Saturday, October 31, 1998

Kicker certain of God's role in missed field goal

By Ken Garfield

Knight Ridder Newspapers

"I can say with absolute confidence that God did not want me to make that field goal."

--John Kasay

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- I wonder how many people choked on their cornflakes when they read that comment the morning after a recent loss by the Carolina Panthers? No wonder our team has yet to win a game, you might have muttered. Taking on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is hard enough without God lining up against us, too.

Kasay, one of the NFL's most ardent Christians, offered his eye-opening explanation moments after his 47-yard field goal attempt to tie the game sailed wide left. The wind blew stiffly all day, Kasay said, and he took that into account when he booted the ball. But the wind died just before the kick took flight. It ruined Kasay's calculations and carried the football about a foot left of the goal post.

The wind didn't just quit on its own, Kasay believes. That pivotal moment on the football field in Florida was in God's powerful hand, just as every moment everywhere is in God's powerful hand. Kasay said God wanted that field goal to fail.

On one level, Kasay's miss did nothing more than tack another 'L' onto a Panther season full of them. But on a deeper level, his reasoning has inspired us to talk less about football and more about God's role in our everyday lives.

Maybe that's the Panthers' first victory of the season.

The Rev. David Chadwick is Kasay's pastor at Forest Hill Church, an evangelical congregation in Charlotte. He knows how seriously Kasay takes his faith, how he often includes a Scripture reference when he signs a youngster's autograph. What Kasay was articulating, Chadwick explained, is the principle of an omnipotent God.

"If he's not sovereign over everything," Chadwick said, "he's sovereign over nothing."

So God had control over the kick. Now it's up to Kasay to seek God's will. "Knowing John as I do, he's saying, 'What do you want me to learn from this?' " Chadwick said. "God wanted something from John through the process."

Chadwick also believes the failed field goal can be a blessing, not just for Kasay but for the spiritual novice who raises an eyebrow at God's sovereignty. Now that Kasay has raised the issue, how many seekers are asking themselves if God is in control of their lives?

The Rev. Andy Smith of Westminster Presbyterian in Charlotte shares a belief in an ever-present God -- "I believe God has the hairs on our head numbered. He's concerned about minutiae." He respects Kasay's statement of faith. But he wonders whether Kasay is making more of a missed field goal than he should.

Should common sense tell us to keep in perspective the principle that everything can be chalked up to God's will?

Smith said he recently preached the funeral of a 30-year-old member of his church who died of leukemia despite the congregation's rigorous prayers. Did God take that man from his loved ones for a reason? Or are some things in this world of joy, woe and everything in between too complicated to be explained away quite so tidily?

Said Smith: "I'm concerned at times about the oversimplification."

Smith made one other point in this musing over sports, faith and the missed field goal: In a world where so many athletes make a show of their convictions -- from prayers in the end zone to explanations in the locker room -- it's good to remember what Scripture says about invoking God's name when the spotlight is on you.

He quotes from the Book of Matthew: "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them ..."

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(Ken Garfield is the religion editor at The Charlotte Observer. Write to him at: The Charlotte Observer, 600 S. Tryon St., Charlotte, NC 28232.)

(c) 1998, The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.).

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