Sermon From the Mound
The Ultimate Sacrifice at St. Francis Xavier Basilica and Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa
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Dad took me to the Field of Dreams after I turned 9. I remember being more excited than Pete Rose with a winning Powerball ticket. Looking back, I suppose it was his idea for father-son bonding. We had watched the movie several times, which starred Kevin Costner as a blue collar farmer trying to make ends meet. One night he’s strolling through his crops when out of left field (which coincidentally would become left field), a voice whispers to him:
“If you build it, he will come.”
This wasn’t like the voice you hear in the McDonald’s drive-thru. No, this was a whisper that spoke with God-like confidence. When the voice repeated itself, Costner sees a mirage of his land transfigured into a baseball field.
He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know who “he” is. Nothing about it makes a foul tick of sense. “Until I heard the voice, I’d never done a crazy thing in my whole life”, he says. But he goes the distance to “ease his pain”. Who’s pain? The voice didn’t say. He risks everything to build the ballpark, hopping in his VW to touch the bases in a wild attempt to score answers. Throughout the movie, his brother-in-law tries to pick-off his faith with doubts. Costner mulls it over, but chooses to go with his gut. Eventually, he’s redeemed when the baseball field becomes a portal to the ghosts of America’s Favorite Pastime. “Shoeless” Joe Jackson appears — a man who had been unjustly excommunicated by the sport, and recruits more ballplayers from the cornfields. They mistake the ballpark for heaven, just to be given the opportunity for one more at-bat.
For those watching in the stands — the believers see them. The non-believers don’t.
The film had a number of themes, but to me it was was modern-day parable of the Sower and the Seed.
Never was this better explained than by my old church’s associate pastor. He had been acquired from a small-town Nebraska church, coming in as a five-tool pastor with all the necessary tools to make sermons worth the price of collection. He was brilliant at incorporating sports into his sermons, and I always found my attention span going into extra innings when he used an illustration from baseball. To better visualize the lesson during one sermon, he carried with him a towering eight-foot tall cornstalk that could have been plucked from the Field of Dreams outfield. He used it as a prop to help explain the difference between the harvest and the weeds — the faith of believers and non-believers. For the first time in a long time, I looked forward to church every single week.
But then a change-up happened.
Maybe I was just paying closer attention, but over time, our “one true church” put itself in A League of Their Own.
Errors of sinners were featured like SportsCenter highlights, recorded in the box score of everything wrong in the world. The church lost its command, throwing Scripture like wild pitches. Eventually the strike zone expanded, and sermons began painting the corners against churches who welcomed LGBT and those who employed female clergy. I couldn’t retire the memory of visitors being banned from the communion table. You’d have to pay your dues in adult confirmation class to get called-up or stay benched on the pews. Then my brother, who’s attendance had already gone back-back-back-back-back and had gone, was cut by the church — given a pink slip in the form of an excommunication letter. To quote Bob Uecker, everything felt “juuuuuuuuust a bit outside”.
I wanted to root, root, root for my home church. After all, I had grown-up my entire life wearing it’s colors. I didn’t want to become a fair-weather worshiper and jump on the bandwagon of another church when the going got tough. Maybe this was just a slump. But my loyalty didn’t feel right. We had moved the Green Monster from Fenway Park and relocated it in front of non-believers and believers, walling off any viewpoints that weren’t perfectly within our purist foul lines.
I thought the Christian message was to prove Christ loves them, not preach from the upper deck how others were wrong.
To maintain church membership, I joined the church’s fast-pitch team. Baseball would become my spiritual outlet, combining my love of the sport with some semblance of fellowship. My sermon was on the mound. The crack of a bat echoed like hymns. I’d trot out to the outfield, surrounded by God’s green creation as a means to connect my faith to something sacred. I could get away from religious jeers, and instead be in a place where I could chat strategy with the Great Manager in the Sky.
Like faith, and what’s true in life, baseball requires a lot of patience. You’re waiting, and waiting, and waiting for something to happen. Then when you least expect it, that’s when a fly ball comes your way.
“Can o’ corn”, shouted my pastor who played in centerfield.
I was in rightfield in a must-win game if we had a shot to be in championship contention. As Murphy’s Law brought the ball down, all eyes were on me to make the play. That’s when my confidence sunk like Peter in the Sea of Galilee. I horribly misplayed the ball, boinking off my shoulder like Jose Canseco’s infamous blooper off his head. I can’t remember what happened to the ball, but I can remember the sighs, the stares, and the shame.
When the inning ended, I sensed my disappointment with the team was higher than a Barry Bonds pop-up. I failed my teammates, and my church was failing me. I spiked my glove and hat in disgust, teammates and church members in the stands looking at me in silence. It was the only time in my life where I made such a scene in public. We lost by a run.
After the game, I was leaving to my car when the associate pastor ran up to me with an ultimatum. I guess he didn’t like my reaction from earlier. “Dave,” he said. “You need to come back to church if you want to keep playing for us. We care for your salvation. No church. No ball.”
His voice repeated to confirm, hurling another verbal sinker to strike out my membership as I was caught looking before he jogged away.
“No church. No ball.”
We lost more than the game that day.
My church, the Body of Christ, lost me that day.
September 24, 2015–6:30 am Mass: St. Francis Xavier Basilica in Dyersville, Iowa
You never know where you’ll find inspiration in life. Sometimes it waits for a spark. Who knows where that spark will come from. It could be a sermon, a song, movie, book, blog, video game, experience, conversation, or even a confrontation. Whenever the spark happens, that’s when you don the rally cap, decide enough is enough, and make a life-changing decision to make a comeback against life’s deficits.
