This sermon is not titled with reference to an intersection in downtown Columbus.  It is titled with reference to a difficult situation for a football team.  In football, there are 4 opportunities to move the ball 10 yards.  If the team succeeds in doing that, they get to keep the ball and keep moving toward the goal.  If they don’t make it in four tries, they forfeit the ball to the other team.  Sometimes, a team will find themselves on the third down with a long way to go.  That’s called “third and long.”  And if a team is in that situation, it is likely that the previous two plays have not gone well.  Maybe the quarterback got sacked for a loss of yardage.  Maybe there was a penalty.  Maybe a runner was tackled behind the goal line.  But things have not been going well.  Maybe they haven’t been going well for a while, and probably they aren’t going to go well anytime soon.

A coach once described his team this way:  “We can't run.  We can't pass.  We can't stop the run.  We can't stop the pass.  We can't kick.  Other than that, we're just not a very good football team right now.”  There is no “other than that.”  Those are the fundamentals.  If those aren’t going well…you can be assured that it is a losing season.

When Isaiah the prophet (2^nd Isaiah) spoke to the people of Israel in the 43^rd chapter, they had not been having a good “season.”  The 42^nd chapter is all about the failure to be faithful to the fundamentals of their faith and values system and how that got them carried off into exile by the Babylonians.  It is not a good season for the people of Israel.  And like all communities or teams fallen on hard times, they are sinking in despair.

Is there anyone among us who has not had a moment where, whether in our personal situation or in a situation with others, we stopped to question where we were, how we got there, what went wrong, what we did wrong – and began to wonder if God had forgotten all about us?  I’ve been there.  Have you been there?

That is exactly the place into which Isaiah 43 is spoken.  It answers questions like “who am I?”  “Where do I belong?” “What makes me worthy?”

Sports is about winning.  Jobs coaching and playing football are not secure jobs.  Even here in Columbus, as beloved as Coach Jim Tressel is, there were rumblings from the fans after the loss to USC last fall that perhaps he should be fired.  If you are a professional player that can’t do the job – you are looking at getting benched.  If you spend too much time on the bench, you’re looking at being let go from the team or traded to a team that’s losing so bad that a “loser” like you will fit right in.  It can be very hard to maintain your sense of self and your sense of self worth when everything depends on your performance.

Isaiah 43 is God’s assurance that nothing important at all depends on your performance.  It’s hard to make mistakes more unfaithful or disastrous than those that Israel made.  And still, God speaks to them:

I, the God of creation, created you.  Do not fear.  You are mine.
I, the God of creation call you by name – I know you.
You may pass through a flood and a fire – but they will not overwhelm you or consume you.
I, God, may need to make sacrifices for you, and I will.

Why?  Why would God do this for me?  For us?
Because we are precious in God’s sight.
What will God do for us?
Gather us up from the scattered places – from wherever we are…
Why?  Because we are precious in God’s sight.  You are precious in God’s sight.
God formed and made us – for a purpose.  Because we are God’s glory.

In this game of relationship with God, you might get benched for a while – but you’re never off the team.  You might need to learn some fundamentals to be effective, but you’re not going to get fired.  There is nowhere anybody can send you where God will not find you and seek to bring you back.

That’s the message of Isaiah 43.  It is meant to remind people in bad times who they are, whose they are, and what their purpose is.  It is meant to remind us that God never, ever forgets or forsakes us.  Even in bad times.

The 12^th Chapter of I Corinthians is the play book for how individuals in Christian community demonstrate this truth to one another.  Everyone has a place, and when one suffers – all suffer.  When one is joyful, all are joyful.  The best men playing football understand that the statistics of the game are ultimately meaningless- relationships and integrity are what matter.

