The morning after the Super Bowl, several news outlets ran stories mentioning a particular nugget of wisdom from the Eagles’ Head Coach, Nick Sirianni, that seemed to speak to the moment:  “You can’t be great without the greatness of others.” 

In the obvious context of their big victory, it reflects the power of a whole team (and to what happens over a season), as opposed to the talent of a few superstars, however impressive that talent may be (especially in any one game).  

It also reminds us that a lot of our talk about greatness (or excellence) is fundamentally ill-conceived.  

With the example of the Eagles as compelling, living proof, Sirianni reminds us that greatness, correctly understood, shows us just how much we depend on one another, and that even in the moments when we most seem to shine and our personal contribution truly stands out, we should see very clearly that we also remain completely in debt. 

In light of all that it’s taken to get to that point, we look around and must surely notice that we are not standing alone at the top, but joining a circle.  

Greatness, it turns out, only makes sense when it is understood as something that happens between us. 

How that works remains somewhat mysterious, of course, and maybe it’s no accident that the early church came to imagine the mystery of God’s identity in a similarly circular image, as divine perichoresis, literally, an endless, joyful dance between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—each distinct from one another, and yet somehow also one in the dancing.  

Maybe that is why so many of our deepest experiences of transcendence are found as expressions of communion, and happen in community, when who we are takes shape in a holy dance with others (whose selves mysteriously bring out our own self, even as who we are calls forth those selves).  

Those who find it lonely at the top have either misread the map or scaled the wrong mountain.  

Strangely enough, one of the most memorable counter examples to Coach Sirianni I can think of was the head coach of the Eagles when I lived in Philly, Ray Rhodes.  

He was a talented coach, but his intensity glowered far more than it radiated.  It was said that he did not even enjoy winning, because for him even victory felt more akin to avoiding failure rather than achieving success.  

With that in mind, it’s hard to imagine how he would have described greatness, though it’s also really sad to say so.  

It seems like a curse to chase so hard after something without ever knowing what it was, or how close it might well have been all along.  

This is exactly what God wants to deliver us from, and we know that deliverance, in some way, whenever and wherever a truly nurturing love patiently heals us.  

Or as Coach Sirianni might remind us, whenever we look around at one another and say, simultaneously, “I couldn’t have done it without you,” and the dance continues. 

See you in church,