Jesus Christ In A Football Match -By Rev. Fr. John Oluoma

The atmosphere was dripping with gripping mixture of excitement and apprehension, as is the case always with a football contest. Nothing unusual at such.

The match was between the christians and the muslims.

Among the spectators was Jesus Christ, seated between Fada Oluoma and Chuma Obi; two fans of the christian team.

Fans of the rival teams prayed to God for victory. Though a critic would rightly wonder with a chuckle whose prayer God will answer and why.

Game on. The christians drew the first blood and their fans went wild with jubilation including Jesus Christ who cheered and soaked up the pleasure of the entertaining goal.
Minutes later the muslims drew level and their fans reciprocated the wild jubilations. Unexpectedly, Jesus Christ also cheered with them and showed no less excitement at the goal of the muslim team.

This happened through the match; every time the christians scored, Jesus cheered, every time the muslims scored, he did same.
When questioned about this strange act, he said: “I came to watch a football game and be entertained, isn’t it what the game is all about? I cheered at both teams bc they entertained me”.

Don’t ask me how the match ended, in fact, the game is still going on. The feeding of a group of muslims by John Cardinal Onaiyekan is still a problem to smoke christians, so this is a further response to their concerns.

The point is this: ” For my thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways….” Isa 55:8.
You may view religion as a competition but God doesn’t. You may even kid and delude yourself thinking that the rivalry is between christians and muslims. This comfortable delusion is either fuelled by your ignorance of history or culpable blindness to reality. There is more “unhealthy rivalry” between christians on denominational level.

Someone likened the cardinal’s gesture to helping idol worshippers too, in other words muslims are like idol worshippers, why encourage them. Listen, many non catholics see us catholics as idol worshippers too. Even among christians there is the haughty disregard of one group by another. If you conceptually eliminate muslims from the equation, then will you see real rivalry.

Someone alleged that what Cardinal did was “furtherance of islamic faith”. Some others likened it to sharing quran to muslims and one other person said sarcastically why not give guns to boko haram too.

I’m making this clarification because I feel those who raised those objections are sincere in their error. Any of us can err.

There is a difference between promoting a religion and promoting religious coexistence. What the Cardinal did was promotion of religious tolerance and charity. It can’t be likened to promoting islam.

Even if a christian buys the Quran and distributes to muslims, it can’t be termed a promotion of islam, bc he gave them specifically to muslims.

The jews and the samaritans were bitter enemies on religious ground. The same rivalry that exists between extremists of the christian and muslim religions of our time is same that existed then.

Jesus, however, made it clear by words and action that he was not gonna be dragged into such pettiness, he made it clear to the jews that God is not a Jew or samaritan.

Do you know that the jews so despised the samaritans that they used the term “samaritan” as a curse? They called Jesus a samaritan in Jn 8:48. This is akin to a christian calling a muslim an infidel or a muslim calling a christian an infidel.

Do you know how offensive the parable of “the Good samaritan” was to a typical jew? A “good samaritan” is an oxymoron to a Jew. So for Jesus to say a samaritan was the good guy was an unforgivable insult to jewish religious sensibilities.

Yet, that was Jesus deliberately detonating a nuclear bomb against jewish religious and pious prejudices, triumphalism, ignorance and arrogance.

You now see why they called him a samaritan derogatorily, you get the point now. Jesus not only mixed with the samaritans, he saw them as God’s children and even gave them a pious prominence in the parable of the Good samaritan. My dear, it’s never a competition for God.

Finally, the catholic church promotes unity among people of different religions, she does this by sharing food as Cardinal Onaiyekan did or through other charitable gestures. Have you heard of INTER RELIGIOUS DIALOGUE? It’s the part of the church that does this, and the outreach is not just to muslims, but people of other faiths including African traditional worshippers. Then there is another one that promotes unity and cooperation among different christian denominations, ECUMENISM.

Dear Chuma Obi, everything you saw cardinal did is in order with church law and practice. Don’t confuse personal pieties and preferences with church laws.

Also be slow to apply biblical passages to your opinions or give them interpretations, this is a whole deeper angle I can’t even start. Take this from me, it takes more than knowing how to read and memorize the bible to interpret it rightly.