On Preaching to a Bunch of Latter-day Baptists 12/5/1999

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scripture:  Matthew 11:2-11

Introductory Note: The sermon owes a debt of gratitude to Barbara Brown Taylor and her treatment of John the Baptist in an incredible book, God in Pain.

I am not a lectionary preacher, meaning that I do not follow a list of pre-assigned texts, Sunday by Sunday. Instead, I choose and preach my own. But I am cognizant of what the lectionary says, and why the lectionary says it. Which is why very few congregations ever get to Bethlehem without passing through the land (or should we say “the waters”) of John the Baptist. Because the lectionary requires it, don’t you see?

To be sure, John and Jesus don’t “gather at the river” until both are grown men. But wiser heads than mine have decreed that while Bethlehem was the beginning of Jesus’ life, the River Jordan was the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. So if we are going to await him in Advent….and receive him at Christmas….perhaps we had better prepare our hearts to receive all of him, meaning who he was early, and who he was late. And who better to deliver the “get ready” speech than John the Baptist, even if it be 30 years out of sequence?

You and I have spoken of John before. That’s because every three years or so, I tell myself: “If the lectionary demands it, I ought to preach it.” But it’s never easy. Because John is never easy. Preaching John the Baptist at Christmastime is not like sliding a hot knife through butter. No, preaching John at Christmastime is like dragging fingernails across a chalkboard, or forcing a reluctant patient to take a huge pill without first dissolving it in applesauce.

A colleague writes: “To me, John the Baptist has always seemed like the Doberman pinscher of the Gospel.” In the lectionary, John always appears right before Christmas, when no one’s defenses are up. Here we are, trying to get to Bethlehem….not hurrying….but maintaining a steady pace. Yet while still separated from the stable by several blocks….several dark blocks…. we hear this “GRRROW-ROW-ROWL.” And notice that a big old dog with a spiky collar has got us by the ankle. “Repent,” the big dog says, “for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” And before he lets go of our leg, our heads are pounding with images of “vipers, axes and unquenchable fire.” When all we wanted was to get to the church in time to sing “O Holy Night.”

Yet there is no getting around John. Every gospel writer introduces Jesus by introducing John. Which means that this Doberman is (in some way or another) God’s idea….and that this messenger may also be (in some way or another) God’s idea. John is like the guard dog who tests all who think they want to take the plunge by growling: “Are you ready to take the plunge?”

By “ready,” John means “repentant.” That’s John’s business. Repentance! Begging us to change our ways in preparation for an audience with God….and willing to scare us half to death (if that’s what it will take) to wake us up and see that we are sleepwalking through our lives, confusing our ways with God’s ways, while accumulating sin like an empty house accumulates dust. And, to the degree that we are willing, John says: “I’ll hose you down.” Meaning that if we come out of our comas long enough to see what is wrong….and say so out loud….then John will wash it all away.

The way most of us were taught it, repentance means owning up to how rotten we are, and saying out loud (if only in the shower) that we are selfish, sinful, deeply defective human beings who grieve the heart of God….and that we are very, very sorry about it.

But then Jesus comes along….in response to the same message (and the same messenger)….and says: “Baptize me.” To which John says: “Well, I never….I mean, I can’t….I mean, isn’t this somehow backwards?….I shouldn’t be baptizing you….You should be baptizing me.”

I mean, John was so sure….then. So certain….then. So clear about who Jesus was….then. “I am not even fit to shine your shoes….or lace them up,” John said to Jesus….then. Did you ever have your shoes shined at the airport? There you sit in that big, elevated chair (way up high)….so that down below, someone can go to work with brush and cloth, wax and paste. While you are up there, reading or sleeping, somebody is removing the crud through which you have walked, while shining the leather so that when you look at the ground, you can see your face.

I don’t know about you, but I never have my shoes shined at the airport. I can’t place myself in one of those seats so that the shiner can do his thing. I can take my shoes off and hand them to somebody for shining. But I can’t sit there, towering above them while they do it.

So John is saying to Jesus: “I am not worthy to shine your shoes, yet you come to me for baptism.” To which Jesus says, in effect: “Just do it.” That’s how sure John was then. About Jesus, I mean.

But then is not now….at least the “now” of Matthew 11. Months have passed. We are nowhere near a river. John is in jail. And he sends “his people” to see Jesus. I bet you didn’t know John had “people.” But he did. Even then, John was a big deal. John’s people come to Jesus with a question: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we wait for somebody else?”

What’s going on here? Where is the old John….the early John….the convinced and utterly certain John….who was there at the riverside saying: “I know who you are.” Why is John asking such a thing? Has his memory failed? Or did somebody get to John? Sure, something got to John. But it was not an individual. It was life. Which is what gets to us all from time to time.

John is in jail, remember. Put there by Herod. Not for preaching on street corners without a license. Not for entering rivers without showering. John is in jail for disapproving of Herod’s marriage to his brother’s wife….whose daughter will soon ask for John’s head on a platter (a silver platter) and get it. But if God’s Kingdom really was around the corner….and if Jesus really was the one to launch it (as John told everybody he would be)….why was he (John) in hotter water now than the water into which he pushed Jesus, just months earlier?

After all, the Messiah was supposed to change things. He was supposed to burn all the human trash of the world. He was supposed to take an ax to the dead wood of the world. He was supposed to take a gleaming pitchfork and separate the wheat from the chaff in the world. And he was supposed to clean the world up, so that men like Herod were no longer in power and men like John were no longer in prison. But he hadn’t. And, perhaps, couldn’t.

In a moving and brooding book (The Last Temptation of Christ), Nikos Kazantzakis paints a picture of Jesus and John that is hard to forget. They are sitting high above the Jordan, where they have been arguing (all night) about what to do with the world. John’s face is hard, and (from time to time) his arms go up and down as if he were actually chopping something. Jesus’ face (by contrast) is tame and hesitant….eyes full of compassion.

