seasons don’t always overlap. The leagues are different. The storylines rarely collide.
Boston over here.
Cleveland over there.
No tension.
Until Sunday.
This Sunday the Celtics play the Cavaliers.
And when that game tips off, something becomes immediately clear.
You cannot cheer for both.
Every basket helps one team and hurts the other. Every run swings the game toward one side. At some point the heart has to choose.
What felt comfortable before suddenly feels impossible.
You realize the arrangement only worked because the loyalties had not collided yet.
The Problem of Two Masters
Now, I’m pretty sure Jesus wasn’t talking about sports fandom in the Sermon on the Mount, but the illustration still works. The tension is real. Here’s what he said:
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”
Matthew 6:24
Jesus is speaking specifically about money in that passage, but the principle goes much deeper than finances.
The human heart was never meant for divided allegiance.
We often try to live as if it can work. We keep Jesus somewhere in our lives. Respected. Admired. Occasionally consulted. At the same time other things quietly sit on the throne.
Career.
Comfort.
Reputation.
Control.
Success.
Approval.
For a while it feels like everything can coexist peacefully.
Until the loyalties collide.
Until obedience costs something.
Until following Jesus runs directly against the way the world tells you to live.
That is when the heart reveals who its real master is.
The Better Master
Here is what makes Jesus different from every other master.
Every other master demands everything from you.
Jesus gives everything for you.
The Lord who calls for our allegiance is the same Savior who walked toward the cross. The King who asks for our devotion is the one who laid down His life for people who had spent their lives serving other masters.
Before we ever chose Him, He chose us.
Before we ever loved Him, He loved us.
So when Jesus says we cannot serve two masters, He is not trying to shrink our lives.
He is trying to free them.
Because the other masters always take.
Only Christ saves.
One Throne
Sunday afternoon I will sit down and watch the Celtics play the Cavs.
And once again sports will remind me of something deeper about life.
You can admire many things.
You can appreciate many things.
But your heart can only truly belong to one.
The same is true spiritually.
Many things will compete for the throne of your heart.
But only one King deserves it.
And the beautiful truth of the gospel is that the King who asks for your allegiance is the same King who gave His life to make you His.
Glad you are still a Cleveland fan...as the New England area doesn't need any more fans. :-)
More importantly, thanks for calling us back to King Jesus "who gives us everything!"