The Superbowl Helped Me Understand How I Am Like God

One of my favorite things about sports are the metaphors that are created for me from watching the game.  This past weekend watching the Superbowl I began to contemplate how the game I was watching helped me understand the nature of people’s connection to God.  A football team is two things at the same time:  On the one hand it is a group of individuals with individual characteristics, personalities, egos and skills.  At the same time they are a team who function as one unit. 

Throughout the course of a game it might be hard sometimes to connect to a team as one unit.  It is easier for some to seem engaged with the team as the individuals that make up the group.  God is much the same way.

It is hard, if not impossible, to fathom the whole of God.  The notion of God as one unit can be quite daunting.  However, we are fortunate because we are not asked to connect to the whole of God, but rather to God’s individual characteristic.  In Jewish liturgy and theology God possess traits: knowledge and wisdom, glory and majesty, judgement and understanding. 

Just as with a sports team it is sometimes easier to identify with one player then an entire team, so too it is sometimes much easier to identify with one aspect of God as opposed to the whole of that which is God.  We know God and those attributes that are Godlike when we open our minds, and hearts, and trust our instincts. 

As you go through the week think, “What do I do that is holy and special?”  Those holy and special things, are you emulating God.  They are the attributes you share with God.  When the bible says that humans were made in the image of God, perhaps this is what it was talking about.