Touchdowns, Not Field Goals

            As most of you know, my favorite sport is baseball.  Once the baseball season is over, though, I make some time for some of the lesser but still quite enjoyable sports.  The one I’ve been focusing on for the last month or so is football, particularly the NFL.

            One of the things I’ve noticed in watching pro football is that if you want to score touchdowns, you have to throw the ball down the field.  That may seem pretty basic, but let me explain. 

By this time of year, there are a number of teams who are using their backup quarterbacks, either because the main quarterback got hurt or they found out he just isn’t very good.  Because these guys are backups, though, the coach often does not trust them very much. The coach is afraid that if the quarterback starts taking chances, he’ll get intercepted and the team will lose.  So, the coach calls very conservative plays, mostly running plays or very short passes, things that are designed to just make small gains, rather than take a chance on a play that might make a big gain but might also turn out to be a big mistake. 

Those conservative plays will make work when you’re quite a ways from the goal line, because the defense has a lot of ground to defend.  As the offense gets closer to the goal, though, the defense has less ground to cover, so they start playing closer to the line of scrimmage.  When they do that, those runs and short passes don’t work any more.  That means that the offense ends up kicking a lot of field goals, rather than scoring touchdowns.  Field goals are nice, of course, but if you want to win the game, you usually have to score some touchdowns, and that means throwing the ball down the field.  Those “safe” plays may keep you from making big mistakes, but they also can keep you from doing the things you have to do to win.

I wonder if there’s an analogy to made there in regard to the churches of the Wheatland Parish.  We talk a lot about needing to reach out to people.  Too many times, though, all of us, including me, don’t trust ourselves, and don’t trust God, very much.  We’re afraid that if we take to many chances, we’ll make mistakes and things will go wrong.  So, we do very conservative things that are designed to just make small gains.  Those things may work, for a while, but they never quite manage to get us to the goal.  We may kick a few field goals, but we don’t score very many touchdowns.

The only way to score touchdowns is to take chances.  Yes, we’ll fail sometimes, but here’s the thing.  I looked up the list of NFL quarterbacks, and it’s a list of some of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.  Brett Favre is number one on the list.  George Blanda is number two.  Fran Tarkenton is there.  So are Dan Marino and Johnny Unitas.  There are guys who either are in the Hall of Fame or eventually will be.  They understood that if you want to get to the goal, you have to take some chances.

We’re only a few weeks away from a new year.  So, I’d like to propose a New Years’ resolution for the churches of our parish.  Let’s resolve to take more chances in the coming year.  Let’s resolve to take some chances and throw the ball down the field.  Let’s resolve to stop settling for field goals, and instead try to score some touchdowns