“A Little Stitious”

Recently I was sitting peacefully on the couch when my phone lit up with an ESPN alert: Braves pitcher takes no-hitter into the 9th. As soon as I read it—crack!—the opposing team got a hit. The no-hitter was gone. Coincidence? Probably. But I couldn’t help but hold ESPN responsible. After all, there’s an unwritten rule in baseball: never talk about a no-hitter while it’s happening. Superstition 101.

It reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from Michael Scott on The Office: “I’m not superstitious. But I am a little stitious.” It’s funny, because we’ve all been there—knocking on wood, avoiding walking under ladders, or, in my case, blaming an alert for a broken no-hitter.

Superstitions are those strange habits we pick up in an attempt to influence outcomes we can’t control. They’re based on the idea that a certain action or word can cause (or prevent) something unrelated from happening. And while they’re mostly harmless, they can sometimes reveal a deeper struggle: the human desire to control what only God can.

Interestingly, the Bible isn’t silent on this. In the Old Testament, we see people tempted by superstition when things get uncertain. The Israelites, waiting on Moses at Sinai, made a golden calf—not just as an idol, but as a way to guarantee God’s presence (Exodus 32). In 1 Samuel 4, the Israelites bring the Ark of the Covenant into battle, thinking its presence will ensure victory—like a lucky charm. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.

The Bible doesn’t endorse superstition. Instead, it calls us to trust—not in rituals or signs, but in the living God. In Acts 17, Paul visits Athens and notices the people are deeply religious, even building an altar “to an unknown god,” just in case they missed one. Paul uses that moment not to shame them but to introduce them to the God who is not far from any of us.

So while I may joke about jinxing a pitcher with a notification, I also know that life isn’t governed by luck, jinxes, or cosmic karma. It’s held together by a gracious God who invites us to trust, even when outcomes don’t go our way. But just in case… I’ll be putting my phone on silent during the next Braves game.

May God hold you,

Rev Chris Hester