Sin And Punishment Versus Grace And Hope
Children's sermon
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January 18, 2004
Second Sunday after Epiphany | Cycle C
Dear Fellow Preacher,
In reading this issue of The Immediate Word, I'm reminded of a typo discovered in the process of editing a commentary on Luke. The author had: "Father, forgive them, for they know now what they do." Might this be an improvement on the original Lukan word of Jesus from the cross? Can forgiveness be offered when the perpetrator has not realized what he or she has done?
Referring mainly to the First Reading of the lectionary, James Evans and other team members demonstrate the ambiguity of the crucial but complex issues of confession, forgiveness, and restoration in the now-notorious case of Pete Rose. Can we know when someone is truly repentant? Or even when we ourselves are? In many cases it matters only that God knows. But in other cases human decisions must be made: Can Pete Rose be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame? How do we practice grace with justice in the real world?
As usual, team comments, illustrations, worship resources, and a children's sermon round out the offerings in this issue.
Sin and Punishment versus Grace and Hope
Isaiah 62:1-5
by James L. Evans
For fifteen years Pete Rose has been banned from baseball. His banishment was the result of breaking one of the cardinal rules of professional sports: he was accused of gambling on the game. In fact, not only was Pete accused of betting on baseball, he also allegedly placed bets on the Cincinnati Reds while he was the manager of the team.
Additionally, for the past fifteen years, Pete Rose has denied his guilt. From the earliest accusation all the way to end of the inquiry that found him guilty, Pete Rose has denied any wrongdoing. He has declared his innocence and decried those who accused him.
But now, two years before his eligibility for admittance to the Baseball Hall of Fame runs out, Rose has admitted his guilt. In his new book My Prison Without Bars, Pete Rose admits that he did bet on baseball. He admits it all -- every charge. He has confessed to the Commissioner of Baseball, Bud Selig. He has confessed to baseball fans everywhere on various news and sports programs. He has confessed to the public at large, admitting freely that what he did was wrong and he is sorry.
So now what? Will Pete Rose be allowed to return to baseball? Will he be allowed to manage a team? Will he have a chance to be honored for his many accomplishments as a player?
Critics, such as the editors of the New York Times, believe that Rose's confession changes nothing. In a recent editorial they write, "We hope Commissioner Bud Selig resists the temptation to play to the gallery of die-hard Rose fans and lets the banishment stand."
Why this harsh stance? Primarily because there are many who believe Rose has failed to demonstrate, in the words of the New York Times, "sufficient contrition" (a religious word, in its original usage). The Times editors write, "Now we know what it takes to coax a confession of sorts from the long defiant Pete Rose ... Just give him a large advance payment for a confessional autobiography that is designed to persuade the baseball commissioner to lift the ban."
Without passing judgment on the Pete Rose case one way or the other, the entire dilemma serves as a provocative case study for considering the biblical meaning of things like repentance, contrition, redemption, and forgiveness, and how such ideas are understood and practiced in our culture.
Other Exiles Banned from the Game
The First Lesson of the lectionary for the Second Sunday after Epiphany, Isaiah 62:1-5, has reference to another far-reaching banishment -- not from baseball, but from God. The prophet addresses the people of Israel who have only recently been released from exile in Babylon. They were there a long time, much longer than the fifteen years of Rose's exile.
During the time of their exile the people of Israel had every reason to consider their situation permanent -- that God would never relent. They began to use words such as "forsaken" (62:4) to describe their state -- forsaken, as a bride abandoned by her husband.
Tormented by their captors, ground down by their despair, facing daily the full extent of their failure and guilt, it was easy for the people of Israel to give up hope. But in 537 B.C.E. something happened that rekindled the hope that God might yet reclaim God's people. Cyrus, king of Persia, issued an edict allowing several thousand Jews to return to Jerusalem to begin rebuilding the Temple.
It is not hard to imagine the euphoria this event must have generated. Hopeful words spoken by Second Isaiah were surely coming to pass. In language intended to recall the incidents of the exodus that prophet had promised:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. (Isa. 43:1-2)
And again:
I have swept away your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you. (Isa. 44:22)
And in language richly extravagant and powerful, the prophet pours out his hope:
In a time of favor I have answered you, on a day of salvation I have helped you; I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people, to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages; saying to the prisoners, "Come out," to those who are in darkness, "Show yourselves."
They shall feed along the ways, on all the bare heights shall be their pasture; they shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down, for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them. And I will turn all my mountains into a road, and my highways shall be raised up. (Isa. 49:8-11)
But the return did not live up to the hopeful promises of Isaiah's songs. They did not glide into Jerusalem on broad highways. They did not feed effortlessly from rich pastures. Instead their way was hard and brutal. Famine and violence marked their daily activities. The hopelessness born in exile slowly began to extend its way into the community in Jerusalem. Old feelings of "abandonment" and "desolation" began to reappear. Worst of all, God was silent. God did not speak. Only the harsh events of their daily lives spoke to them, and the message from those harsh words was "punishment."
That's what pain always feels like -- punishment. What did I do to deserve this? What must I do to stop this?
