The Theology of Baseball

Romans 3:20-26

Baseball is a great game, one of the greatest!  From neighborhood pick-up games to playing catch with my dad in the backyard; from gym class in school to several years of Little League to watching the Rangers finally make it to the World Series, baseball is a part of the fabric of our lives. 

I have always loved baseball.  There’s a spirit that draws me in.  When I go to a baseball game, I love to get there early during batting practice.  I love walking through the tunnel that opens up into these massive stadiums built like cathedrals.  There’s the smell of the grass, the anticipation hanging on every pitch, the sound of the ball in the catcher’s mitt, the crack of the bat echoing through the stands, and the cheers of the hometown fans. 

Sounds perfect, doesn’t it? 

In short, our culture views baseball right up there with apple pie and Norman Rockwell paintings as a part of Americana, the ideal America, a place of perfection and standing for all that is good in our country.  In baseball, players strive to be perfect and are measured against the legendary figures who have gone before.  Perfection is not easily ascertained.

In our scripture passage this morning, Paul is writing in an attempt to answer the question, “How are we made right with God?”  Before Jesus came along, the relationship between God and God’s people was through the Law of Moses.  The purpose of the law was to show us that we are not perfect.  Under the law, we become aware of our shortcomings, our inadequacies and our imperfections.  Under the law, we are made aware of our failure to achieve what is required in the law.  Under the law, we miss the mark.  Unless I’ve missed my guess, there is someone here today who is trying to be perfect and continually misses the mark.  Is there someone here today who has lived with or grown up with the expectation of perfection and felt like a failure and a disappointment because of it?

The game of baseball has two theological lessons for us: humans are not perfect and we are saved by the grace of God.  First lesson: we fall short of the glory of perfection.  In other sports, you can at least get close to, if not achieve perfection.  Bowling, for example, is one sport where it is fairly common for an avid bowler to earn a perfect score of 300.  In golf, the standard is clear: shooting par.  But there are many who are able to do better than par; many shoot under par with birdies and eagles on a regular basis.  In football, successful quarterbacks like Eli Manning or Drew Brees will complete in a typical season 60% - 70% of their passes and throw twice as many touchdowns as interceptions.  In basketball, you can shoot 55% from the field and 80% from the line and be successful superstar.

Baseball is different in that a player who fails to get a hit 70% of the time is considered one of the game’s greatest heroes, a Hall of Famer.  To put it another way, a batter who gets a hit 30% of the time is in the running to be the batting champion that year.  Three out of ten…Far from perfect; far from getting a passing grade on an exam in school; far from earning the big raise or the big promotion at work.  Three out of ten and you are a hero, an icon, a superstar, a Hall of famer in the sport of baseball.

One of my sports heroes growing up was Reggie Jackson.  Nicknamed “Mr. October”, Reggie had a knack for the dramatic.  Nobody was more consistent in World Series hitting than Reggie Jackson.  He hit 563 career home runs (HR) with 1702 runs batted in (RBI).  He was the World Series Most Valuable Player in 1973 and 1977, the American League Most Valuable Player in 1973, the American League Home Run Champion in 1973, 1975, 1980, and 1982.  Reggie was enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1993 in his first year of eligibility.  But did you know he also set the American League record for the most errors in one game (5).  In his career, Reggie struck out 2,597 times, more than any other player in baseball history.  His twenty-one year career batting average was .262.  Reggie was far from perfect.

There is no way we can make the mark on our own.  So following the law, striving under our own strength and smarts to meet all its requirements and perfect standards, does not bring us into a close relationship with God.  We are left separated from God. 

In baseball, all fall short of the glory of perfection.  That’s the bad news.  The good news is lesson #2: we’re saved by the amazing grace of God.  Paul writes, “they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”  To be justified is to be made whole, to be made perfect in the eyes of God, to be reconciled to God by His grace.  Jesus came to tell us how much God loves us no matter how bad or sinful we may be.  And even though we are sinners, we are still dear to God.  Our sins are wiped clean.  We are acquitted of all wrongdoing, our sins have been atoned for, and we are freed and liberated from sin through the incredible and miraculous grace that Jesus came to bring.  And when we begin to really discover what this means for us, it changes everything.  It transforms our whole relationship with God and one another.  We are brought into a right relationship with God when we believe this and accept it as truth. 

