Curling: a great sport for Lent

Here's my article for March:

Photo by Richard Berling from Flickr

Last month we had the spectacle of the Winter Olympics in Italy.  Despite some people dismissing them as just lots of different ways of sliding, I really enjoy the Winter Olympics and will happily watch almost all of the events.  But my particular favourite is the curling.  For those that have never seen it, it is a cross between archery, bowling and housework on ice: players throw/slide stones into a target area (or 'house') and the team with the closest stones to the centre wins that 'end' and the team with the most points after a set number of ends wins.  I enjoy it because it's a games of tactics, but it's also dramatic with stones smashing into each other, and slightly comical with people sliding while sweeping the ice.

Target games like curling, archery, bowling and darts have an ancient pedigree, probably stemming back to practicing for hunting or warfare. They are useful practically but also metaphorically: we talk of being 'on target' to achieve things.

This metaphor helps us to understand what the biblical concept of 'sin' means, which is especially relevant in this season of Lent.  We often think of sin, if we think of it at all, as being individual acts that are morally wrong.  We also often rank some sins as being worse than others, almost like the rings of the archery target, and as long as we get closer to the centre than others, we feel satisfied with our performance, and consider ourselves to be good.  However, in some ways curling gets us closer to the biblical meaning of sin.

The stone closest to the centre scores and so do any other of that team's stones that are nearer to the centre than any stones of the opposing team. The non-scoring stones are discounted and swept away. Thus, one team can have all eight of their stones in the house, but if the other team has just one closer to the centre, all eight stones are worthless.

In the Bible, to sin is to 'miss the mark'; it doesn't matter how close you get, if you don't hit the target the effort is worthless.  Jesus tells us what the mark is: "be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).  Anything less than being as perfect as God is being sinful.  Unlike archery where you get points for being near the centre, when it comes to morality only the bullseye will do, all other shots are worthless. (Of course, in curling you only have to have the stone closest to the centre and in the house, so you can score even if you're not in the centre, but this just proves that metaphors are limited!)

So Paul says “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), echoing Isaiah who said “all our righteous acts are like filthy rags”  (Isaiah 64:6).  That means that even our best efforts and best actions are so far away from the target that they don't count for anything. Therefore, “the person who keeps every law of God but makes one little slip is just as guilty as the person who has broken every law there is” (James 2:10 The Living Bible), 

If you want God to judge you on your good deeds, he will, but the target is perfection, the pass mark is 100%  - anything less and you fail.  But Jesus, the only one who hits that target, invites us to join his team so that we win the prize of eternal life, not because of what we do but because of what he has done.