God Breaks the Silence
In their guilt, pain, and frustration, the people of Israel surely began to speculate about God's role in their new sufferings. They read into the challenges and difficulties of rebuilding Jerusalem and the Temple a continuation of God's self-imposed absence. The stage of their punishment had shifted from Babylon to Jerusalem, but their salvation was no closer -- they were still in exile!
Isaiah 62:1 breaks God's silence on these matters. "For Zion's sake I will not keep silent ... I will not rest until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch" (Isa. 62:1). In other words God had not abandoned the people of Israel and was not continuing to punish them with an extended exile. God was with them; God was for them. God would end their exile, even their sense of exile within their own borders, and create circumstances that would usher forth the same sort of joy that exists at a wedding when a young man takes a bride (v. 5).
From Judgment to Grace
The experience of the people of Israel, from their initial embrace of the covenant to their failure and subsequent exile, has come to serve as a paradigm of the way God deals with God's people in the world.
First, there are expectations growing out of covenant promises. God promises to be our God, and we promise to be God's people. As God's people we promise to live by certain standards and virtues. There are things we promise to do and not do.
Second, there are consequences for failing to keep our promises. God does not turn a blind eye or deaf ear to our failures. God expects us to keep our promises -- we are held accountable. And should we choose to disobey, there are consequences.
In this way the image of "exile" has come to represent everything from the actual consequences of sinful behavior -- such as the bodily deterioration associated with drug or alcohol abuse, all the way to the psychological suffering associated with moral failure. Exile is absence from God. Exile is the silence of God. Exile is due penalty for our error.
Third, God does not leave us in exile. God takes the initiative to rescue God's people from the consequences of their own behavior. God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. God saves us and brings us home.
This, of course, is the beginning point for our understanding of grace. Unmerited favor: while-we-were-yet-sinners favor, those-who-sit-in-darkness favor, those-whose-hearts-are-turned far-from-him favor. Grace is the scandalous act of God moving towards and acting on behalf of the very ones who have violated the covenant and failed to keep their promises.
We stumble over this grace.
A Spirit of Punishment
In fact, according to T. Richard Snyder in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Punishment (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), we stumble over it pretty badly. With insights gained from more than twenty years of working with inmates in New York City prisons, Snyder believes that our culture is committed to punishment, but not redemption. In other words, the pain inflicted on wrongdoers is not intended to bring about repentance or rehabilitation; it is strictly to punish, to inflict pain for pain's sake.
Snyder believes that a distortion of Christian theology is partly responsible for this vindictive spirit rampant in our culture. He argues that Creation and redemption have been split apart and as a result so have grace and nature. Because of our culture's ties to Protestantism, there is a "strong emphasis upon the fall, original sin, and total depravity, it is difficult to find within (this strain of) Protestantism an affirmation of the beauty, goodness, and worth in all creation" (p. 12).
As a result, it becomes easy to split humanity apart as well, and draw a dividing line between superior and inferior persons, between those who have "fallen" and those who are "graced," or between those who "broke a law" and deserve what they are getting and, on the other hand, those who have followed "the straight and narrow" and "deserve" to prosper. All that is to forget that the dividing line between good and evil runs through each person. The saying, "So long as there is life, there is hope," is true only so long as "grace is present and at work within all of human experience" (p. 41).
Where There Is No Grace, There Is No Hope
In the grand scheme of things it probably doesn't matter very much whether Pete Rose gets into the Baseball Hall of Fame or not. It's hardly life or death. However, Rose's ordeal may serve as a parable illustrating the truth of Snyder's insight. Wrongdoers, whether the wrong is large or small, remain wrongdoers. There is no way for them to find their way to forgiveness because forgiveness is not an option.
This attitude shows up at almost every level of life -- from the sins against baseball, to sins against society, to the most intimate levels of family failure.
I was asked to write a church curriculum several years ago relating to marriage and family. One of the units had to with the incidence of infidelity in marriage. At one point as I was trying to describe the devastating effects of infidelity and how hard it is to reconcile couples when it occurs, I wrote, "Infidelity in marriage almost always ends badly."
When the curriculum was released the publisher was besieged with mail responding to this remark. The criticism, almost the same in every letter, was that infidelity always ends badly. The writers (and there were many!) could not conceive of an instance in which a couple would choose to work past the hurt and betrayal and find a way to remain married -- as if there was no forgiveness for such sin.
The New York Times complains that Rose is not contrite enough -- that his repentance is insincere because he hopes to gain something from it. It is hard not to ask, what else is repentance for? Is it possible to exclude from all acts of contrition and all rituals of repentance, secular or sacred, an element of self-seeking and self-serving? What is the meaning of the plea, "Save me!" but the desire to be saved?
It is also tempting to conclude that for the sins against baseball committed by Pete Rose, there will never be enough contrition, because there is no forgiveness available. We would rather punish than heal.
Snyder addresses this with a discussion of the word "justice." To "seek justice" in our society almost always means punitive justice -- to seek revenge, to get even. Snyder asserts that there is another aspect of justice often overlooked. He calls it "restorative justice." Recognizing that there is a due penalty for failure, what do we want beyond that? What does God want? What is the purpose of exile?
