Forgive the Referees

“This is the body of Christ, broken for you. Forgive the referees.”

An elder said this to me as I took communion on the last day of 2023. The night before, the Detroit Lions had a victory taken from them because of an official’s mistake. After staying up late having my heart broken, I’d gotten up early to read all I could about the previous night’s fiasco and headed to church filled with righteous anger.

Among the many indignities to happen to Detroit over the years is a series of bad calls by referees and umpires. The Lions have been cursed, but so have the Detroit Tigers. The play brought back memories of the most egregious officiating mistake in Detroit sports history, when Jim Joyce called a runner safe who was clearly out and took away Armando Gallaraga’s perfect game. When he saw the video replay, Joyce confessed his error, was tearfully contrite, and therefore won everyone’s sympathy. Joyce wasn’t a machine, he was human, and humans make mistakes. Before the next game he and Gallaraga embraced at home plate in a moment that transcended sports.

But in this case, the referees doubled down on being correct. Never mind that there is video evidence supporting the Lions’ case. After a few days of silence, the league blamed the players, saying the Lions had engaged in gamesmanship and deception. Yes, that was the point. They were trying to deceive the other team. Unfortunately, they fooled the referees as well. Without fanfare, the league demoted the officiating crew in question from working any playoff games—yet there was still no admission of error. Forgiving someone who admits a mistake is the path to restoration. Forgiving someone who stonewalls and then blames you presents something much more difficult.

I smiled when the elder said what he did to me. We hadn’t spoken that morning, but he’s a Lions fan too and I assume he spent the morning reading the same reports I had read before coming to church.

I suspect he was having a bit of fun, but his words hit me with theological profundity. They were exactly the words I needed to hear. I needed to let go of the football game, which is nothing more than a distraction. Sports are one of the ways I turn away from the despair-inducing realities of modern life. The elder was calling me to open my eyes to what was important. Real life with real people was happening around me and my head was still stuck in fantasy land.

Later, I started to imagine scenarios where elders peered deeply into my soul and said exactly what I needed to hear as they distributed the sacrament. What might I hear?

“Let go of your anxiety.”

“Be kinder to those you love the most.”

“Grow up and stop comparing yourself to others.”

Even later, it occurred to me that they are in fact already peering deeply into my soul and saying exactly what I need to hear. They do it when they say, “The body of Christ, broken for you” and “The blood of Christ, shed for you.”

I don’t know how communion works. I don’t understand what happens between God and me or what happens to the bread and wine during communion. I say that with the benefit of a seminary education and 35 years of ordained ministry. I take heart that John Calvin wrote that his mind could conceive of more than his tongue could express and the mysteries of the Lord’s Supper were beyond what his mind could conceive. (Unfortunately, he then spent the next 75 pages of the Institutes trying to explain what he’d just called an inexplicable mystery.)

I have let go of the convictions I had as a young man about sin and needing to be washed in the blood of Christ to satisfy the wrath of God. Those ideas don’t convict me anymore. I am not convinced that my sins are an outrage to God worthy of God’s wrath. I have no sense that God is angry at me or anyone else. I imagine God being disappointed, not angry—which makes me wonder how much of my theology comes from my family of origin. Am I the only one who has “We’re not angry, just disappointed” tapes playing in his head? It’s disappointment, not anger, that is the primary emotion I am able to attach to God. I wish I found it easier to attach the emotion of love to God, but that’s still a stretch.

I say the prayer of confession and receive the sacrament not because I understand, but because I don’t understand. I receive the body and blood of Christ as a stay against disappointment. I receive communion to help myself believe God’s primary emotion towards me is love. I wish I received the sacrament more often. Even though I have no idea how it works, I know I need it.

I need the sacrament, not because I’m a wretched sinner in the hands of an angry God, but because I’m a human who happens to be, in the words of Frederick Buechner, a “part-time Christian because part of the time seems to be the most I can manage to live out my faith: Christian part of the time when certain things feel real and important to me and the rest of the time not Christian in any sense that I can believe matters much to Christ or anybody else.”

I drag my part-time Christian self to the front of the church, open my hands, and receive the body and blood of Christ. Once an elder said, “Forgive the referees.” Other times, they only say, “This is Christ’s body, broken for you,” and “This is Christ’s blood, shed for you,” a message that God is not angry, or even disappointed, but that God loves me—and us—more than anything else.