The Chicago Bears are one of the oldest franchises in NFL history.  And their 1969 season was the worst they had ever had.  They were 1 and 13 – all season they won only one game.  Playing on that team was Gail Sayres, now a member of the NFL Hall of Fame, who held the tailback position, and Brian Piccolo, who had earned a starting position that year as fullback.  He had tried out out for the team several years earlier as a free agent, and had only made the starting squad that season.  In those days, housing assignments at training camp and on the road were segregated.  The Bears had decided to change that policy, and put roommates together by position.  Sayres is African American.  Piccolo was white.  They became the first black and white men to room together in the NFL.

It is hard to overstate the effect the friendship between these two men had on race relations when they became roommates and fast friends, who openly shared their appreciation and affection for one another in the late 1960s.  But that’s not even the best part of their story.

In the 1968 season, Sayres suffered a potentially career ending knee injury.  Piccolo had exercise equipment installed for Sayres and worked alongside him throughout his rehabilitation.  Gale Sayres had the chance to repay the favor to his friend when, in 1969, during that horrible season, Brian Piccolo suffered shortness of breath during a game.  It was discovered that he had a malignant tumor in his chest cavity.  Through surgeries and months of treatment, Sayres was by his side.  Tragically, Piccolo died in June, 1970 at the age of 26.

Their friendship was depicted in the 1971 movie, “Brian’s Song,” in which James Caan played Brian Piccolo and Billy Dee Williams played Gale Sayers.  This made for TV movie is still considered to be one of the best television movies ever made… and 300 pound linemen will readily confess to crying like a baby whenever they watch it.

Despite the Bears losing season, Sayres won an award in early 1970 for his performance on the field.  At his acceptance speech for that award, he dedicated the award to Piccolo, then fighting the toughest opponent – cancer.  Sayres said, at the end of that speech.  “I love Brian.  I want you to love Brian.  When you go home tonight, get down on your knees and ask God to love Brian.”

Sayres was a better football player than he was theologian.  Isaiah would tell us that God already loved Brian.  Brian’s illness and death was not because God had stopped loving Brian, or because Brian had somehow failed God.  It was because his body had cells that grew out of control and couldn’t be stopped by the medical technology available at the time.  Interestingly, largely due to research funded in memory of Brian Piccolo, the kind of cancer he had had a fairly good cure rate today.

What Sayres – in his humility – probably did not understand was that he was loving Brian Piccolo with God’s love.

This is what Paul is trying to tell us in Corinthians.  When God wants to strengthen us, to encourage us, to coach us, to comfort us, to mourn with us and rejoice with us, to walk with us through chemo, and job loss, and every other kind of peril and grief, well – God gives us a community of people who become to us the Body of Christ.  That’s what it means to be church; to belong to a community that is formed and gathered in the name of Christ.  There was a time when Sayres needed Piccolo.  And there was a time when Piccolo needed Sayres.  We only need to be there for each other – and be vulnerable enough to allow others to be there for us.

Third and long.  Again and again.  Losing season – again and again.  Well, maybe we need to pick up the pace on our fundamentals- prayer and worship and bible study and fellowship in community – but we should not be afraid ever that God will desert us because of our failures.

Our core identity lies not in our worth as individuals nor on the relative size, wealth or success of our lives or of our congregation (our team), but in God’s claiming of us as “precious in God’s sight.”

Our worth is not due to our individual or corporate achievements or our “winning strategies,” it is God’s gracious love that makes us worthy.

Our paycheck, the church budget, the statistics about our successes and failures whatever game we play – say nothing at all about our worth and our identity.

No matter how much we stumble, no matter how many times we fall, no matter if we are punting most of the time…our failures do not prompt God to quit loving us, or to desert God’s claim on us.

Even when the chaos and calamity we find ourselves in is the result of our own individual and communal failures and irresponsible choices – God does not stop cherishing and loving us, nor does God stop trying to redeem us.

These words are easier to speak about and hear than they are to believe.  Just as we watch movies that teach us about beauty and love again and again, so we should return to words like this again and again.  As one commentator said, “words this good, love this uncommon, takes time to be believed and absorbed.”

So let me say it one more time:  “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, you are mine.

The word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.