MJ Speaks... Now What?

This week Michael Jordan broke issued a statement on the recent violence and tension between police and the African-American community. Additionally, he donated $1 million to each of two organizations attempting to improve relations between law enforcement and black communities. Because it's MJ his statement made headlines on ESPN and other news agencies. You can read it HERE.

In my opinion Jordan said pretty much nothing. I heard Carmelo Anthony describe Jordan's statement as "brilliant", and perhaps it was encouraging to have such a prominent African-American speak up on the subject. The statement issued by Jordan was fairly short. It identified that the nation has a problem and expressed regret for that problem before announcing his donations. The following statement was about as profound as Jordan got,

We need to find solutions that ensure people of color receive fair and equal treatment AND that police officers – who put their lives on the line every day to protect us all – are respected and supported.

While I'm confident those organizations appreciate the donations they received, Jordan's statement does little more than say, "Thanks for the work you guys are doing to stand up against violence and injustice." But let's not pretend that this statement changes anything. Incarceration rates will not change tomorrow because MJ issued a statement. If Jordan really wants to initiate change he will need to engage many other community leaders in the conversation and raise considerably more funds for training, education and lobbying efforts. Perhaps he'll do these things.

It's easy to point fingers at others.

Sports talk radio (and blogging) encourages members of the public with zero training and professional experience to criticize and second guess professional athletes, coaches and general managers with years of experience.

The MJ statement reminds us that words are cheap. We all have potential influence in our families, workplaces, communities, and churches. If all we do is talk and criticize, then we've become part of the problems. To translate potential influence into actual influence we must roll up our sleeves and get involved.

The incarnation of Jesus, God becoming flesh, provides the ultimate example of not settling for words when action was possible. (Philippians 2:5-8) God could have relied upon His commandments, the numerous laws He'd given Israel. He could have said that the messages of the prophets communicated His will sufficiently. Instead, Jesus left the throne of heaven to be born in a manger. When words weren't enough, he acted to make a difference for us.

Before criticising MJ, or anyone, ask yourself, "What am I actively involved in beyond my direct responsibilities?" "What am I doing to make the world a better place?"  Be like Jesus, not Mike.

An Olympic Way of Counting

The Australian team at the 2012 London Olympics has not lived up to the expectations created by past successes. For the first time in years there were ZERO individual gold medals in the pool and only ONE in a relay on the first night of competition. However, the team has won a lot of silver medals. At the time of writing Australia has a total 2 Gold, 12 Silver and 8 Bronze. This has prompted [attempted] witty newspaper headlines like: Is Silver the New Gold? or Going for Silver? Some wags have even kept track of how the Aussies are doing in the Silver Stakes, where "he with the most silver wins!". (For the record, the Aussies are tied with Japan and Great Britain for Equal 4th. Much better than the official 19th overall!)

Since Australia will never win the most medals of any colour, our media often does the simple math of dividing the population of each country by the number of medals. (See HERE for a 2012 example.) Then there's always some people who just have to take things to another level. Check out this crazy set of computations ranking the nations by wealth (GDP), population, and size of the olympic team.

But it's not just the Aussies that benefit from changing the way we measure success. The official Olympic medal count rankings are based on the number of GOLD medals a country has won. So South Africa is ranked higher than Australia because it has 3 Gold medals to Australia's 2. But, overall, Australia has 22 medals to South Africa's 4.

While the rest of the world ranks the teams by GOLD medals, the United States base their rankings on total medals. So Australia jumps 10 spots to 9th on the US medal table. Thanks USA! Now the cynic in me would say it's a tactic to keep the US at the top of the table longer. In Beijing 2008 the US had a total of 110 medals to China's 100 so topped all the US rankings. But China had a whopping 51 Gold medals to the United States 36 which gave China the overall win in the rest of the world.

Here's a little table I've created of the overall Olympic medal count since Sydney 2000.

Sydney 2000				Athens 2004
	Gold	Total			Gold	Total
United States	37	94		United States	36	102
Russia	32	89		China	32	63
China	28	58		Russia	27	92
Australia	16	58		Australia	17	49
Germany	13	56		Japan	16	37
France	13	38		Germany	13	49
Beijing 2008
	Gold	Total
China	51	100
United States	36	110
Russia	23	73
Great Britain	19	47
Germany	16	41
Australia	14	46

Interestingly, in 2000 the sequence of both columns are identical. However, in 2004, Russia and Germany would have benefited from the US counting system. In 2008, USA is the most obvious beneficiary while Australia would also have climbed a spot on the US rankings.

You can track the 2012 official standings here and the United States rankings here.

I'm grateful that God has amended his way of counting also. We often think usually think of God as perfect and without flaws, but His counting skills are seriously compromised by His grace.  Check out these verses.

Happy are those whose actions outside the Law are forgiven,
        and whose sins are covered. 
 Happy are those whose sin isn’t counted against them by the Lord  Romans 4:7-8 (CEB)

God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ, by not counting people’s sins against them. He has trusted us with this message of reconciliation.     2 Corinthians 5:19

People often think of God as the ultimate counter who counting every little thing we do wrong. These verses remind us that when we're Christians God has a new way of counting. In fact, He stops counting in deference to the bigger picture. The bigger picture is that he wants to be family with us. Because of Jesus he now forgives our sins because he values reconciliation with us more than accuracy.