“Isn’t love enough?” he asks John.

“No,” John answers angrily. “The tree is rotten. God called me and gave me the ax, which I placed at the roots of the tree. Having done my duty, I now ask that you do yours. Take the ax and strike.”

To which Jesus responds: “If I were fire, I would burn. If I were a woodcutter, I would strike. But I am a heart, and so I love.”

Had such a conversation actually occurred, I am not certain how John might have taken it. Or how you might take it. For there are latter-day Baptists among us….even now….who once numbered ourselves among the certain, but now number ourselves among the disillusioned. Why? Because life has ground us down, that’s why. And the deliverer didn’t deliver….at least with the immediacy of the tooth fairy. I mean, when life kicks us in the teeth, she shows up with a quarter. That very night.

I don’t know where life may be defeating you this Advent. I don’t know how Jesus may be disappointing you this Advent. But I would suggest to you….this Advent….that any disillusionment you feel may not necessarily be a bad thing. For what is disillusionment if not, literally, the loss of an illusion? And, in the long run, it is never a bad thing to lose the lies we have mistaken for the truth.

            Did Jesus fail to come when you rubbed the lantern?  Then perhaps Jesus is not a genie.

            Did Jesus fail to punish your enemies?   Then perhaps Jesus is not a cop.

            Did Jesus fail to make everything run smoothly?  Then perhaps Jesus is not a mechanic.

Over and over again, our disappointments draw us deeper and deeper into who Jesus really is….and what Jesus really does.

* * * * *

“Are you the right guy,” John’s people ask, “or should we look for somebody else?” Which sounds like a “yes” or “no” question if I ever heard one. Except that Jesus, upon hearing it, answers neither “yes” nor “no.” Instead, he says: “Go and tell John what you see and hear.”

·         Blind people seeing.

·         Lame people walking.

·         Deaf people hearing.

·         Dead people reviving.

·         And poor people hearing news that, for a change, doesn’t depress the daylights out of them.

Which, you could say, is no proof of Messiahship that you ever heard. Unless, that is, you are blind….lame….deaf….poor….or dead. In which case, I think you’d probably be impressed. Maybe even convinced.

On a First Name Basis 10/31/199

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scripture:  I John 4:13-16, Romans 8:26-27, Galatians 5:22-26

Several years ago, I preached a sermon from this pulpit entitled “Confessions of a Reluctant Hugger.” In it, I identified a pair of competing needs that most of us have, naming them (for purposes of recall) “skin hunger” and “space hunger.” Simply put, there are times when we have a very strong need to be touched. And there are times when we need everyone to remain at arm’s length. Now comes anthropologist Edward T. Hall, with the results of his pioneering study on “The Effects of Distance in Relationships.” He suggests each of us operates in four zones, but may differ as to how comfortable we are in each.

The first is the “Public Zone.” This is the distance at which preachers, teachers and other lecturers stand in relation to their audience. The public zone is in effect when there is a distance of 12 feet (or more) between speaker and listener. Which explains why the front row (directly in front of the pulpit) is the hardest pew for ushers to fill….even when the sanctuary is crowded to the point of overflowing.

Next is the “Social Zone.” This is the distance we want to stand apart from each other in normal, small group conversation. Meetings and interviews occur in the social zone, where the comfortable distance ranges from 4 to 12 feet.

The “Personal Zone” is the distance we define when we come within normal touching range of another individual. This zone ranges from 18 inches (on the narrow side) to 4 feet (on the wide side). People often protect their personal zones by placing handbags, coats or other barriers between themselves and others. One problem with going to a college football game….especially at the University of Michigan….is that one’s personal zone is breached by total strangers, given the miniscule number of inches allocated to each $35 seat. And it also explains why some of you feel uncomfortable on Easter Sunday, when the ushers try to pile the maximum number of bodies into each and every pew. I am convinced that one reason some of you will do anything possible to maintain your seat on the aisle has nothing to do with your desire to make a quick exit, so much as your desire to keep at least one side free from “space invaders.”

Finally, we have the “Intimate Zone” which is the distance we use for embracing. Most of us allow no one but family members and very close friends into this zone. For most North Americans and Western Europeans, any invasion by strangers into the intimate zone causes irritation, anxiety or fear. We don’t like being crowded. And all of us know at least one individual who, quite uninvited, regularly violates our space.

In a similar vein, there are as many different degrees of “knowing” as there are of “touching.” We know someone by reputation. We know someone else by report. We know people through mutual acquaintances. Or by formal introduction. Sometimes we presume too much knowledge, saying, “Oh, I know you” or “Of course we know each other,” when what we mean is: “I think we were introduced at a wedding reception back in September (or was it October) of ’94.”

We know faces. We know names. And, if we’re lucky, we know which goes with which. We know family members, who we address with tender titles like “Mom,” “Dad,” “Sis” or “Grandpop.” And we know friends, who we feel comfortable calling by their first names, like “Ricky,” “Lucy,” “Fred” and “Ethel.” Yet there is often one who we know with an intimacy that exceeds all others, for it is a “knowing” that involves body as well as mind.

I think I was a fifth grade Sunday school student at old Westlawn Church in Detroit when the teacher read (from the book of Genesis): “And Adam knew Eve, his wife….” At which point Tommy Teeter elbowed me in the ribs and said (in a stage whisper, loud enough for all but the teacher to hear): “You know what that means, don’t you, Ritter?” Which I did. Except I didn’t want the teacher to know I did. And for years after that, any time a girl’s name would come up in conversation (and some guy would say that he knew her), someone else would be sure to add: “You mean in the biblical sense?” I suppose it was a good thing our Sunday school teachers never knew of our ability to twist and abuse God’s holy word in such spurious ways.

