Calling up Moss
Revelation: 1: 1-20
In 2012, the Oakland A’s were struggling. On June 5th they were 24-32, a good deal out of .500, much less the playoffs. They lost eight games straight to close out May, and were 2-3 to open the month of June. Fans were settling in for a long year of watching Brian Fuentes close games and the Angels and Rangers battle it out again for the division. Billy Beane decided to shake things up. One move he made on June 6th was to send first baseman Kila Ka’aihue to Sacramento and promote Brandon Moss to take his place. Ka’aihue was a bit of a fan favorite, and didn’t have much chance in Oakland to succeed, some argued. If you’re going to take a chance on a first baseman, why not Ka’aihue, who was bigger than Moss and who had never had a full season to show what he could do (unlike Moss). Regardless, Moss was called up. Moss went on to hit 291 with 21 home runs in 84 games that year, enjoying a breakout season while helping the A’s turn around into a miracle playoff run. Even the sabermetrics didn’t suggest much sense in the move; as a pro, Moss didn’t hit righties any better than Ka’aihue did (though he certainly changed that after being called up). Sometimes, especially when you follow the A’s, you’re not always going to understand everything. It’s just going to look like random noise, and you hope that it turns into something real. Fortunately in the last few years, moves like Brandon Moss have been real, and A’s fans have seen the benefit of them.
Revelation 1: 12-16
I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”
John certainly didn’t understand at the time what he was being told. He was lead to a remote island in the Aegean Sea, and a voice told him to just start writing down everything he saw. Kinda like exchanging Ka’aihue for Moss, what he was seeing was way over his head. It probably all just looked like a crazy drug trip, and the significance of which was probably confusing at best. John did as he was told though, and it gave us the book of Revelation. Sometimes as followers of Christ we’re not going to understand what we’re being told. Some random High School students will be told they’re going to be pastors, despite hating public speaking and being bad with people. Some people will be told to serve in a remote continent, despite hating to travel. Some people will be asked to raise kids that aren’t theirs, or turn down a high paying job. The only response in times like this is “Yes, Lord.” It’s not a blind submission in a slavish fashion, but rather a powerful trust in the Father that everything is for the best. Certainly when you’re on that road you should pray for understanding (or at least peace) and seek after God’s heart every day, but sometimes we’re not going to understand it. We’re just going to do our part, and we’ll see how it all fits together later. Fortunately, God’s even smarter than Billy Beane, so we know that there’s a reason for all of it, and that reason will benefit us all.