“No church. No ball”, was the voice that started my rally back to Christ.
At first, my faith was in a rain delay. Ever since I was baptized when I was a mere 22 days old, I had gone to the same residence of worship. My 8th grade confirmation verse from the church was from Acts 4:12. “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name, given to men, by which we must be saved.” I found myself stuck in a pickle between my God and my church. If my salvation was found in no one else, no other name, why did it feel like it was in direct opposition against the man-made religion that was telling me it was the way? The church wasn’t connecting with my faith.
I had no idea where to go. Call it God, maybe it was myself, call it whatever you want — but the idea was planted in my mind to try 52 different churches in a year. Like in Field of Dreams, sometimes the craziest ideas start with just a whisper.
“If you build it, He will come.”
For visit 44, it had been a little over a year since I felt that I had been released on religious waivers. Now I was rounding third to complete 52 Churches in 52 Weeks. Things had grown for the better after diving head-first into my faith. Now I felt like a mix of Kevin Costner from Field of Dreams and Charlie Sheen in Major League. I had never done a crazy thing in my entire life, and this spiritual joyride had become the Wild Thing that made my heart sing. I was #winning (minus the crazy Charlie Sheen meltdown thing), and entering the Seven Inning Stretch as I planned to go around the horn on a cross-country road trip. My batting line-up showed nine churches on the scoreboard within a three-week span. Hitting lead-off would be St. Francis Xavier Basilica in Dyersville.
For being in a town with a population of 4,000, St. Francis Xavier Basilica is a towering landmark overlooking the cornfields of Iowa. While I had come to better respect the Catholic faith and understand the rituals, visiting still made me feel like a member of the Away Team. Due to this, I sat in the back to avoid those dreadful stares from members when coming back to bench themselves from members-only Holy Communion. Mass felt like it was quicker than a 4–6–3 double play that morning, as the service lasted 30 minutes tops. While I had come for church, it was the Field of Dreams that spoke to me with an unmistakable voice that hadn’t been heard since James Earl Jones was voicing sith lords from the Evil Empire.
During the weekend, Dyersville hosted a Team of Dreams charity softball game. The event recruited Hall of Fame ball players to play in an exhibition with the Field of Dreams as the venue. The game brought out some of the all-time greats: Reggie Jackson, Brooks Robinson, Wade Boggs, Carlton Fisk, Robin Yount, Andre Dawson, and Rollie Fingers.
And then there was Jose Canseco and Bill Buckner. In the first inning, Canseco hit a line-drive single to left and stood safe on first right next to Buckner. Canseco and Buckner; two players who’s baseball errors have been replayed over and over.
Buckner is infamously remembered for his blunder in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. The Boston Red Sox were were up three games to two against the New York Mets. With a runner on second, a slow roller bounced to Buckner at first base. He rushed the ball, and instead of making a routine play, the ball rolled between his legs into right field.
Shea Stadium erupted in cheers, the Boston dugout cleared out, and Buckner’s life was torn apart. 20,000 fans celebrated his mistake while millions watched from home. Now when people talk about Buckner, no one leads off about his impressive 20-year Major League career, his 2,700 lifetime base hits, or even the wild pitch that got the winning run in scoring position pitches earlier. Instead, everyone remembers the error. The mistake. The sin.
All eyes were on him and he failed.
During the legends game, a local radio personality was doing play-by-play through the PA. The guy joked they should hit it towards Buckner. When Robin Yount came up to bat, he drilled a Mike Boddicker underhand pitch straight at Buckner. When it happened, Buckner was stuck in the ground and the ball whizzed beneath his outstretched glove and into right field. “Classic Buckner”, the talking head started with, tearing into Buckner’s play even 30 years after “Beneath the Legs”.
A few days later and I had finished mass, I came back to Dyersville to visit the Field of Dreams. No one else was there when I arrived. The crowds had long left, trash strewn in certain spots where the crowds had been. I was left alone in the outfield. Quiet. Peaceful. In a way, there’s a parable between baseball and faith. We are continuing to search for meaning in life, with different actions to find a spiritual framework in our everyday lives. Most find this at church, but I’ve found that Scripture is written all around us. For me, the romanticism of baseball evoked a spiritual experience. That was heaven to me.
In life, we all experience errors and sins. We strike out, we’re caught looking, we get called out. When things don’t go our way, we question if God might be looking at us. What’s His scouting report on us? Sometimes, we lean-off first base too far, The Devil throwing a pick-off throw if we lead-off God’s Word too far.
When Jesus came into the game, His team of Disciples had put on their rally caps. They were expecting him to be batting clean-up, like Babe Ruth calling His shot, and knock the Devil’s sin-laden knuckleball straight out of the ballpark. Evil Empires would crumble, and Christianity would prevail on earth while ticker tape fell from heaven to the tune of Queen’s “We Are the Champions”.
But it didn’t exactly happen that way.
Instead, Jesus came in as a lowly pinch hitter. He wasn’t making the big figures. He came in to make-up for our errors, our sins, taking the boos and jeers as He came up to bat. In baseball, sometimes manufacturing runs are just as efficient as the long ball home run. When He got to the plate, and the Devil was scheming on tagging us out, He showed us the example that any baseball fan would appreciate.
When Christ picked up the lumber and laid down the ultimate sacrifice, He took the out so we could slide safe into our heavenly home.