But, as you will note from our fall campaign literature (which is hanging from banners, printed on decals, and replicated in free-flowing script that will be increasingly hard to avoid before November 14), we are encouraged to “know the Spirit,” with the implication being that one is encouraged to “know” the Spirit in the biblical sense….as an intimate insider (rather than as an intellectual observer).

Whatever else this sermon is, it is not a theological treatment of the work of the Holy Spirit. I’ve done that. Neither is it an answer to the institutional question: “How do you measure a Spirit filled church?” I’ve done that, too. Instead, this is about the Spirit of God, alive in you…. living….breathing….supporting….sustaining….sighing….wrestling….goading….directing.

Which is something, I believe, that can be known and named. Some years ago, the United Methodist Church attempted to rally the troops around a campaign entitled “Catch the Spirit.” It had a nice ring to it. And it had a million dollar ad campaign underneath it. But it never really caught on. And I think I know why. It had nothing to do with the word “Spirit.” But it had everything to do with the word “catch.” For it implied that the Spirit was….in reference to the self….both elsewhere and external. The Spirit was either somewhere you weren’t, or something you weren’t. Meaning that you had to find it….snatch it….grab it….capture it. And failing to do any of the above, we had to drum it into you.

I have been to a lot of football games in my life where I felt downright sorry for the cheerleaders. I mean, there they were, dancing on their feet, windmilling their arms and screaming out their lungs. And there we were, sitting like “bleacher potatoes,” with our arms folded, tongues stilled and posteriors parked….glaring at them (as if to say): “Just try and make me feel it, or shout it.” To be sure, I’ve been in the bleachers when it all came together and we all came to our feet. But, more often than not, I’ve been there when it didn’t. And we didn’t.

As a kid, there were things I would have given my eye teeth to catch….like screaming line drives hit directly over my head. And there were things I would have given my eye teeth to avoid catching…. like the measles that were going around my school or the intestinal flu that was running through my family.

Is God’s Holy Spirit like that….something that I’ve got to run from when I don’t want it, or run toward when I do? If so, what would it take to catch it? Would a better glove help? A deeper net? A bigger basket? An antenna in my yard? A “dish” on my rooftop? My problem, you see, is with the word “catch.” It puts the Spirit in a dodging and elusive light….like a firefly, and me with a mason jar.

I know that scripture contributes to this perception….especially when Jesus says to Nicodemus (concerning the Spirit): “It’s hard to pin down, Nick. It blows where it will.” Which I take as a warning against locking in too early….with too much rigidity….on too much certainty. What Jesus was trying to do for Nicodemus was light a fire under an old man who was saying (in effect) that he’d seen it all, done it all, and knew it all. Where such is the case….as with many churches I know….the blowing of the Spirit can sometimes lead to “a whole lot of shakin’ goin’ on.”

But the more I read about the Holy Spirit, it would seem that the Spirit is not something to catch, so much as someone to know….intimately (as I said earlier), as “in the biblical sense.” Notice that I did not say “ecstatically” (although Pentecostals tend to read it that way). I said “intimately.” And don’t be afraid of that word. Let me remind you of what you just sang, mere moments ago.

            Teach me to love thee as thine angels love,

            One Holy passion filling all my frame,

            The kindling of the heaven-descended Dove,

            My heart an altar, and thy love the flame.

I don’t want to push this too far. Neither do I wish to precipitate a discussion of the Holy Spirit’s gender. But, throughout the history of the church, there have been those who have viewed the Holy Spirit as feminine….the softer “yin” to the Creator’s “yang.” I really don’t know about that. But, as a guy, it is sometimes tantalizing to think of the Holy Spirit as a female who has been a part of your life for a long time….seemingly forever….whose presence is always assumed, but seldom courted. The one who loved us, long before we ever thought to love her.

Now there’s a lot wrong with that metaphor, given that it won’t solve every puzzle or fit every life. But before you discard it outright, notice how many times the word “indwelling” appears with the word “Spirit”….as in “been there all along, doing whatever it takes, for as long as it takes.” To accomplish what? To create passion….and to establish a connection between creator and created (or between God and his own). As I John says: “By this, we know that we abide in God, and He in us, because he has given us of his own Spirit.” Which merely builds on what Paul said to the church in Rome (3:24) when he wrote: “When we cry Abba Father (“Abba” literally meaning “Daddy”), it is the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”

If there is any reason for God to be confident that He will one day have his way with us….and looking at it from my perspective, I can’t figure out why God didn’t go to be treated for depression years ago….God’s confidence (I think) rests solely in this. God has an agent working undercover….on the inside….who regards no case as hopeless, and no mission as impossible.

People sometimes say to me: “So you think there’s hope for me yet?” To which sheer honesty would lead me to answer: “By my reckoning, no.” But I never say that. Not simply because I am polite. But because things don’t rest on my reckoning. My evaluation is not the last word on your prospects. The elevator of my hope does not always go all the way to your basement. But God’s does. And when the doors open on the bottom floor, I think it is the Holy Spirit who gets on….not off. In fact, it is probably the Holy Spirit who called for the elevator in the first place. For the Spirit has been down there all along….doing subterranean work.

Don’t ask me to describe the work. Only you can do that. Sometimes the Holy Spirit works nights, moonlighting as a world class wrestler….Hulk Hogan in heavenly haberdashery. I have known people who the Holy Spirit has taken to the mat. And pinned….till they cried, “Uncle.” Or till they cried, “Bless me.” Or till they just plain cried. When you find yourself moved to tears about the plight of your life, the people of your life, or the pure unadulterated pleasure of your life, look for the Spirit.

I resonate to the image of the Holy Spirit as a world class wrestler. I was recently talking with a fellow who is trying to come to terms with the faith intellectually. He wants it to make sense in his head. But when he talks about religious ideas, his arms move. He looks like somebody who is sparring and circling….making and breaking wrestling holds. What’s that all about? Could it be the Spirit?

