I grew up playing baseball.  It was the first sport I remember learning how to play.  From little league through high school, summers meant baseball.  Having now entered my fourth decade of life, baseball is not so much a part of my life any more, but in recent weeks, I have gotten back in touch with the game in a special way, or a better way to say it is that the game has gotten back in touch with me. 

I am a fan of the LSU Tigers.  Doesn’t matter the sport.  It’s always great to see the Tigers play.  So you might imagine my excitement when LSU made it to the College World Series.  I began watching them play midway through the super regional in Baton Rouge and found myself drawn back into the rhythm of the game. And you can imagine my delight with they won it all. 

 

 

In The Hartford Courant, the late commissioner of Major League Baseball, A. Bartlett Giamatti wrote:

Baseball is about homecoming.  It is a journey by theft and strength, guile and speed, out around first to the far island of second, where foes lurk in the reefs and the green sea suddenly grows deeper, then to turn sharply, skimming the shallows, making for a shore that will show a friendly face, a color, a familiar language, and at third, to proceed, no longer by paths indirect but straight, to home.      

Baseball demands both attention and engagement.  If you don’t pay attention, you might miss the game, for the game can be won or lost in an instant.  If you don’t stay engaged, you might begin to think that there are insignificant moments in the game and miss out.  There are no insignificant moments in the game of baseball.  Every pitch, every hit, every strikeout, every inning is important, if not, essential.  And the ultimate goal of the game is to make it safely home.

 

 

During my reacquaitance with the game of baseball, I have been reminded how many lessons in baseball are also lessons in life.  Life demands attention and engagement.  In life as in baseball, every moment is essential, every relationship is important, and in the end, no detail is ever insignficant.  Never count anyone out until the last pitch is thrown, the last out is made or the last run is scored.  Even if you strike out, you still have a chance to make it to first.  And the ultimate goal of life, as in baseball, is making it safely home.  I regularly forget this.  Maybe you do as well.  Sometimes  we need gentle reminders. 

Live well, laugh often, love much…Geaux Tigers! 

 

I recently had the privilege of hearing Rudy Rasmus, pastor of St. John’s United Methodist Church Downtown in Houston, Texas.  In 1992 Rudy was assigned to St. Johns.  There were nine members.  Seventeen years later the church has 9000 members with over 3000 of those being homeless or formerly homeless.  The church is known for its innovation, its community redevelopment and its healing and recovery ministries.  It has become a place of social and spiritual healing.  Rudy is an urban entrepreneur, a modern-day prophet and an authentic voice for a socially conscious faith that takes both word and witness seriously. Rudy addressed our annual conference using as his text the story of the paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda.  The man had been lying there beside the pool for years, unable to move fast enough to make it into the pool which was believed to possess healing powers.  When the water moved, healing power was believed to be present and available.  But the man had been there year after year, watching people come and go, hoping for healing but hindered by a handicap.  As people came and went, dipping their feet in the water, wading in and splashing around, they would see him there by the pool, many offering a hand out, no one offering a hand up.   Rudy then commented that far too often churches can seem like religious spas that focus on keeping people tanned and tuned out to the needs around them.  Moreover, he said, pastors run the risk of becoming pool pimps, simply peddling a cozy and comfortable climate for people’s personal enjoyment and fulfillment, expecting little more than payment of pool dues.  I found myself reflecting on his words throughout the rest of the week, and doing my best to convince myself that his words did not apply to me nor to my congregation.  Then on Monday morning, as I pulled into the parking lot at the church, I found myself face to face with the church yard filled with… pools…pools that had been set up for one of our summer children’s programs.  But… pools none-the-less.  And I found myself wondering …just a coincidence?  Or God’s way of saying pay attention?

I spent most of this week in New Orleans attending the Louisiana Annual Conference.  Each day as the conference convened, the focal point of our gathering was the image of four doors centrally and colorfully displayed.   The theme of the conference was And Can It Be? from the great Wesleyan hymn of the same name.    The focus was on open doors.  However, each day as I sat down for the sessions, I found myself looking at the doors…none of which were opened, not even cracked.  We were talking about open doors, open minds and open hearts, but we were looking each day at closed doors.  As you might imagine, a bit of cognitive dissonance began to set in and I struggled all week with the apparent contradiction between the message and the metaphor – our doors are open and to prove it we display…closed doors???   Each church was also invited to purchase a poster displaying many of the doors of churches in Louisiana for $100.00 to raise funds to support the starting of new faith communities throughout Louisiana.  New places for new faces.   The poster is nicely done. The doors are beautiful.  But again, they are all closed.  The poster clearly states that our doors are open, and we show this with…once again…closed doors.   On Wednesday we voted on a constitutional amendment that read as follows:

 

The United Methodist Church is a part of the church universal, which is one Body in Christ. The United Methodist Church acknowledges that all persons are of sacred worth and that we are in ministry to all. All persons shall be eligible to attend its worship services, participate in its programs, receive the sacraments, and upon baptism be admitted as baptized members. All persons, upon taking vows declaring the Christian faith and relationship in Jesus Christ, shall be eligible to become professing members in any local church in the connection. In the United Methodist Church no conference or other organizational unit of the Church shall be structured so as to exclude any member or any constituent body.

We voted against this amendment to our constitution that would have stated unequivocally that our doors are indeed open.  My guess is that it our actions were motivated by fear, xenophobia and a resistance to change. Or maybe, our metaphors simply triumphed over our message. 

I must confess that I was initially disappointed that the doors to University Church were not included on the poster.  After this vote, frankly, I am glad we were not included, for if our doors were displayed on the poster, I would have insisted on them being opened.  At University Church, we want our metaphors and our message to be the same – consistent and credible.

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”  – Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude