Somehow there is something refreshingly absurd about The Olympic Badminton Scandal. If you haven’t been too busy standing in line a Chic-Fil-A, you know the story. Eight Olympic athletes, four from South Korea and two each from China and Indonesia, are accused of intentionally underperforming in first round matches causing their teams to lose and thereby gaining easier opponents for second round play. They took a dive; made Pete Rose proud. All for a shot at the gold.
In our Lance Armstrong world, winning is everything. Ask a New Orleans Saints linebacker or tackle how important winning has become. And ask Ken Lay, the former Enron CEO about the price of winning at all costs. But women’s Olympic badminton? Okay.
Doing what it takes to get the medal, gain the grade, receive the accolades, earn the bucks, win the election – doing what it takes is what we’re too often all about. We baptize our greed in the name of ambition, our selfishness in the name of initiative, our pride in the name of healthy self-esteem. And in the name of that holy trinity we excuse what we do as doing what it takes. The end justifies the means: an Olympic gold medal in badminton in the middle of my trophy case, even if I had to throw the first match.
In the Kingdom what we do and the “it” for which we do it are the same thing.
The “it” of the Kingdom is actually a “he.” And what we do, well, it’s a “he”, too. He is Jesus.
If our goal is Olympic gold – or a Tour de France record, another Super Bowl ring, or profits garnered from duped investors – maybe we do what we have to do.
But if our goal is the Kingdom, that is the reign of the King; if our goal is to be who God created us to be and the joy, hope and peace that comes from such being, then the end and the means become one. They are Jesus.
Jesus told his disciples that he and the Father are one (John 10:30). He also told them that he is the way to the Father’s house (John 14:1-6). The word translated as way is odos and it means literally road or path or highway (we get our word odometer from the same root). The Father’s house is at the end of Jesus Street and there’s no other way to get there.
There’s a Jesus way to play badminton, baseball and football. There’s a Jesus way to manage a multi-billion dollar company and a mom and pop business. There’s a Jesus way to run for political office. There’s a Jesus way to be a family member and a friend.
When you’re on Jesus Street there’s so much to do and so much joy, hope and peace in doing it that you don’t have time to scheme a short cut or worry about round two. There are no short cuts and there is no round two.
The Apostle Paul calls the gospel a “stumbling block” to those wed to old ways of thinking. The Greek word is scandalon. Unlike the Great Badminton Scandal of 2012, which has brought shame and disgrace, the scandal of the gospel brings joy, hope and peace to those living the Jesus way.