Whose Team Is It?
The Dallas Cowboys seemed content with being America's team. Not so the Green Bay Packers, however. Over in Wisconsin, hubris seems to know no bounds. Some believe the Packers are more than America's team; they are God's team, God's chosen.
With such half-believing attitudes, five different members of the church I serve as pastor, St. Marks, told me the following joke.
It seems John Madden was down in Dallas and walked into coach Barry Switzer's office for an interview. He noticed a gold telephone on Switzer's desk and inquired about it's purpose. "This is a direct line to God," said Switzer. Madden asked if he could try it. "Sure, go right ahead he was told, "How much does it cost for three minutes?" he asked the Cowboy coach. "Five hundred dollars," said Switzer with a smirk on his face.
A couple of weeks later Madden was in Green Bay to interview the Packer coach, Mike Holmgren. He noticed a gold phone on Holmgren's desk also, "Don't tell me you have a direct line to God, too," he said. "Well, yea," said Holmgren, "we sort of do." "How much for three minutes?" asked Madden. Smiling, Holmgren volunteered, "Twenty-five cents." "Only twenty-five cents," blurted out an incredulous Madden, "Why down in Dallas they want five hundred dollars for three minutes." "Well," said Holmgren, "in Green Bay it's a local call."
When all was said and done after my wife, Barbara's, and my trip to Super Bowl XXXI, there was this sense that poetic justice had been served, the good guys had won and virtue had received her just reward. I really can't believe I just wrote that, but in some odd way, the Green Bay victory was uniquely different from all the other sport's victories I have celebrated in my life.
Maybe it was the classic underdog scenario. Maybe it was the public ownership of the team giving each loyal fan a sense of having a piece of the action. Maybe it was the romance of Reggie White's dream becoming a reality. Whatever, it all seemed a bit larger than life.
The Super Bowl became more than just a far away, hyped-up media event when on the Monday after Green Bay beat the Carolina Panthers for the NFC Championship, my sister, Kathy Holmgren, called to tell me that Barbara and I were invited to New Orleans for Super Bowl XXXI. "I'd think about it," I said. Right. For less than a second did I think about it; I was ready to leave for New Orleans right then and there. It was twenty below in Minnesota and I didn't need an excuse to start packing my bags.
But what about St Mark's Annual Meeting mandated by the Church Constitution to be held on the fourth Sunday in January? Dare I ask for this Sunday away? More honestly, could I really kill two birds with one stone; escape the cold and skip out on the most excruciating day in the life of a parish pastor?
With humble apologies to the Church Council, I told them I would be absent from the Annual Meeting. Somehow they understood. Afraid that I might turn into a pillar of salt, I did not look back.
Schmoozing with Brett Favre and helping Desmond Howard find his luggage tags and munching jumbo shrimp with Gilbert Brown were all in a day's fun. What was most memorable was my brother-in-law's toast at the Packer victory party. "To family and friends," was Mike Holmgren's toast. No more, no less.
Great victories do not mean much if you don't have somebody with whom to celebrate. Maybe that is what the folks of Green Bay understand only too well; they are family. Just as each year, contemporary Jews march through the Red Sea in solidarity with their ancestors, so the Cheeseheads, tickets in hand or no, all together, gathered in New Orleans and won the victory over the Egyptians. Maybe their hubris is not so misplaced.