Power to Bring Together
This evening, on ESPN, I watched the story of how the Philadelphia Phillies Senior RBI (Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities) team, comprised of 16 to 18-year-old boys, defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the championship game in the 2007 MLB RBI World Series. One of the mothers of the Phillies told how proud she was that the Philadelphia team came together and related with one another so well even though they were from such varying backgrounds.
Baseball did this…..a little round tightly wound ball of string with a cowhide cover sown around it. It brought young men together in a way that resulted in them laying aside all of their cultural, economic, religious, racial and social differences to become a team of young men with relationships so strong that they will never forget them.
It made me think of how hungry people are for something to unite us and to set aside our differences. It also made me consider how much more potential there is for the power of the good news and the love of the Son of God to bring people together in lasting relationships.
Christ is in that baseball league and those ball players and all of the good that came of it and He is in the gospel, the very power of God. May it be heard by all people with no baggage attached. Amen.
Once you see Christ in everything, everything changes. Great post Steve.
I was in a discussion on Karen’s blog, http://www.theswordsstillout.blogspot.com/ , concerning the word “heresy”. The general feeling by at least one of the other respondents was that “heresy” (read: grace gospel) was a divisive force in Christianity! After reading this post, how can they believe this? It is possibly the only thing that offers to bring us ALL together. Man, I wish I were better at relating my deepest thoughts and feelings about the grace gospel. I tried to relate to the respondents how most of the time when a follower of the grace gospel calls him/herself a “heretic” it is usually done with tongue-in-cheek, because that’s what he/she has been called so many times. I tried to relate the true definition of the word “heresy”, (to choose), but didn’t seem to get anywhere. To the closed mind, very little divergent thinking seems to find its way through the mine field of conventional theology. One day, perhaps, the “light” will illuminate…..