BBC Radio 4 – Sunday Worship, Paris 2024 Olympic Games

Baron Pierre de Coubertin is widely acknowledged as the father of the modern Olympic Games. Born in Paris in 1863, he convened the first International Olympic Congress at the Sorbonne in 1894. He was the driving force behind the first Games, held in Paris in 1900 and then on a much larger scale in Paris in 1924. It is therefore wonderfully fitting that the Games are being held in Paris again a hundred years later.

De Coubertin was an aristocrat, a pedagogue and an Anglophile. He believed strongly in the ancient Greek philosophy of sport as a means of character building and esprit de corps, and felt that this ideal was embodied in English public schools. He was a great friend and admirer of Thomas Arnold, and strove hard, though unsuccessfully, to introduce the same ethos into the French school system.

His real and lasting success was the Olympic Games themselves, although it was clearly never going to be easy to achieve the kind of harmonious agreement and international cooperation that the Games required. Inevitably, there were problems.

At the 1908 London Olympics, there was a particularly bitter dispute between the British and American delegations, with the Americans complaining that a British jury had wrongly disqualified some of their best athletes. The dispute even escalated to the White House and Downing Street.

At a special service for the Olympic Games held that year in St Paul’s Cathedral, the sermon was given by an American bishop, Ethelbert Talbot, who attempted to calm the quarrel by reminding both sides that, according to St Paul (in the text we have just heard), winning the race was not the most important thing. Runners may compete for a prize, says Paul, but the earthly prize is nothing:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? They compete to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

Bishop Talbot thus concluded:

“If England be beaten on the river, or if America be outdone on the race-course, well, what of it? The Games themselves are better than the race and the prize. St. Paul tells us how insignificant the prize is. Our true prize is not corruptible but imperishable, and though but one may wear the laurel, all may share the equal joy of the contest.

De Coubertin heard the bishop’s sermon and later wrote how deeply it had impressed him. It showed him more clearly than ever that the Olympic goal was not merely a sporting or educational ideal, but a human and religious one; and that overcoming both personal and national ambition in a spirit of sincere cooperation was essential for true prosperity. As he put it:

What matters in the Olympics is not winning, but taking part, because what matters in life is not winning, but competing well. We must hold fast to this truth: it is fundamental to every area of ​​human experience.

The saying ‘It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game’ has become a well-known saying in French and English, but do we really believe it?

It’s easy to be cynical. Oscar Wilde said it would be truer to say, ‘It’s not whether you win or lose, but how you lay the blame.’

We know very well how corruption, drugs, commercialization and the buying and selling of athletes for exorbitant amounts of money have tainted every sport.

Some modern athletes have outright contradicted Coubertin’s great ideal: ‘Of course winning isn’t everything; winning is the ONLY thing that counts,’ said one.

But I think the cynics are wrong. While sport can be abused, “abusus non tollit usum” – abuse does not cancel out proper use. And while some athletes are obsessed with winning, what inspires is not the gold medal, but the extreme dedication and courage required of all participants to reach their peak of perfection.

The motto of the Games is not ‘Fastest, Highest, Strongest’, but ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger Together’. In other words, as De Coubertin said, what matters to everyone in every walk of life is the determination to do the best you can, against all odds. The explosion of enthusiasm for the Paralympic Games in recent years is because we somehow feel that we have all become braver and nobler in achieving our goals by seeing their bravery and nobility in achieving their goals. The beauty revealed by the Games is not only of the body, but also of the soul.

Whether it’s sports or anything else, if we strive to do the best we can, we can all ultimately say, as Paul said at the end of his life, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.”

Music: Christ is the true light of the world
sung by the choir and congregation of St George’s Anglican Church

Prayers

Trusting that Christ is interceding for us at the right hand of the Father, we pray in the power of the Holy Spirit:

For the entire human family, especially as it suffers from war, economic oppression and the climate crisis. We pray for renewed grace and courage to live as children of the one God.

Lord, in your mercy, Hear our prayer

For the Olympic Games, for athletes, officials and spectators, especially those who want to win at all costs. We pray for fun and safe games for all.

Lord, in your mercy, Hear our prayer

For France and our President and for the leaders of the nations. Inspired by the Olympic Games, we pray for an end to war and violence in Ukraine, in Gaza and Israel, in the other violent conflicts around the world today.

Lord, in your mercy, Hear our prayer

For all in any form of need: for the sick and dying, for those who travel and those who fear the world around them. We entrust them to your healing love.

Lord, in your mercy, Hear our prayer

Our father

Music: Tantum ergo – the Severac
Sung by the choir of St George’s Anglican Church

Reverend Mark Osborne
The contemporary novelist Edmund White wrote of his time in Paris that he lived in a pearl, and since the gas street lights of the 1860s, Paris has been described as the city of light. But it was Francois I, the King of France who met Henry VIII at the Field of Gold, who said that ‘Paris is not a city, it is a world.’ If all that hyperbole were true, we would not be living in God’s world, but in a self-centered, narcissistic place with no hope of salvation, redemption, restoration, as God’s beloved.

But as the first hymn reminds us, wherever we live, whatever our circumstances, we are called to triumph! To train – as athletes, to work – as soldiers, to persevere – in season and out of season – to act as citizens of the Celestial City where with the Lord there will be joy beyond words, beyond even music and light beyond compare.

Music: Jerusalem the Golden
Sung by the cchurch and congregation of St George’s Anglican Church