I hope this doesn’t jeopardize any of our friendships, but we are not a college football family. I didn’t really even understand the big deal about collegiate football until we lived in Texas. Sure, my grandmother loved to tailgate in the parking lot for her beloved SDSU Aztecs, but it wasn’t the same as what I witnessed when I showed up in the South. Apparently, Game Day is a sacred thing. Diehard fans are watching their team on their phones during a wedding reception, sitting in the freezing cold for hours and never, ever wearing the color of the rival school. Depending on where you live in the country, you have to pick a side. Are you a Duck or a Beaver? Cougar or Husky? It is very much us versus them. I think it also happens that over generations of living in a certain state or being alums of a particular school, there is almost a hatred built up toward “those (fill in the blank) fans.” Heaven forbid you need to call grandma and tell her you decided to attend Michigan instead of Ohio State.  

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But if you zoom out from intense, singular-team allegiance, I think what you’d see are a bunch of people who really love sports, game days on the couch with family and friends, tailgating on a crisp fall day, and being a part of something bigger than themselves. While they might bleed different colors, their hearts are for the game and what it represents. They are all on the same big, “we love college football” team.

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Human nature dictates that we love to find and be with people we perceive to be like us. We can be distrustful of people we think are on the other team. Back, in Paul the apostle’s day, there were two distinct teams, if you will: the Jews and the Gentiles. Paul, who was once Saul, was born a Jew, and after an encounter with Jesus, became a Christian. And while the initial goal was for all Jews to also recognize Jesus as the Messiah they had been awaiting, the goal was expanded to include all the Gentiles (non-Jewish) people into the family of faith. Accomplishing this worldwide evangelism was tricky given the long-held prejudices of Jewish people toward Gentiles.

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In the last chapter of Romans, Paul is sharing his final words, and he gives a shout-out to a few men: Timothy, Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater. Now, Timothy was of mixed heritage. His mother was a Jew, and his father was a Greek. Timothy had a unique position to minister to the Gentiles with this background. The men Paul mentions as Jewish, or his kinsmen in some translations, scholars believe may be the same men mentioned in other places in the Bible as friends and supporters who traveled with Paul. The mention of these men is significant because it points to the unity that Paul is trying to create in the church. It is as if he is telling his readers, you think we are all on different teams because that is what you’ve been taught since childhood, but really, we are all people trying to be faithful to God and now follow the teachings of his Son Jesus who came to save us. Same team. What could divide us can actually help us as we seek to take this message to the ends of the Earth. Time to lay aside our differences for the good of the larger team.  

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While I am not asking Aggies to wear burnt orange to church on Sunday, let’s take a look at our own lives this week and see where we have created a separation between ourselves and other believers.  

A few things to consider as you pray today – God, how can I foster unity among believers? Show me where I might be sowing disunity? When I think of us and them, who might I be excluding who is really on the same team? May God open your heart today to more fully recognize and support your brothers and sisters in the faith.