In baseball as in life, the grand, heroic efforts we make often don’t add up to much, while our everyday, average, ordinary efforts are the ones that sometimes save and redeem us.

When I think back to my teenage years, I remember how important it was to be perfect and accepted.  Part of that acceptance, I thought, came from wearing the right clothes and the right shoes.  I had a pair of Nike leather sneakers that were completely white, even the swoosh trademark.  I begged and begged my mom for these thick maroon and grey shoe laces that were very popular for guys to wear.  I finally got ‘em and I knew that I was going to fit in perfectly with my friends and not look like a dork.  I laced up my shoes with my new laces, but since these weren’t the ones you could tie, I had the worst time keeping my shoes on my feet when I walked.  No matter what I did with the laces, I couldn’t quite get them right.  In gym class, every time I kicked the ball my shoe would go flying across the gym.  I almost lost a shoe when I was running to catch the bus.  I barely made it!  All this trouble and drama just to fit in and not look like a dork was becoming more and more stressful and annoying: I just wanted to be perfect.  I wanted to be perfect in the eyes of my peers and still be able to wear sneakers that stay on my feet!  I went through a whole lot of trouble trying to get the perfect look.  I later realized that I just had to be my ordinary self, the one God created at the beginning of time, relying on the grace of God.

In his book, “Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith”, Pastor Rob Bell writes about grappling with issues, such as perfection and acceptance, that had negative affects on his ministry.  One of them was the need to be perfect and gain the acceptance of others, mainly his congregation.  Despite the success of his ministry and the growth of the church he served, he felt empty and dried up inside.  His soul was parched.  He came to realize that no amount of success can heal a person’s soul and that success doesn’t fix anything.  He began to ask himself, “Why is that person’s approval so important to me?  Why do I find it so hard to say no?”  Yes, he believed in Jesus as his Lord and Savior and, yes, he considered himself “redeemed” and “reborn”, but there were areas of his life that were unaffected by his faith in Jesus.  These areas needed to be healed by the hand of Jesus, for he discovered in his efforts to seek approval from others that he tried to measure up to the image in his head of the perfect person, the perfect pastor.  He thought he had to be a “Super Pastor”: always available, accomplishes great things, always has time to stop and talk, visits everyone in the hospital, loves attending meetings and spends hours studying and praying and yet can be interrupted if you need something…and always puts their family first before everything! 

Through a lot of searching, Rob gained this profound insight: we are not defined by what we are not.  We are not defined by what we are not.  We are not defined by the seven hitless at-bats, but rather the three at-bats that were base hits.  We are accepted and loved by God for who we are, for who he created us to be, despite our sins, faults, shortcomings.  There is nothing we can do to earn God’s acceptance or His love to be perfect and blameless in his eyes.  It is by the amazing grace of God in Jesus Christ that we are made perfect, made complete in the eyes of God, reconciled to God by His grace, and able to be in a right relationship with Him. 

I believe when we accept Jesus Christ into our whole life, we stop living in reaction to everything around us and begin to let a vision for what lies ahead pull us forward.  When we accept Jesus Christ into our whole life, we stop worrying about winning and losing and instead focus on how we play the game.  We stop depending on other people to make us happy and give us self-worth and instead draw strength and confidence for living from God’s Word and prayer.  We stop trying to please everybody all the time and instead strive to honor God in Christ Jesus through study, worship, service and fellowship.  We stop trying to do things on our own and fully rely on God for everything we are and will become.  We stop worrying about how many members we have in our church and instead focus our attention on growing in the spirit, on our relationship with God, both as individuals and as members of this community of faith.  We enter into a perfect, complete relationship with God not through the law and not through works.  Rather it is through two precious gifts from God: faith and grace.

In baseball, getting a hit 30% of the time is not perfect, but it will make you a superstar!  A baseball player can get three hits for every ten at-bats and be inducted into the Hall of Fame.  We, too, are not perfect, but by the grace of God alone we are made complete and inducted into God’s Hall of Fame.