By show of hands, how many of you have watched the Ted Lasso series on Apple TV?
How many of you have heard of Ted Lasso?
Not that your answers will change anything that I am going to say this morning, I was just curious.
Let me start at the beginning. The show follows Ted Lasso, an American college football coach who is hired to coach an English soccer team with the secret intention that his inexperience will lead it to failure, but whose corny yet optimistic leadership proves unexpectedly successful. The concept of Ted Lasso started as a character that Jason Sudeikis portrayed in a series of promotional ads for NBC Sports coverage of England’s Premier League Football.
The main character, Ted Lasso is a Division 3 American college football coach, the team he is recruited for is a fictional English Premier League football team called AFC Richmond. The team's owner, Rebecca Welton, hires Lasso hoping he will fail as a means of getting revenge on the team's previous owner, her unfaithful ex-husband, Rupert. However, Ted's charm, personality, and humor begin to win over Rebecca, the team, and all of those who had been skeptical about his ability to coach AFC Richmond. In reality Ted and the entire cast didn’t only win over Rebecca and the team but Ted Lasso the series quickly won over the public. The show was nominated for a record breaking 20 Primetime Emmy awards it’s first season. A quick search on Apple brought up at least 9 podcast series dedicated to discussions on Ted Lasso. From series discussions to using Ted Lasso in the classroom to exchanging biscuit recipes (we call them cookies in America) to Ted Lasso Leadership Lessons. There is even a book titled: The Gospel according to Ted Lasso.
More important than the awards and the podcasts is the fact that Jason Sudeikis and Bill Lawrence created a show that has challenged how we might see the world. An article by Keven Fallon in the Entertainment section of the Daily Beast said this about the show:
The reason it burrowed … into … our collective psyche is that for all the laughs, Ted Lasso offered near-incessant revelations about who we are as people and the potential for goodness in our lives.
If you look in the dictionary, you’ll find that the word spiritual is defined as “relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.” In that sense, Ted is a highly spiritual being and the show offers us a way to nourish our soul. As Daniel Horan said in the National Catholic Reporter, Ted offers
“another set of values to prioritize, another approach to decision-making and relationship-building.”
Ted Lasso debuted during the pandemic, at a time when we desperately needed to see the goodness in the world. And in a world where there is currently a painful struggle for power and prestige, where it seems that villains outnumber heroes, Ted shows us that there is power in positivity. For example, when Rebecca asks him in the series’ first episode if he believes in ghosts, he replies, “I do. But more importantly, I think they need to believe in themselves.”
You will notice that the title of this message is The Gospel According to Ted Lasso PART 1. In the first version of this message that I sent to Nancy I tried to share with you everything I loved about the show and I have watched it 3.5 times so I REALLY loved it. In her thoughtful and understanding way she told me that it was overwhelming, and I was trying to fit way too much into our 45 minute service. (Thank you Nancy.) If Ted would have read it, he might have used the same words that he used in Series 3 Episode 7:
“Point is, a lot of times, the right idea is just sitting behind a couple of the wrong ones.”
I am not even sure if there will be a PART 2 yet but please know that today I am only starting to share the spiritual guidance I have gotten from watching this show. For today I will focus on this: Through his radical positivity Ted helps us see that avoiding judgment, putting the past behind us and BELIEVING is a wonderful way to engage in life and those around us. Interesting how those things parallel what we read in the bible or what we see as we explore our own faith journey.
Matthew 7:1 it says Do not judge, or you too will be judged. Ted Lesson uses the phrase “Be curious, not judgmental” to help us see how judging others can be harmful. In this clip Ted is playing darts with Rupert, Rebecca’s ex-husband, who is still trying to exhibit his influence on the football team he formerly owned.
https://youtu.be/VUZMmIm3Evk
What would the world be like if we were all more curious and less judgmental? I think there would be less hate and more understanding; less bias against people because of their gender, race, sexual orientation, political affiliation, and there would be more love.
As a person who came out of the womb worrying, Ted’s approach to putting the past behind you really hit home for me. Some of you may relate…staying awake for hours wondering if you could have said something in a different way…worrying about what someone said or did to you…wondering what if you would have done something better, different, smarter or worrying about something that you didn’t do. One thing I worried a lot about was parenting my kids. Did I work too much? Did I read enough books? Did I allow too much screen time? Did I take them to church enough? Did I help them with their homework enough…or too much? Now that I have a grandson, I have a whole new generation to worry about. Let’s take a look at Ted’s advice for putting the past behind us:
I have repeated this mantra to myself and shared it with others many times since seeing it for the first time. Isaiah 43:18 says “forget former things; do not dwell on the past”. Personally, I’ve always needed things to be as simple as possible so my apologies to Isaiah but Ted’s version works a bit better for me. Be a goldfish.
The word Believe has not only become synonymous with the show but also with what it stood for; having faith and being open and courageous enough to remain so, even in the face of impossible odds.
In the words of Ted himself: “I think it’s the lack of hope that comes and gets you. See, I believe in hope. I believe in belief.” Here at Entry Point we not only talk about our belief in a higher power but our belief in ourselves and others and our belief in the goodness in humanity. Our own belief in what is possible.
Every once in a while, you see my grandson Zayne coming with me to church. He is the little guy who loves planets. I will be honest with you, it did not go well when I received that call from my 19 year old son back in 2019 telling me that they were having a baby. He had just dropped out of college and now he was telling me that he and Kacie were bringing a baby into the world. I certainly didn’t have the reaction I wanted to have when I was told I would be a first- time grandparent. There had been so many bad decisions made along his life journey, which resulted in deserving consequences. I didn’t know how this baby would impact my son’s future but after the initial shock I had to go into belief mode. I accepted the fact that his path was not the one I planned for him at all, but I still strongly believed in my son’s abilities. I knew that he had the potential to be a wonderful, kind and successful person and I had to just hope this baby was part of the journey and not another roadblock. Fast forward about 4 years later and he has matured 20 years. He and his wife are back in school, with the mutual goal of creating the best life possible for Zayne. They live with Dave and I and I am thrilled to say that they are doing well in school and they are wonderful loving parents. (I do wish they would clean their room a bit more often though)
Since receiving that phone call from Hank about Zayne coming into the world, I had to work hard to practice not judging but believing — and I didn’t even know that I was applying the Gospel According to Ted Lasso.
Comments