Sometimes the Spirit works days as a translator. A couple weeks back, an 83-year-old man called me up and asked me to come see him. He said he had something important to discuss with me. When I got to his room, he dismissed his caregiver. Then, without even a moment’s worth of small talk, he said: “Bill, I can’t pray. It’s all blocked up. I try, but nothing comes.” I didn’t comment on his imagery. I knew what he was saying. I asked him if he didn’t think God would look upon his sending for me as an act of prayerful longing. But that idea didn’t compute. So I reminded him of Paul’s word (again, to the Romans): “That the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For when we cannot pray as we want or ought, the Spirit steps in and sighs on our behalf, too deep for words.” Meaning that when you can’t even voice a prayer, the Spirit says: “I’ll take over and make some sounds that God will be able to understand.”

And sometimes the Spirit is like a cat burglar, casing the basement of your soul, having gained entry through the only window you forgot to lock before nightfall. Then the Spirit goes to work, nudging you toward something you need to do….someone you need to see….or some door you need to walk through.

One of the reasons I am in this line of work is because a bunch of elderly ladies (in my boyhood church) kept saying to me: “I bet you’re going to be a minister someday.” And the reason they kept saying that is because every time they were at the church, I was at the church. And they figured the only reason some kid would behave in such a delightful….albeit abnormal….way, is because God had fingered him. Early on. Eventually, I figured they knew something I didn’t.

But the first time I told this to the Board of Ministry examiners (that a bunch of little old ladies had called me to preach), fifty percent of the clergy at the table said: “That can’t be a call to ministry.” While the other fifty percent said: “Oh, yes it can.” So for the next several minutes, I simply sat back and let them go at each other. The bottom line is, I’m here. In part, because that old cat burglar of a Spirit found a weak point in my adolescent resistance….little old ladies.

I don’t know how it is for you. But if I get you alone in my office….and get you talking about what’s really going on in your life….we’ll find the Spirit’s disguise. And we’ll uncover the Spirit’s work. I just know we will. Then I’ll tell you to go with it….move with it….dance and swing with it….ebb and flow with it….anything but deny it….or sit on it. For, as our other campaign text says: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”

I suppose it is possible that, to some folks, at some times….especially when they are frenzied, frazzled and flying about with no focus, no anchor and no strength….the Spirit may indeed say: “There, there now. Calm down. Cool off. Take your ease. Make some tea. Settle and sit. Let go. Let somebody else. Let God.” Yes, the Spirit may say that. But I would be one surprised preacher if that were the last word the Spirit had to say. Really surprised if that would be the last word the Spirit had to say.

I remember reading about the Rolls Royce Company at the time they were said to make, without equivocation, the world’s best motor car. In that article, someone actually asked the president if any of his cars ever broke down. To which he replied: “My dear man, a Rolls Royce never breaks down….although it may temporarily fail to proceed.”

My friends, I think I know you well enough to know that few of you are broken down. But I also know you well enough to know that many of you are failing to proceed. About which there is relatively little I can do. Except to help you discern the Spirit in your life….by asking questions, issuing challenges, opening windows, opening wounds, and then giving you avenues by which to express whatever God is laying on your heart to do. For God’s work at Birmingham First is taking place in you. I’m just here to steer the ship. But I can’t begin to tell you where all the power is coming from.

A guy stopped by my office this Friday afternoon. He told me he had a joke for me. It concerned the pastor who stood before his congregation and said: “Concerning the fall campaign, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that this church has more money than it knows what to do with. The bad news is, it’s in your pockets.” To which I said: “So, what’s the joke?”

* * * * *

Know the Spirit. Keep the Promise.

Maybe I Do Live In A Fantasy World 6/27/1999

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scripture:  Romans 12: 1-2, 9-21

Under the general heading of“the older one gets, the faster time flies,” I would note that this morning begins my seventh year in this place….doing this thing….in the midst of this congregation….and in the service of this Lord.  Not a long time by some standards (given that my four immediate predecessors all hung around for a decade or more.)  But given the turn-over rate nationally (for Methodist preachers and others of note), seven ought to count for something.  My Presbyterian colleague next door arrived one month before I did.  And he announced, just last week, that he is moving on. 

Major league baseball….which loves statistics….now has a new category of“ stats” to measure and record.  It’s called “quality starts.”  A quality start is any time a starting pitcher finishes six innings and yields three runs or less.  The implication being that lasting into the seventh inning is unusual, bordering on the exceptional.  Friday night, Brian Moeller went nine innings for the Tigers.  And that was the first time it had happened all season.

My friends in the school business tell me that both superintendencies and college presidencies tend to be shorter than they have ever been in history….3-5 years, on average.  Meaning that wanting such jobs is one thing, getting them is a second thing, but keeping them is a third (and infinitely harder) thing.  What’s more, it is now widely assumed that five years is all you can expect out of a television sit-com, given thatstory lines tend to go stale after the 100th episode.  And sit-coms have entire teams of writers….who only need to create 22 minutes of material, for a mere 26 episodes per year.  Pulpits are the only places where re-runs are frowned upon….if not outright prohibited. 

So I feel grateful for this opportunity….for this venue….and for this collegiality of effort we call ministry at First Church.

            Of a preacher….you ask agreat deal.

            To a preacher….you offer a great deal.

            With a preacher….you accomplish a great deal.

But enough mutual back-patting.  On with it.  Or, as we should say on “Elevator Dedication Sunday” …. up with it!

Let me begin with a recent conversation.  It occurred at one of those events where, because the dinner was overly-long in coming, the guests were overly-long in mingling.  You understand that.  You’ve been there.

Which is how it came to pass that Kris and I spent the major slice of an hour with a government official from a neighboring Oakland County community.  Being from Birmingham, we got to talking about house size, lot size, land-use permits, deed restrictions, and related matters of development.  In response to which, the official shared a number of horror stories about local citizens fighting over this, violating that, abusing something else, claiming exemptions and demanding exceptions….all in the name of special needs, special problems or special interests.

