SPIRITUAL FOOTBALL

In football it’s simple. If the referee makes a mistake against “our” team, we complain. If the same mistake goes our way, we call it a debatable incident. The facts are identical; the reactions are different. It isn’t about analysis. It’s about belonging. The team has become part of the “I.” An attack on it feels like an attack on ourselves.

That’s how identification works. It’s not agreement with a position. It’s an unconscious merging. A leader, a party, a nation, a church become a mirror in which a person sees an enlarged version of themselves. When the mirror cracks, the person defends not the glass but their reflection. That is why rational arguments rarely change a position. Rationality often comes later—to justify an emotional choice already made.

Social psychology has long described this mechanism. First the brain decides: “us” or “them.” Then analysis kicks in. Then rationalization. A person may be educated and intelligent, but in the zone of identity they react primarily as a member of a group. A threat to the leader feels like a threat to the structure of the “I.” Hence cognitive dissonance, selective perception, and motivated reasoning.

Jesus acted in a world of strong identifications—ethnic, religious, political. “We are the chosen,” “we are the keepers of the law,” “we are the pure.” Those constructions provided security, but they also created boundaries. Jesus systematically shattered the familiar mirrors. He tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the “outsider” is closer to God than the “insider.” He talks with tax collectors, a Roman centurion, women outside the accepted religious status. He shifts the center from belonging to the condition of the heart: not “who you are by birth,” but “what is happening inside you.”

Yet Jesus does not destroy identity entirely. He does not call for facelessness. He redirects it. “Whoever wants to save their life will lose it.” This is not a call to self-annihilation. It is a blow to the hardened “I” that clings to status, image, and role. He offers not a new mirror but a new axis—a personal, individual following of God. Not group pride, but a personal change of mind, metanoia.

Notice how he deals with his disciples. Peter wants to see in him a strong Messiah, a symbol of victory. When Jesus speaks of the cross, Peter objects. He defends his mirror—the image of the victor. Jesus answers sharply, because he knows that as long as a person clings to a projection, they cannot see reality. The cross destroys triumphalist identification. It exposes the person without a mask, utterly stripped of “assets” and group support in spiritual life.

The early church revolved around a person, not an ethnic or political marker. But over time the dynamic movement became an institution. That is a natural process. Spiritual charisma turned into structure; structure into identity. And then people, just as before Christ, began to say, “we are the truth,” instead of “we seek the truth.” The mirror again became more important than the face.

Modern believers often identify not with the person of Jesus but with a nation, a tradition, a church brand. When a leader or a system is criticized, the same mechanism kicks in as with a football fan. We defend not the argument but our reflection. Rational arguments are perceived as hostile attacks.

In this context Jesus’ teaching is radical. He does not build a new fortress of “us versus them.” He creates space where a person can step out of the hall of mirrors. To love your enemy is to break the binary “us/them” scheme. As long as the enemy is needed to shore up identity, love is impossible. But if a person’s value does not depend on group status, freedom appears.

Identification gives security. Following Jesus demands maturity. It is a move from belonging to transformation. From defending an image to changing the heart. From emotional fusion with a leader to personal responsibility before God. That is the difference between authoritarian dynamics and the gospel movement.

You can watch football passionately and with humor. Politics and faith are another matter. Here not only symbols but the structure of the “I” is at stake. Jesus does not offer us a new mirror for collective pride. He invites us to get out of dependence on mirrors altogether—to learn to live not through reflection but through inner freedom, through simple love, and through a continual intellectual search for the truth.