The World Cup matches currently being held in Brazil started on
June 12 and the final match between Argentina and Germany will be in Rio de
Janeiro on July 13.
Perhaps, like me, you don’t know or care a lot about soccer.
And many of you may be more interested in the upcoming games of the XXXI
Olympiad, the Olympics that will also be held in Rio de Janeiro in the summer
of 2016.
Ninety years ago, back in the summer of 1924, the Olympic Games
were held in Paris. Many of you probably have seen “Chariots of Fire,” the British
historical drama film about the ’24 Olympics.
That movie, which won the Academy Award for the best picture
of 1981, is partly about Eric Liddell, the “Flying Scotsman.”
Liddell was born in China in 1902, the son of Scottish
missionary parents. Eric became an outstanding athlete at Edinburgh University,
excelling at rugby as well as track.
His best event was the 100-meter dash, and he was selected
to run that event for the 1924 British Olympic team. He was greatly
disappointed, though, when he heard that the qualifying heat for the 100 meters
was going to be held on Sunday.
As a devout Christian, he believed that to engage in an
athletic event on Sunday was to violate the Commandment to keep the Sabbath day
holy. He refused to compromise.
So rather than competing on Sunday, later that week, on July
11, he ran the 400-meter race—and surprisingly won the gold medal, breaking the
world record.
The following year, in 1925, Liddell became a missionary to
China. He was ordained as a Christian minister on his first furlough in 1932.
Then in 1943 he was forced into a Japanese internment camp
in China, dying there in February 1945 of an inoperable brain tumor and
malnutrition.
Liddell was certainly a man of great talent, winsome
personality, and deep Christian faith. But to be honest, I have mixed feelings
about his refusal to compete in an Olympic event because it was on Sunday.
On the one hand, I generally admire people who stand up for,
and act on, their Christian convictions. But it depends on what those
convictions are and whether standing up for them enhances or detracts from
one’s Christian witness.
In Japan I often heard the term “jiko manzoku,” translated
into English as “self-satisfaction.” “Jiko manzoku” is often used in criticism of people who do things that don’t
particularly help anyone or anything but just makes them feel good about
themselves.
Back in the 1980s, I heard a preacher tell how when
traveling on Sunday night, if necessary, he would wait at a service station
until after midnight to buy gas because he didn’t think it was right to make
purchases on Sunday.
He now laughs at his previously held belief and accompanying
actions.
I’m sure he felt very “righteous” about living by his
convictions then—but no doubt it was mostly a matter of “jiko manzoku.” It
didn’t particularly help anyone else.
Jesus wasn’t big on keeping the Sabbath when it came to
matters that were about “jiko manzoku.” But he was big on loving others and
helping to meet their needs: feeding the hungry, healing the sick, lifting up
the fallen, and forgiving sinners.
Liddell also served others as a missionary. His life and
work in China is far more praiseworthy than what he did, and didn’t do, in
Paris in July 1924.
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