To which I said: “Doesn’t anybody ever say (after reviewing such matters with you):     

              Yes, this is what I want to do.  But I see (now that you have pointed it out to me)

            that what I want to do is not necessarily in keeping with my neighbor’s needs, the

            city’s needs or the environment’s needs.  So I’llgo back to the drawing board

            and see if I can come up with something more mutually agreeable .”

In response to which, she gave me a most incredulous look….followed by an equally incredulous laugh….as she said: “Reverend, you must live in some kind of fantasy world.”

Well, no and yes.  No, I don’t like to think so. Yes, I probably do.  Let’s start with my “No.” 

Two weeks ago….in my baccalaureate sermon….I bristled at any suggestion that high school students and Methodist preachers are not yet members of the “real world.”  As concerns the high school kids, I would contend that their world is as “real” as it gets.  But so is mine.  As a card-carrying member of the Preacher’s Union,  I am here to tell you that, like everyone else, my taxes come due….my bills pile up….my car breaks down….my body gets old….food still spoils in my refrigerator….worry still festers in my heart….streets are no safer for me, than for anybody….and eventually (if not permanently) death will come creepin’ ‘roun’  my door.

And all of us preachers know that the churches we serve are not havens of innocence.  Like the ark that once carried the future of each species to the higher, dryer land of God, the church….once it gets two or three days out to sea….tends to smell as it sails.  I do not know a preacher who, if he or she set out to chronicle the horrible things that sometimes happen in churches, could not fill a book.  Or a library. 

Which is not because churches have grown worse over time.  We were never innocent.  And we always smelled.  Every once in a while I hear someone say: “Oh, if we could only get back to the purity of the first century church.”  As if the church, fifty years out from Jesus, was the New Testament’s institutional equivalent of the Garden of Eden.  To such suggestions, I find myself wanting to say: “Hello….what Bible have you been reading?”  When I read the book of Acts….the letters of Paul….the Pastoral Epistles….the advice offered to the seven Asia Minor churches in the Book of Revelation….it makes this congregation look like a poster child for ecclesiasticalpurity and perfection. 

Go read the stuff in the Bible.  You want to see church fights?  I’ll show you church fights.  You want to see harassed preachers?  I’ll show you harassed preachers.  You want to see people welching on their vows….holding back their money….selling out their faith….putting down their neighbors….ignoring the widows and orphans….rushing to the front of the food line so they can pile their plates high with all the good stuff (before it runs out)….getting sloshed on communion wine….or heading for the parking lot saying: “That’s it.  I’m outta here.” at the slightest provocation?  I’ll show you that stuff,  too.   It’s all in there.  Because it’s all in us.  That’s why it’s in there.

And while we preachers have long since surrendered the notion that the church is innocent, we know that (as individual church members)  you are far from innocent either.  Even though (at the outset) you tend not to cuss in front of us, spit in front of us, drink, smoke or chew in front of us, or show your moral and spiritual warts in front of us.  But you can’t keep it up.  Sooner or later, we preachers are going to see it all, hear it all, and learn it all.  At least if we’re any good, we are.  Because, at some point, you will have little choice but to pick even your most carefully-covered scabs in our presence.  And we, in yours.  Even if we emulate the Jews and cover our heads out of respect for all that is holy, whatever (pray tell) will we do with our feet....which are perpetually dirty....given that they are made of clay.

No, my dear local government official, I don’t live in a fantasy world.  I have seen it all.  I once conducted a funeral for several severed parts of a body, stuffed in plastic bags and thrown in a dumpster.  Twice I have counseled men charged with criminal sexual offences against minor children.  Daily I rub up against reminders that (although the spirit be willing), the flesh is incredibly weak.  There is no protection from the “real world” inmy world.  The secret is to last this long without letting it get to you.

But the paradox of it is….the life-giving, career-saving, faith-restoring paradox of it is….that my world is different.  And by “different”, I mean “better.”  So much better, that it sometimes seems fantasy-like.

I want to tell you when I learned that.  I learned that a dozen years ago when I served a couple of terms as president of a Homeowners Association….up north….where I sometimes hang out, when I’m not hanging out here.  We have a cluster of homes in our little community.  Some of them face Grand Traverse Bay.  Others face a harbor, dredged out of Grand Traverse Bay.  In the early years, it was difficult for the Bay people and the Harbor People to be friends.  We were like the farmers and the cowboys of the stage musical “Oklahoma.”  Our interests were different.  Our needs were different.  And, more to the point, the costs of meeting our interests and needs were different.  The first Association meeting I ever attended (as a new homeowner) was brutal.  The president was being skewered and eaten alive, without benefit of being barbequed and marinated first.  And he was the new president.

Late in the meeting, I voiced a moderate….and (to some) a logical….way out of a dilemma.  Whereupon,  I because the next president.  They knew I was a preacher.  They knew I didn’t know anything about dredge contracts, aquatic weed maintenance, mosquito control, or dealing with the Army Corps of Engineers.  But they figured people might not yell so loud if they were yelling at a preacher.  And they might not yell so often, if that preacher lived 240 miles away.

All told, my two years went pretty well.  But I learned something from the experience.  I learned that most people show up at a property owner’smeeting to protect their interests….and their investments.  They want to make sure that if anybody gets anything, they will get theirs.  And they want to make certain that nothing close to their hearts will get diminished, devalued, or destroyed in the process.  They will yield to “the good of the organization,” as long as there is personal benefit in it for them.  And they will lend an occasional hand at a community project, so long as you ask softly, make no assumptions, accept all excuses and don’t go back to the same well too many times in a row.

