America's Cup Fever

New Zealand is currently obsessed with the America’s Cup. Most people in the world do not know it exists, and many who do don’t care. Even in San Francico, most people do not know it is on.  It is different here. People are talking about nothing else.

The America’s cup was a yachting trophy for a challenge between the United States and Britain that began more than a century ago. For the first hundred years, it was held by the New York Yacht Club. Since the rules were made fairer a couple of decades ago, the cup has been held by teams from Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and currently the United States. The latest challenge is taking place on huge catamarans off San Francisco between an American syndicate sponsored by Oracle and a New Zealand syndicate sponsored by Emirates Airlines, which needs only one more win to take the cup.


Although most the world has not noticed, the people of New Zealand are really stirred up. Our television channels have wall to wall coverage and people are going to work late, so they can catch the first race each day (at 8 am New Zealand time). Primary school children are wearing red socks and doing America’s Cup activities.

I am intrigued by the way that television can be used to make people passionate about something they should not care about. This one does not matter, but the ability of the media to draw people into something trivial is scary.

When the race this morning was cancelled this morning due to unsuitable weather conditions, there was huge disappointment. An online news organisation captured the tone with these words.

The wait for glory continues for the team and the nation.

The contest seems to have been turned into a measure of our value as a nation.
This is quite hard to understand.

• Yachting is a minority sport in New Zealand. Most of cannot distinguish between port and starboard, or know the difference between a sheet and a halyard.

• The America’s Cup is a competition for billionaires, outside the scope of most people.

• New Zealanders tend to be egalitarian. They usually hate to see rich people showing off their wealth. The early settlers came to New Zealand to get away from the class system in England, and the wealth and poverty that went with it.

• Most of the sponsorship for the New Zealand based syndicate comes from Emirates, so it is really a Middle Eastern syndicate that has purchased New Zealand crew and designers.

Nevertheless, winning the America’s Cup has become really important to us. The people of New Zealand seemed to have this need to prove themselves by excelling in a sport that the rest of the world does not take seriously.

I call this “small boy syndrome”. A school playground is often dominated by a bully. A few crawlers hang around him and bask in his glory, but most of the boys are scared of him and stay out of his way. Often a small boy who is mocked by most of the rest of his group will go and give cheek to the bully, and then runs away and hides in the crowd before the bully can strike back. The bully does not chase after the small boy, because he is too small and weak to be bothered about. The small boy builds himself up as a hero among his friends, but most of the boys in the playground realise that he is just a small boy, and they expect juvenile behaviour from small boys.

The sad thing is that we are not small boy. God brought the Maori people here many centuries ago, and then English and Scottish settlers more recently, because he had a purpose for this nation. This was summed up well by the English Evangelist David Pawson.

God wants New Zealand back.
He wants New Zealand back as
a nation that will be a model to the nations
of a people who are living under the government of GOD.
God intends New Zealand to be one of those nations
where he demonstrates his Kingdom.

God wants New Zealand back.
He is wanting his people to reign with him.
Don't wait for eternity to begin to reign with him
He is looking for a queen to reign with him now,
because New Zealand has a king an his name is King Jesus.
This country needs a change of government.
New Zealand is a nation that could be brought
under the government of God
and be a light to the nations.

God purpose is to establish his Kingdom in New Zealand in a way that will shine as a light to the nations. When we seek and receive the Kingdom of God, rich men’s sports will not matter any more. We will have something real to be proud about, but we will have stopped caring about national pride, too.