E-mail Sermon April 20, 2008 - "Choosing Up Sides"

Willapa United Methodist Church

When I was growing up just outside of Philadelphia, I was constantly playing some form of baseball. It might be real baseball down at the playground or with my Little League team, or it might be wiffle ball out in front of the house, or it might be stick ball in the street. We often played until it was too dark to see the ball. There were no trophies to win, no prize money, not even bragging rights – we played for the love of the game. To give you an idea of how much I loved the game, I spray-painted a home plate on our driveway, and we broke the windows in our garage door so often that my dad replaced them with plexiglass.

If there were more than two of us, and there usually was, we would choose up sides. Sometimes we rotated team mates, sometimes we had little leagues set up, but most often we just chose sides for the game we were about to play. Choosing up sides was so important that a formal process had been established. 

One team captain would toss a bat to other team captain, who caught the bat with one hand; knob end up, barrel of the bat down. Then the two captains would alternate placing their hands on top of each other until the knob of the bat was reached. The captains could use two fingers or their whole fist to encircle the bat handle. The objective was to be the one holding the knob of the bat in such a way that there was no room for the other person to grip the bat above your hand. The only rules were the hands had to be touching and the captain left holding the knob had to be able to hold on to the bat when the other captain kicked it. You see, the captain with his or her hand on top got to choose first unless the other captain was able to kick the bat out of their hand. We will now demonstrate…except for the kicking part.

Please pray with me. May the words of our mouths, the meditations of our hearts, and the conduct of our lives, be always acceptable to you, O God, our strength and our blessed redeemer. Amen.

In our text for this morning, Peter is trying to encourage small isolated Christian churches in Asia Minor, the place we call Turkey today, who are being persecuted just for being Christians. Any good coach or leader will tell you that a team needs to have a sense of who they are, a sense of identity that draws them together. Even in Little League, identity was important. In the fifty’s and sixty’s Little League teams named after the Yankees and the Cardinals always seemed to be more successful than teams named after the Indians and the Phillies. Drawing on language from the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, Peter identifies these Christians as worthy successors to God’s original chosen people, the Israelites. He identifies them as winners.

Listen again to verses 4 through 8 and picture Simon, the man who, in spite of his many flaws, Jesus chose to build his church upon. Picture Simon, the man that Jesus renamed Peter, which means “rock”, writing these words of hope, and recalling how many times he himself had stumbled and fallen, only to find Jesus’ nail-scarred hand reaching down to pick him up. I imagine that the images of the cornerstone and the stumbling block had very special personal meaning for Peter, the Rock.

Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture: See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe, the stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner, and, a stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

Peter strings together a verse from Psalm 118, the Song of Victory, and two verses from Isaiah to connect the first century Christians he is writing to with God’s Chosen People and with God’s victories of the past. He gives these widely dispersed groups of believers, who find themselves scorned by neighbors and friends and isolated from the mainstream of culture, a special new identity. He separates them from those around them: they are living stones attached to and built around Jesus Christ, the cornerstone of their faith. On the other hand, the non-believers around them will find that the same cornerstone has become a stumbling block.

Then, in two of the most beautiful verses ever written to describe the Church of Christ, Peter gives these small, persecuted cells of people huddled together in Turkey at the end of the first century, and the millions of Christians huddled together each Sunday at the beginning of the twenty-first century, an identity all their own, that no one can take away.

And, again, Peter uses Hebrew Scripture to link us to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God of Moses and David; the God of Ruth and Deborah and Esther. Drawing from Exodus 19:6 and Isaiah 43:21, Peter says:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Peter’s words make me feel pretty special, standing here in the comfort and plenty of twenty-first century America. They must have meant the world to the poor, persecuted Christians of the first century. But, Peter adds two cautionary notes to this string of glorious titles that Christians can claim. He reminds us that the reason God has chosen us is so that we can “proclaim the mighty acts of him who called [us] out of darkness and into his marvelous light.” Finally, Peter points out that Christians need to possess a strong sense of humility by quoting from the prophet Hosea, chapter 2, verse 23: “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people”…not because of anything you have done, but through God’s mercy. 

Back to our baseball game: After the team captains had gone through the elaborate process of determining who would pick first, they alternated choosing the players on their respective teams. As each player was picked, he or she would go stand beside the captain who had picked them, until all the players were in two groups, standing with their team captains.

Some people say the Bible is all about baseball, claiming that Genesis 1:1 really says “in the big inning.” While I don’t think that’s true, sometimes I close my eyes and visualize a cosmic playground where Jesus and Satan are choosing up sides. When it’s Jesus’ turn to choose, he simply says, “I choose everyone who believes in me.” As the billions of saints down through the ages move over to stand with the Lord, Satan complains, “That’s not fair, you have all the best players! I can’t win!” Jesus just smiles and looks at his Father, who, by the way, owns the playground.

Then the game starts, and although we have faith that we will win, it’s a hard-fought contest and we begin to doubt. Just then the Lord calls me off the bench. I’m terrified. I’ve never played at this level before. Jesus can see the fear in my eyes, he gently puts his arm around me and says, “Remember when you played baseball. You played hard and didn’t worry about the score. You played for the love of the game. Just go out there and play this game called life for the love of God. Trust me, as long as you’re on my team, you’ve already won.”