Once I understood this, I led quite effectively.  But I first had to rid myself of any misguided notion that a collection of homeowners resemble….in any way, shape or form…the church of Jesus Christ.

o be sure, churches are sometimes myopic, naval-gazing and self-serving.  But not all the time.  And, here, not even much of the time.  Churches realize, when they stop to think about it, that theirs is a different agenda.  It is an agenda that includes opening more doors than they close, holding more hands than they clench, giving more money than they hoard, and existing (both evangelically and missionally) to serve a bunch of people who aren’teven on the scene. I have yet to serve a church that didn’t understand (at some level of its being) that sacrifice was a part of its charter, and the only way it was going to have a life (institutionally) was to lose its life for Jesus and the Kingdom.  To someone outside the church, that language is gobbledygook.  To someone inside the church, that language is second nature.

I ama part of some wonderful non-church organizations.  I joined one of them because….like First Church….they have four openings for clergy.  It’s a place with a lovely dining room, some very nice public rooms, a six-lane baptismal font and an incredible lawn on which to play.  What’s more, they are incredibly attentive to my needs over there.  Every couple of months they want to know if I am happy….if they are doing enough for me….if there’s any new amenity which they could offer me.  I mean, they couldn’t be nicer.  They know my name.  They know my wife’s name.  They even know my car’s name (and color.)    Every time I arrive, they say things like: “How are you doing today, Dr. Ritter….great to see you, Dr. Ritter….gee you’re looking good, Dr. Ritter.”  All they ask is that,  if I play with my ball on their lawn, I do it in four hours or less.  Plus, they don’t want me to wear blue jeans.  I can wear pink and green checkered pants.  But I can’t wear jeans.  That’s all they ask.  That….and a monthly check. 

But my instinct tells me that a steady diet of organizations catering primarily to me, probably isn’t all that good for me.  Which brings me back to the church, don’t you see.  Here, we ask all kinds of amazing things….along with your check.  We ask for your time.  We ask for yourtalent.  We   ask for your prayers.  We ask that you teach, work, sing and serve.  We ask that you turn a second cheek, offer a second garment, travel a second mile and forgive a second time.  We ask that you feed hungry people, visit lonely people, comfort sick and dying people, and prop up physically and emotionally lame people.  We ask that you fan out in the world and (as I said last week) rub up against people in ways that make a difference.  And we even ask you to volunteer for crosses....not just bearthem.

And the amazing thing is that you do.  So we escalate our expectations, to the point of asking patently ridiculous things like prayers for those who persecute you and mercy for those whoabuse you.  And, miracle of miracles, you occasionally do that, too.

Barbara Brown Taylor recently wrote of her nephew Will’s first birthday party.  At that point in his life, he was round and bald as a Buddha, still hovering on the verge of speech.  As an only child, he was accustomed to being the center of attention.  He wasn’t really spoiled, in that he had not yet learned to manipulate the love of others for his own ends.  But he was comfortable in the fact that people seemed to like him for who he was.  Which is why he felt quite open and free to love them back.

It was a good party.  Just a handful of family….along with his Godparents and their seven-year-old son Jason.  Along with cake….of course.  Presents….of course.  Singing….of course.   And then Will doing a little one-year-old dance (kind of a twirl, really) which everyone decided to admire and imitate….of course. 

Which was when Jason finally had all he could take.  So he charged Will in mid-dance, pushing him down to the floor….which Will hit, first with his rear-end, then with his head.  Crack!  Will looked utterly surprised at first.  After all, no one had ever hurt him before, and he didn’t quite know what to make of it.  Then he commenced to howl.  But not for long.  His mother reached for him, cradled him, hugged him and kissed his head better.  But he didn’t stay with his mother very long.  Instead, he tottered back over to Jason.  He knew that whatever had happened, Jason was at the bottom of it.  But since no one had ever been mean to him before, he didn’t know what “it” was.  So he did what he had always done.  He put his arms around Jason and lay his head lovingly against that mean little boy’s body.

And the very fact that you can understand that instinct (and its appropriateness to the Gospel)…. even if you can’t always emulate it….means that you do have a small tent pitched in a world that is not quite like the “real world,”  and maybe (if I can be mildly arrogant about it) better than the “real world.”  

I am talking about a world where people do, occasionally, “put on Christ”….who, as I remember it, once took on all the meanness of the world and ran it through the filter of his own body.  And then said: “What you have seen in me, do.” 

There are those out there who would call that world,  “madness.”  There are those out there who would call that world , “frivolous.”  And there are those out there who would call that world,  “fantasy.”  But there are those in here who call that world , “home”….because it just seems to fit, don’t you know.  It just seems to fit. 

The Theology of Baseball 9/26/1999

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scripture: John 4:1-30

It has struck me, during this season-long farewell to that venerable old relic at Michigan and Trumbull….which we have begun referring to (in hushed and holy tones) as “The Corner”….that our nostalgia has less to do with architecture or athleticism than with relatives and remembered relationships. I love baseball. My father loved it before me. His father loved it before him. And I have now lived long enough to transmit the disease to both my children.

My father lived just long enough to see ball players become prima donnas and crybabies. Those are not my words, but his. Whenever he would hear of a player failing to give his all, surrendering to a minor injury, or holding out for a bigger contract, he would become extremely irritated. At some point in his irritation he would exclaim: “Doesn’t that so and so know that I would give my right arm to be able to play in the major leagues?” (Let the record show that I cleaned up what my father really said.)

I once pointed out to my dad that he would be better off if he offered something other than his right arm in trade. There has been but one major leaguer in the history of baseball who played the game with one arm. (In fact, I will give a dollar to the first person who can tell me his name, following the service.) But my attempt at humor was lost on my father, who would look at me kind of “weird-like” and then mumble: “Oh, you know what I mean.” And I did….know what he meant, that is. It meant that he loved the game and would have given anything to be able to play it passably.

