I Can’t Help But Root For Him

The Gospel According to Ted Lasso Part 1

Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all!

Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.

Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say,

“I will take revenge;
I will pay them back,”
says the Lord.

Instead,

“If your enemies are hungry, feed them.
If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap
burning coals of shame on their heads.”

Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.

~Romans 12:9–21 NLT

If you haven’t had a chance to watch the show Ted Lasso yet, you should. It’s absolutely fantastic! Ted Lasso a college football coach from Kansas who ends up managing a football team in England, which, of course, is soccer to us. Same name, but totally different sport. He’s also the kind of guy who says things like: “I feel like I fell out of the lucky tree hit every branch on the way down and ended up in a pool of cash and Sour Patch Kids.” I hope that’s how we all feel after spending the next 6 weeks exploring The Gospel According to Ted Lasso.

This idea sprang out of conversations that I’ve had with clergy friends recently, especially with my dear friend Lia Scholl. We’ve been wondering how we can cultivate kindness as we all come out of isolation and back into in-person communities so that we all don’t end up hurting each other with our pent up anger and grief. I mean, it would be good for everyone if there were fewer people belittling others on social media, snapping at strangers in stores, and punching flights attendants on airplanes, right?

When Lia and I were brainstorming ways that we might do a sermon series on kindness, in one of her usual strokes of genius, she blurted out “Ted Lasso!” It’s perfect.

You might wonder how a midwestern college football coach ends up in England coaching a team for a sport that he knows nothing about. It turns out that the team owner, Rebecca Welton, acquires AFC Richmond in her divorce from her philandering ex-husband who loves his football team more than anything in the world. Unbeknown to Ted, Rebecca hires him to sabotage the team. She wants to burn the franchise to the ground just like her ex did their marriage.

Ted accepts the job because his own marriage is struggling. When a therapist tells Ted that his wife needs some space, he moves to another continent because he wants to make sure that she has all the space that she needs.

Ted is good and kind. He sees the best in others. He may not know squat about soccer, but he does know how to lift up, support, and encourage the people around him. He can see what’s really important. When asked about coaching, Ted says, “For me, success is not about the wins and losses. It’s about helping these young fellas be the best versions of themselves on and off the field.”

Interestingly, Ted Lasso embodies the characteristics that the apostle Paul calls a young church in Rome to embrace. They are immersed in a culture that condones behaving in ways that hurts others, and Paul writes the church to help them be the best versions the themselves inside and outside of the church.

Paul tells the young church that the way that they treat one another is their spiritual act of worship. That’s how important it is! Choosing lovingkindness in a culture that glorifies selfishness requires transformation and a renewal of the mind. We have to be able to envision something different.

According to Paul, a transformed life is one deeply rooted in love. Here’s what it looks like:

Love authentically. Hate evil. Hold on to what is good as if you’re clinging to it for dear life. Love everyone like they’re your own sibling. Let the fire of the Holy Spirit fill you and cause love to bubble up out of you like a cleansing boiling water. Hang on when life is hard because hope is right around the corner. Pray. Walk alongside each other. Share what you have and welcome in folks even if you have differences.

Then Paul refines what it looks like to love by giving even more detail. He writes:

Bless those who mistreat or malign you. Don’t seek revenge. Instead focus on doing what’s right and good, and trust that God will be the judge. When someone has reason to celebrate, celebrate with them, and when someone weeps, weep with them. In other words, have empathy. Don’t think that you’re better than anybody else. Work together as often and as best as you can. When someone is hungry, make sure they have food to eat. When someone is thirty, give them something to drink. Ultimately, take care of one another.

You know, some scholars think what Paul does in Romans 12 is roughly paraphrase Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. I find this take fascinating because scholars have also spilled plenty of ink justifying why the Sermon on the Mount must be hyperbole because it’s simply too hard to do. In the sermon, Jesus must have been describing an ideal that he knew no one could attain.

But reflect upon what Paul describes in Romans. It’s all doable! We can love. We can be kind. We can share, welcome in, and walk alongside people even if they’re not just like us. We can choose to work toward forgiveness instead of seeking revenge. None of this is impossible. It just takes practice.

Author and speaker Brian McLaren defines church as a community of people who practice the art of love together. He used to call churches “schools for love”, but McLaren later decided that’s not quite right. Schools have teachers and students, which might imply that some are experts at loving and others passively learn about it. We all can cultivate kindness and practice the art of loving, so now McLaren says churches at their best are “studios of love.”

This is something we can learn from Scripture, one another, and even from Ted Lasso. You see, Ted may sound too good to be true, but he’s not. In an interview with Brené Brown, the show’s lead actors and creators Jason Sudeikiskis and Brendon Hunt share that they intentionally modeled Ted after those good, salt of the earth people that we all know. He is not a kind of superhero; Ted Lasso, they say, is the best in all us.

In one episode, Rebecca arranges for a ruthless reporter named Trent Crimm to interview Ted. She hopes the profile piece will damage Ted’s reputation and ultimately the team’s. During Ted and Trent’s day together, Ted takes a player to visit schoolchildren and then reacts kindly and gently when a child gives him a bloody nose with a soccer ball. He holds doors open for people and calls folks whom he could easily ignore by name.

Then the two go to an Indian restaurant, and Ted scarfs down food so hot it sets his mouth on fire all because he doesn’t want to embarrass the server/son of the owner who had invited him there in the first place. Ted shares with Crimm that what’s really important to him is that he help shape the character of the young men on his team.

Crimm’s article, it turns out, doesn’t smear Ted. The reporter acknowledges that he thinks Ted will fail to bring the team to success. Instead of gloating about that prediction, though, Crimm writes, I can’t help but root for him.”

I’ve said nothing earth shattering in this message today, We know how to be kind. We know how to love. Perhaps it’s good to simply be reminded that we can actually do it and that it makes a difference when we do. Imagine if, instead of tearing one another down, we root for each other as we practice the art of loving. Who knows? Together we might create something even better than a pool of cash and Sour Patch Kids.