Team Jesus

Scripture:  1 Peter 2:2-10

            In 1995 the NBA broke new ground when the Toronto Raptors became the first Canadian team to play in the pro basketball league.   One of the people who attended that first game was Nav Bhatia.  He is an immigrant from India who had come to Canada to build a life for himself in the 1980’s.  While he grew up immersed in the sport of Cricket, he found a love for basketball once he settled in North America.  Since he was already a big fan of the sport, he was excited to support a local team.  After he attended the first game, he came back for the next and then the next.  In fact, he never misses a home game and once he had season tickets he can be found courtside, with his loud booming voice supporting his home team.  Bhatia has stuck by the Raptors through thick and thin.  For instance, during the 97-98 season when the team only won 19% of their games, he was there.   Bhatia is not just a super fan, the team considers him an essential part, and the sixth man on the court.  In 2019, when the Raptors finally won the NBA championship Bhatia was awarded a championship ring by the team.  In 2021 Bhatia became the first fan to be inducted into the NBA hall of fame.  The raptors are no doubt happy to have such a long time and loyal fan.  

Statically speaking, there is a good chance Nav Bhatia is happy too.  A lot of social science studies have been done about the most extreme sports fans, and these studies show some consistent results.  The biggest super sports fans consistently have higher self-esteem, are less likely to be depressed, or experience feelings of loneliness.  The studies go into a lot of detail, but they can all be summed up simply: rooting for their favorite team makes people feel better about their life.   Sports fans get a deep sense of connection and being part of something bigger and better than themselves when they invest themselves in their team.  One of the thoughts as to why studies keep showing these results is tribalism theory. This theory also recognizes the desire that people have to belong to something greater than themselves.  According to this theory many people historically found this connection through their tribe, their local network of connections with people like them.    However, as the world has continually become more global, Western culture particularly has become less tribal.  The basis of the theory is that people find their new tribe in sports. 

If this is true, then the large appeal of sports across ages and cultures is that it taps into something deep within the human spirit.   I think it is by God’s design that we have a desire to be part of something greater, to be fully invested in something outside ourselves, and to know we belong to something that last.   This idea of looking for tribes has a lot of validity, and it goes a long way to shedding light on this morning’s scripture.   This morning’s scripture is about how our faith fulfills those needs to belong, to be part of a tribe, and to be part of something far greater than ourselves. 
 
Peter wrote the letter we now call 1 Peter to Christians living in what is now modern-day Turkey.  This letter would have been circulated around the cities of that region.  Tribalism was alive and strong at the age that this letter was written.  The city the person was from or the people to whom they belonged went a long way to forming the identity of a person.   The customs they followed, the languages they knew, the friends they kept and even the religious practices of a person were all dictated by their tribal affiliation.   This was magnified by the process of what was first Hellenization and then Romanization.  The Greeks were very good at exporting their culture, values, and way of doing things.   When the Roman empire rose to power they did this as well and arguably even better.   Legally, economically, and culturally everyone was incentivized to embrace the Roman way of life, to participate in the Roman way of doing things, and to proudly identify themselves as a citizen of the Empire. 

   This all created a big crisis for those early Christians who converted to follow Jesus.  Christianity cut across ethnic lines, so they found themselves bound in fellowship with people different than them.  They also found hope and faith in a belief that did not support the Roman way of religious practice which was heavily integrated into the culture at large.   These early Christians found themselves at odds with the culture they had grown up in.   This cannot be understated; to fully follow Jesus they had to give up part of their identity.  There is a good chance that all of you know at least one diehard Cubs fan or Purdue fan.  Imagine what it would be like for that person if the Cubs disbanded as a team, or if Purdue closed as a school and stopped participating in sports.  If that happened, then for those die-hard fans it would be like losing a large part of themselves, and that is the kind of situation that these young Christians that Peter was writing to found themselves in.   

            Peter acknowledges that these believers are probably feeling a little out of sorts.   In verse four he compared Jesus to a living cornerstone that has been rejected by most people but chosen by God.   He states that in the same way they have been rejected but chosen by God to be built into a spiritual house.  It is in verse nine and ten though that Peter gets to the heart of his encouragement for isolated feeling believers.  Peter wrote, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praise of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.  Once you were not a people but now you are a people of God, one you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”   Can you try to imagine how profound this message was?   The people Peter wrote to felt cut off from a large part of their identity, they were probably being pressured to turn back to their old life, to their old tribe.   Then Peter connects the dots for them.   They have a tribe; they have a nation because they have been chosen to be a holy nation.
 