I suppose that only a baseball lover’s daughter would fly in from Atlanta to see tomorrow’s finale with her old man. And I suppose that only a fanatic like her old man would dare stand before you with a sermon entitled “The Theology of Baseball.” Some of you have questioned my sanity. Others, my seriousness. To you I would say: “Hear me out.” Then, decide for yourselves if I be either, neither or both….“sane” or “serious,” I mean.

Does baseball have a theology? Not implicitly! Does baseball reflect a certain theology? I think so! Was Abner Doubleday a theologian? No, he was a general in the Army! But he invented a game which dramatizes a very human predicament, namely, the predicament of trying to measure up to a demanding standard of perfection, and always falling short. Sometimes, far short.

The Apostle Paul talked a lot about what a burden it was to live with standards of perfection that were impossible to meet. To Paul, those standards were symbolized by what he called “the Law.” And Paul said that sometimes the Law can be like a curse, forever reminding you of how poorly you’re doing.

Well, baseball is a lot like that. Baseball is fascinated with measuring things against impossible standards. Baseball is a game of numbers. Everything is counted and written down somewhere. You can open the Sport’s Section in the Free Press, and you can read (with good glasses) an entire page of baseball numbers. You can read how your team did last night, Friday night, and the night before that. You can read how your team did over the last ten games. You can read how your team did over the course of an entire season. Those same numbers will tell you how every player in baseball is doing. RBI’s. ERA’s. Batting averages. Fielding percentages. Everything is measured.

What’s more, you can tell how each player stands in relationship to every other player….those who play on the same team….those who play on different teams….those who play the same position. In fact, you can go to the bookstore and find an encyclopedia that will enable you to compare your favorite present-day player with every other player who ever donned a uniform. I don’t think there is any other field of endeavor where an individual’s contribution is so accurately calculated and recorded.

As if that weren’t enough, that record is available for the entire world to see. Your batting average is printed every day, announced over the radio, and flashed in bright lights on the stadium scoreboard. It is even carried out to three decimal points. They don’t say: “He hits pretty good.” None of that vague, imprecise stuff. They say: “He hits .286.” They even know if he hits right handers better than left handers, whether he hits better in May or September, whether he hits better on grass or astroturf, whether he hits better by day or by night, whether he performs better in the clutch or only when there is no one on base.

You can’t fake it. It’s all in the book. But do you know what is so amazing about this? Nobody’s record is very good. Consider the hitters. The very best ones are lucky to get three hits out of ten tries. Measure that against your job. If you delivered three times out of ten, you’d be out on your ear. If I preached three good sermons out of ten, I’d be out on my ear. But if you go three for ten in baseball, they give you three or four million dollars. And if you do it several years in a row, they put you in the Hall of Fame.

Consider the late Mickey Mantle. I remember seeing Mantle play. In fact, I saw some of the longest balls Mantle ever hit. I was eleven years old when Mickey came up to the Yankees. And I was a married man with a child of my own when Mickey Mantle reached the seats off Denny McLain, late one September afternoon, and bid farewell (forever) to the people of Detroit. Now Mickey Mantle’s dead, Denny McLain is jailed, and I (alone) am left to tell you what Bill Freehan once acknowledged to me, that Mantle knew what pitch was coming on the day of his final blast into the upper deck. Which was one of life’s nicer gestures, don’t you think, given that the Tigers had clinched the pennant against the Yankees, just the night before.

I have to tell you that, in his earlier days, Mickey Mantle never impressed me as being one of the great intellects of the world. But, as my German grandfather used to say: “He got late, smart.”  In fact, the mature Mantle was well worth listening to on a variety of subjects, ranging from baseball to life in general.

One day, Mickey Mantle was reminiscing about his career. He recalled that he had struck out 1,710 times. He also recalled that he had walked 1,734 times. That’s 3,444 times up to bat without ever hitting the ball. Think about that for a minute. You figure that a healthy, full-time player goes to bat about 500 times a season. Divide 500 into 3,444. “And,” says Mantle, “you can quickly see that I played seven years without ever hitting the ball.”

Nobody’s record is very good when measured against the absolute standard of 1.000. A good bowler can be 75 percent effective much of the time. But even a great baseball player can’t come anywhere near that.

The first time I ever put any of these thoughts together, the Tigers were known for their woeful inability to hit left handers. They still can’t hit left handers. But, in that year, they went out and hired themselves an antidote….a lethal right-handed bat which came attached to a third baseman named Bill Madlock. Madlock supposedly feasted on left handers. But on the morning I first preached these sentiments, Madlock’s average was .219. What’s more, in the week just previous, he had gone 0 for 21. In baseball lingo, that’s a week worth of failure. You can look it up.

* * * * *

What we’ve got here is one side of a predicament. A very tough side. You’ve got a very high and lofty standard. You’ve got a very measured game. And you’ve got the fact that when measured against the standard, nobody’s very good. But you can also say that baseball has a tender side…. a softer side….a side that faces failure, even as it hints of grace.

In other times and places, I have quoted the poet Ugo Betti. Betti writes: “To believe in God is to believe that all the rules will be fair and that, in the end, there may be wonderful surprises.” Well, I’ve given that a lot of thought. And I haven’t figured out if I completely believe it. But a friend of mine says: “Test it out on baseball before you apply it to life.”

In baseball, the rules are eminently fair, probably fairer than in life itself. Everybody has an opportunity to bat. Everybody gets the same number of balls and strikes. Over the course of a season, most injustices will be corrected and most breaks will even out. What’s more, baseball’s fairness is accentuated by the lack of a clock. In baseball, you do not run out of time. On most days, unless it rains, you get your full complement of innings. As baseball’s resident theologian, Yogi Berra, was once heard to remark: “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”

Now everybody thinks that’s funny. It is. But it’s also a brilliant insight. In games such as football or basketball, sometimes it is over before it’s over, in the sense that if there had been a bit more time, it might have all turned out differently.

