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Good morning. Reflection on the anniversary of 9/11 has been coupled with questions of whether the Taliban victory in Afghanistan will inspire further terrorist attacks. But the weekend has also seen very different stories of inspiration.

Emma Raducanu’s joyful and extraordinary achievement in New York surpassed even the second coming of Cristiano Ronaldo to Old Trafford. And just around the corner from me yesterday, 57,000 took part in the 40th staging of the Great North Run. Devised by the great Brendan Foster, its initial years gave hope to an ailing region experiencing the industrial decimation of coal, steel and ship building. It continues to give hope in individual achievements and the millions raised for good causes.

The use of images of sporting excellence, participation and enthusiastic crowds to inspire has a long history. The apostle Paul in writing to a church in Corinth, home of the ancient Isthmian Games, used a common image of running races in talking about being a disciple of Jesus. He too would have seen the training of athletes, the tented villages and crowded streets, and the adulation of those who won. It was an easy metaphor to speak of perseverance and future medals - or crowns - in the religious life.

It was also a risky image. Not unlike today, the Games were often beset with scandals around cheating and bribing officials. They were dedicated to the god Poseidon and were often violent, immodest and vulgar. Some later Christian thinkers considered them irrelevant, idolatrous and ungodly, not so different perhaps from the recent Taliban’s pronouncement that women’s sport is ‘not necessary’.

But Paul used different arguments to affirm sport. He saw all of life as sacred and his experience of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus was an affirmation of the importance of the physical both in this world and the world to come. The body is good and a gift from God. So play can be a source of delight, and competition at best can be a striving together in the pursuit of excellence.

It is fair to ask whether it’s right to focus on the playing of games in a world of war, poverty and oppression. Yet it inspires the best in our humanity and can point to hope of the fulfilment of the Kingdom of God when war will cease, when goodness will not be corrupted and when joy will be full.

In a post 9/11 world sport gives me hope and inspiration, not least to complete my Couch to 10K running, even if people who are walking frequently pass me.

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