Football season is upon us, but this isn’t a post about that. Let’s just use college football fanatics as a jumping off point.
In downtown LA, USC Trojan students and fans will say the words, “Fight on,” upwards of a thousand times over the next 12+ weeks. It’s a unifying battle cry. It connects people around a school, a mascot, and a team who otherwise might not have anything in common. But, at least during football season, fans are united.
Why? Because, perhaps more than anything else in this life, we all need to belong.
Yes, we need our teams and tribes. We need our churches and groups. We need our friends and inner circle. Because life is lived in connection and community—with friends. I call this “small belonging.”
But there’s also a “big belonging.” Big belonging represents our macro connections. Some think that their big belonging is limited to things like, Evangelical, or Catholic, or Asian, or Trojan. It’s not.
“Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.” 1 Corinthians 12:13
Big belonging is about being human. Not Christian, not Jewish, not a “none.” Human.
We are all connected as fellow humans in need of the death and rebirth of Jesus, made alive by his one Spirit. All of us. Political preference, gender, ethnicity, orientation, and moral performance aside, we are all spiritual beings having a human experience, and we are all equally dependent upon our compassionate Creator to get us through.
Enjoy football season. And as you’re chanting your fight song or holding up your foam finger, remember that you’re part of an even bigger belonging.