Real life is less fair than baseball. One of the sad facts about real life is that, for some, it is over before it’s over. The next time you say about someone, that he or she died before their time, or that they got cheated out of their innings, you’ll know what it means to have it be over before it’s over. But not in baseball. Baseball has no clock. The game goes on until everybody has had a fair chance at winning or, at least, playing heroically. Think of what a wonderful world it would be, and how much closer to God’s will and intention, if the rules were always the same for all, where everyone had more or less an ample opportunity, and where it wasn’t over until it was over.

And think of how wonderful it would be if we could be certain that “the end would contain some marvelous surprises.” I think this means that there will always be a chance for wonderful endings, wherein what isn’t supposed to happen may still happen. Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, you haven’t. Just when you think that nothing can happen, it does. Just when you master the law of averages, somebody breaks it. The poet is talking about a world in which there is always room for mystery and surprise.

Which brings me to Bob Brenly. You probably never heard of Bob. But he’s a recently retired ball player. His last team was the Giants. They’re in San Francisco now (just in case you missed their move from New York, back in the 50s). Bob Brenly was a catcher. But, for some strange reason, the Giants occasionally played him at third base. He played third base….like a catcher. One day he set a record with four errors in one game. Then, in his final time at bat….in the ninth inning….he hit a home run and the Giants won, 7-6.

That’s grace. Grace means that you’ll always have another chance. It doesn’t mean that grace will erase your errors. Just as it doesn’t mean that grace will erase your sins. But it does give you a chance to play over them. “It’s not over ‘til it’s over.” “There is always room for marvelous surprises.”

Consider the Samaritan woman. I’ve preached her story before. Obviously, I like it. There’s so much in it. A preacher can do so much with it. Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well. Right away, we know that something unusual is going on. A devout Jew….a devout male Jew….would not customarily have this kind of dealing with a woman (an issue of gender) or a Samaritan (an issue of race). He asks her for a drink. She says, “What have you to do with me?” That’s a key question. Don’t lose it. Then they talk for awhile about two different kinds of water (“wet your whistle” water versus “quench your thirst” water).

Suddenly the conversation changes from water to husbands. “Go call your husband,” says Jesus. To which she says: “I have no husband.” And Jesus says: “I know.” In fact, Jesus goes on to tell her that she’s gone through five husbands, and is currently living with another guy without benefit of clergy. I think you could say this lady has had a “checkered” past. Jewish law allowed for no divorce. She has had five husbands. She has struck out five times. She is about to strike out again.

Jesus knows all this. I’ve always wondered how he knew it. Did someone tell him? Or did it show? Perhaps it showed in her face….in her eyes….in her shoulders. Is it possible that it shows in us, I mean the way we’ve lived our lives?

Anyway, he knows. He knows it all. Five strikeouts. A sixth in the making. Then it dawns on her, just who he may be. So she asks: “You aren’t by any chance the Messiah, are you?” And he says: “You better believe it, sweetheart.”

At this point, she should be terrified. She is in the presence the “The Standard.” She is talking to the One who is expected to judge the world, condemning sinners, rewarding the righteous. It is enough that she is striking out. But she is striking out in the presence of One who could be called, “The Keeper of the Scoreboard.”

But what she ends up with is the feeling that she has been given another chance. It’s a story about grace. It ain’t over ‘til it’s over. And at the end, there may be marvelous surprises. In her day, she figured to be condemned by the rules. Mess up and you’re out. Strike out and you sit down. Boot four in one game and you sit down. Spell the word incorrectly and you sit down. Go through five husbands and you sit down. It’s over.

But it’s not. Nothing is finished until God gets through with it. No one is finished until God gets through with them.

Which brings me to Dwight Gooden. At this writing, Dwight is more or less in the twilight of his career. He pitches for the Indians. The Cleveland Indians. The World-Series-bound Cleveland Indians. Before that he pitched for the Yankees. But his first major league team was the Mets. He was in the major leagues at 18. He won 24 games his first full year. He struck out everybody in sight. He could throw a fast ball clocked at nearly 100 mph. In three short years, his salary shot up to the then-lofty heights of $1.5 million per year. At 22 years old, with a limitless future in front of him, he ended up in a Manhattan treatment center trying to lick a cocaine addiction….his first treatment center.

Before all of Dwight Gooden’s troubles became public, Bob Feller was asked to comment on this young man’s amazing talent. What Feller said is incredible: “Give him a chance to mess up his life, and then we’ll see how good he is.”

Well, that’s one of the chances we get, isn’t it? The chance to mess up our life. Some of us make little messes. Some of us make bigger messes. Some of us get dirty in the messes that other people make. And Feller’s comment recognizes that the measure of a person is the way they come back. How do they pull themselves out of the mess? “Give him a chance to mess up his life, and we’ll find out how good he is.”

But grace says something else. Something more. “Give him a chance to mess up his life, and we’ll find how good God is.”

            Four errors.

            Five husbands.

            1,700 strikeouts.

            0 for 21.

            28 days in a rehab center….repeated multiple times.

                        It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.

                        Keep your eye pealed for surprises.

                        And here’s to you, Denny McLain, Jesus loves you more than you will know.

Note:  Let the record show that Mark Trotter (who roots for the Padres in San Diego when he isn’t preaching for the United Methodist church in Mission Valley) first suggested the possibility that baseball had an underlying theology. Let the record further show that the very first person who correctly identified a one-armed outfielder named Pete Gray of the St. Louis Browns, was none other than Colin Kaline, Al’s grandson. Colin received a dollar at the first service. Subsequent winners at 9:30 and 11:00 were David Vandegrift and Skip Neilson. And let it be noted that this entire exercise was inspired by the closing of Tiger Stadium and the final game which was played on the Monday following the preaching of this sermon.