The Church and Playground Baseball

I don’t remember where I first heard this fairly common adage, but I keep thinking about it as I read and hear all sorts of “my way or the highway” approaches to following Jesus these days. It goes something like this: “If you don’t play like I want, I’m taking my bat and ball and going home.” It seems to me like there is too much of that attitude in our culture right now – both in the church and in politics.

I thank God that my parents weren’t those kind of people. Both my mom and dad were much better than average students of Scripture, despite no formal training. My mother’s great gift of reading the Bible was curiosity, and she often sought to find answers to what intrigued her. My father’s great gift was a combination of constant reading and the ability to see the Bible more holistically than as mostly disconnected collections of “sayings of God.”

This reality dawned on me when my little home church was hiring a new preacher. The tradition in our church was that since Jesus used wine when He instituted the Lord’s Supper, we should, also. The elders – including my dad – interviewed a prospective preacher who, when he found out our church used wine, not Welch’s, immediately declared that if he was hired, we would need to change that practice. To make a long story short, he had to take his bat and ball and go home, because he didn’t get hired. My dad was probably one of the only people in the room who would not have totally objected to using Welch’s, but he did object to the attitude of this potential preacher about drawing unnecessary red lines.

In southwest Atlanta, there is a large church building on the corner of a prominent intersection that is named “The Perfect Church.” Emblazoned in huge letters on a sign across the front entrance to the building, those words can’t be missed. I’ve often thought about visiting, just to see what a “perfect church” looks and feels like. I’ve never been to one. I’ve been the pastor of two congregations – a small church in Kentucky while I was in graduate school, and a church averaging 300+ on Sundays where I preached for 20 years – and neither of them were perfect. I’m glad they weren’t – otherwise I could not have been a member, much less their pastor!

Alongside of that, I’m unaware of a perfect politician or political leader. When it comes to politics – and maybe theology – it seems we define “perfect” as “agrees with me on all issues.” Or we isolate a few issues – wine or grape juice at communion for the church; build the wall or not in politics – and either embrace or dismiss others because we think they are either perfect or imperfect. 

I recently heard a great sermon from Will Willimon on the text in Philippians 4 where Paul admonished Euodia and Syntyche “to live in harmony in the Lord.” Willimon points out Paul didn’t encourage one of them to leave – or, in my words in this post, to take their bat and ball and go elsewhere. Paul apparently thinks the unity of the church’s witness in Philippi is more important than whatever issues had them at odds with one another. Could it be that Paul thought the world would know of our faith in Jesus by our love for one another? 

I’m currently listening to a new biography on Abraham Lincoln by Jon Meacham titled And There Was Light. In the prologue to the book, Meacham, one of America’s greatest historians, reminds his readers that despite Lincoln’s great objections to slavery, his ultimate goal was to preserve the Union. It was in preserving the Union that Lincoln thought there was hope to eventually end slavery. Lincoln apparently took seriously the line in the Preamble to the Constitution which says, “in Order to form a more perfect Union.”

When I was the pastor at the second, larger church for more than 20 years, our religious culture was right in the thick of the “worship wars” that permeated the day. I knew our Sunday morning worship service was in need of a serious update. I was working behind the scenes with our staff and elders to try and make some of what would have been healthy changes. I didn’t think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak, but I did think the bathwater was in need of being refreshed. But it seemed like every time we were close to taking a step in the right direction, someone from one side or the other would deliberately do something that made any change more challenging. There was more than just an occasional “I’ll take my bat and ball and go home” spirit on both sides.

There are things worth going to the mat over – both in government and church. I’m just not sure there are as many as we sometimes think.

In the world of politics, the right will get criticized for making something like abortion a litmus test by those who are at the same time making same-sex marriage a litmus test. Both sides condemn the litmus test of the other. When all is said and done, politics becomes little more than a battle of the litmus tests of the day. Both sides seem determined to take their bat and ball and go home, and government chokes on its inability to actually address any issue reasonably well. And like what is true for the church, unless we want to live in a dictatorship, we should expect that change can’t happen overnight.

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I recently heard N.T. Wright on a podcast saying something like, “If you don’t care about belief, unity is easy; if you don’t care about unity, belief is easy.” There’s much to think about there. Since this post is concerned about the church and politics, I think I’d be comfortable adjusting that a bit for government and saying, “If you don’t care about the ‘more perfect Union,’ political ideas are easy; if you don’t care about political ideas, the ‘more perfect Union’ is easy.”

But we should care about belief and unity. Have you read John 17 lately? We should care about the “more perfect Union” and political ideas. Have you read the Constitution lately?

I’ve never been a government leader. I can imagine how difficult that task can be. It seems a bit disingenuous for me to presume I know exactly how to make every right decision the government needs to make. Of course I can disagree with them – and often do. But I’m confident my disagreement shouldn’t be a “I’ll take my bat and ball and go home” spirit.

I have been what we now describe as “a lead pastor.” I don’t know if I did a great job in that role, but I do know that the church was stronger, more financially stable, bigger, giving more to missions, and in better facilities when I left than it was when I got there. But I do know that being a lead pastor is a really tough job, and even in areas where you know things should be different, it isn’t quite as simple as flipping a light switch and suddenly everything is just as it should be. And sometimes, no matter how hard one might try, all kinds of roadblocks get put in the way. I’d rather let Paul’s words to Euodia and Syntyche describe me than a “take my bat and ball and go home” attitude describe me.

A few weeks ago, Crawford Loritts led a ministry seminar at Point University. In the Q&A portion, he was asked, “How can we avoid becoming discouraged by all the divisiveness that permeates our culture?” He spoke at length to that question, but in summary, it might be fair to say that he suggested we really get serious about primary issues – like who is Jesus – and not so insistent on secondary issues. As I heard him speaking passionately about this, what I heard in my heart was, “When it comes to secondary issues, don’t take your bat and ball and go home.”

If I only vote for people who agree completely with me, I need not go to the precinct on election day ever again. If I only go to a church where they have it all figured out just as I do, then I either need to drop out of church, or become one of those church-hopping people who never stay anywhere long enough to engage their community in ministry.  

There are things worth going to the mat over – both in government and church. I’m just not sure there are as many as we sometimes think.