Membership in the Christian nation is not by birthright, but it is by mercy.  The message though is even more remarkable than that.   Can you imagine how much grief, bullying, abuse, and peer pressure these young Christians had to put up with when they turned to Christ and away from old traditions?   It would have been immense, which is why’s Peter’s words are so important.  They are God’s chosen people.  God chose them to be God’s people.   More than that though, God chose them to be a royal priesthood.   In the first century, it was only through a priest that someone could connect with the divine.  Yet as God’s chosen people, they had this connection already.   They did not need another priest to intercede for them because their intermediary (and our intermediary) to God the Father is Jesus the son.   For those first century Christians that this was written to, it must have been incredible news!   They had lost part of their identity but found a new identity in Christ.  They had lost their tribe, but they found a new tribe in the church.   The primary investment of their life moved from being where they were from to being where their hope was found.   

This shift in focus was a purpose driven, life giving, soul saving, change for these early Christians.   Finding their identity and tribe in their connection through Christ was vital for these early Christians, and I believe it is still vital today.  Rediscovering our connection to one another in Christ can help ground us in who we are, and it is one of the ways that we can meet the needs of the world around us. 

 The crisis that the first-century believers had was a loss of identity, and in some ways that is an existential crisis that many in our culture face.   A lot has changed quickly over the past 20-30 years.  For anyone over the age of 40 the world that you grew up in is largely gone.   This loss of cultural connection has fueled a lot of anger in our country.  It has led to an increase in toxic nationalism globally, and it has led to a lot of polarization.   It has led to people finding their tribe with people who they feel they share a common adversary or enemy with.   The motivation becomes less what is best for all, and what hurts the other side the most.  I know that you also see this polarization, this increase in hateful rhetoric, and the harm that is being caused.  I am not pointing at finger as to who is at fault, I am naming the reality we find ourselves in, because this morning’s scripture offers a better way.  I think United Methodist Pastor Michael Beck and theologian Leonard Sweet put it best in their book Contextual Intelligence.   They wrote, “There are liberals, there are conservatives, there are progressive, there are moderates, and then there are followers of Jesus.  We believe it is time for all parties-libera, conservative, progressive, regressive- to lay aside their weapons of mass deconstructions and disinformation and feat their eyes upon Jesus, the author and finisher of our story.”  

  As followers of Christ our identity should be found in the Lamb, not in the elephant or donkey.   As followers of Christ, we can offer a different way, a better way to the polarization and radicalization of our culture.   We can be a holy nation, a royal priesthood, God’s special possession that declare praise to God and points people out of darkness into God’s wonderful light.  When our identity is found in Christ, when our eyes are fixed on Jesus, then what connects us to the other followers of Christ is far greater than anything that could divide us.  When Christ is what informs who we are above all of the other noise, then we find that  our siblings in Christ may look nothing like us, think nothing like us, or talk completely differently but they can still be beloved to us because we are part of the same family, we are part of the same team, and we will spend eternity in the same forever home.  

This incredible inclusion of grace that brings all who follow Jesus onto the same team, has the power to meet one of the great problems of our modern world.  While some people find their tribe in sports or other means, so many people in our world today don’t have any people.   In places like the United Sates especially there is a real loneliness epidemic.   The statistics have been backing this up for years, and it seems to be a growing problem.   A 2025 APA polls shows that more than half of U.S. adults report that they have felt isolated, left out, or lacking companionship.   While this impacts people across all ages, the youngest of adults report feelings of severe loneliness at higher rates than older generations, and the group that reports the highest feelings of loneliness and disconnection are young men.  Studies have found that prolonged feelings of loneliness have adverse health effects and can lead to higher rates dementia in older people as well as health issues in people of all ages.  This has led studies to conclude that prolonged feelings of loneliness are just as dangerous to one’s health as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day.  

Statistically, we all interact with people in our day to day lives who feel alone; who feel there are not enough people who care about them; who feel they are not seen or heard; who feel they do not have a place that they belong.   There is a loneliness epidemic in our culture and in our country, and friends we can do something about that!  Because we are a holy nation called out of darkness and into the marvelous light.   We have a savior who gets us, who died for us.  We are part of team Jesus, and our team always has an additional spot on the roster.   There are lonely people in our community, so let’s invite them to join us.  Let’s save them a seat, and let’s give them a place to belong.

Now I know logistically, it is not quite that easy.   Loneliness is hard to pull out of.  It is a lot easier and a lot more comfortable to shrug off invitations than it is to take a potentially scary step.  I know that a lot of the invitations we extend will be turned down, but that does not mean we should stop inviting them.   We can provide a place for people who are lonely, and we can be a community for those who feel they do not have one.  

This is the message that Peter shared with his original audience.  It is still a message for us today.    This is our team.  We are part of a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.  We are God’s special possession.   May we allow those truths to deeply speak to identity and who we understand ourselves to be.   May we realize that as believers and followers of Jesus Christ we are already part of something bigger than ourselves.  May we take this better way of love and grace we have been called to and may we consistently invite other people to join us on team Jesus.  May we pass it on.