The separation imposed by God for the sins of God's people was never intended to become a permanent state of being. Exile was for a moment in time and was designed to restore a people, not destroy them. Exile was for a time of discipline -- for learning a better way. It was not merely an exercise in inflicting pain.
It is not the role of culture, no matter how enlightened or influenced by the religious ideas of its people, to embrace or much less practice the meaning of God's grace. It is, however, the proper role for communities of faith. Consequently, we cannot afford to stumble over the very grace we proclaim. Our challenge is to embrace the truth that even in the midst of exile God comes to us with an offer of new life and a fresh start.
As we embrace that challenge and live out its meaning, however, it may be possible that we will have some mediating effect on our culture. We may, like salt, permeate our culture with an alternative vision to the one that says there is not forgiveness there is only unrelenting punishment and exile for those who sin. May we become communities that embrace that new life for ourselves, and then, in the freedom and hope created by that gracious life, proclaim its reality for all captives everywhere -- even the fallen saints of baseball.
Team Comments
George Murphy responds: One of the major points at issue in the Pete Rose case is whether or not he has shown enough "contrition" for gambling on baseball -- something that many people familiar with the case had long thought that he was guilty of, and that he has finally admitted. I don't expect the baseball's commissioner or Hall of Fame to use the term with scholastic precision, but it might be wise for preachers to make the appropriate distinctions if they're going to talk about the Rose situation.
For the theologians of the later Middle Ages, "contrition" meant essentially sorrow for sin because of love of God, i.e., simply because God had been offended. "Attrition," on the other hand, was sorrow because of the fear of God's punishment, i.e., because one would be punished. Some of the debates at the time of the Reformation had to do with whether attrition, rather than contrition, was adequate for genuine repentance. If we want to apply the distinction in a secular situation, we could say that contrition is sorrow simply for having done something wrong while attrition is sorrow for having gotten caught and having to suffer the consequences of one's actions.
Has Pete Rose shown contrition for gambling on baseball while he was involved in the sport? Is he really sorry that he did something wrong? Or is he just showing attrition -- regret that he's been kept out of the Hall of Fame and not allowed to manage a team? You'll have to decide that yourself if you're interested in his case. His long delay in admitting what he'd done and the title of his book, My Prison Without Bars, which tries to claim victim status, make me strongly suspect attrition.
Of course a sermon shouldn't be primarily about Pete Rose, but the distinction I've made is quite relevant to the status of the repentance and the faith of some churchgoers -- and in many cases it's the fault of some styles of preaching. The whole point of "fire and brimstone" preaching is to get people to repent, turn from sin and accept Christ because of fear of punishment -- literally "to scare the hell out of them." Jonathan Edwards was too great a theologian to be remembered only for his "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" sermon, but it and sermons like it unfortunately have had too much influence on American homiletics.
Attrition rather than contrition doesn't just mean that a person has shown a deficient kind of repentance. It also means -- unless there is a deepening of spiritual awareness -- that there will be a deficient kind of faith. It means the difference between putting oneself first, and wanting to avoid suffering, and putting God first. Contrition corresponds to having God as the ultimate object of one's trust and love and saying, "Thy will be done," as far as one's final status is concerned. Confession of sin should be more than mere recital of facts, and penitence brought about only by fear of punishment can lead at best to a quite immature faith.
I'm not in the habit of recommending Islamic piety, but many years ago I heard a Muslim prayer that is worth reflecting on -- even though I'm not sure of the exact words. But approximately:
O God, if I worship you in fear of Hell, burn me in Hell.
If I worship you in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise.
But if I worship you for your own sake, do not exclude me from your everlasting glory.
Shifting from theology back to Pete Rose, some people who aren't familiar with professional sports or organized gambling may wonder why an athlete (and the issue extends to sports other than Major League baseball) gambling on the game he or she competes in is such a big problem. If Pete Rose never bet against his own team (as he claims), what was wrong with what he did? But things are more complicated than just wagering that Team A will beat Team B on a given day.
If a player or manager generally bets on Team A to beat Team B but one day puts his money down the other way -- or even doesn't place a bet on their game at all -- it can send a signal to bookies and others involved in gambling that he has some inside information. It could affect the odds and result in gains or losses of large amounts of money. The temptation for a player to accept payoffs for such indirect supplies of information to gamblers is obvious. Furthermore, sports betting is often more complex than just choosing whether Team A or Team B will win. There's often a "point spread" so that one is betting that a team will or won't win by at least a certain margin. That introduces the possibility of further manipulation by unscrupulous players.
Wes Runk responds: Growing up in Cincinnati and being a fanatical fan of the Reds since I was five years old, I still have mixed feelings. Pete was a hero in high school and the hardest competitor anyone ever knew. His father was a hero who held Pete to a standard that no one else had to endure. That is how someone with less talent still became one of the best where individualism stands out. But he was a bad husband and father while a great teammate. He loved Tony Perez, manager Sparky Anderson, and almost all of his peers, including sports writers and umpires. His language was awful, and on several occasions I remember Joe Morgan apologizing for his speech and behavior. He was opportunist but he loved the game and would give himself for it. In the days of his addiction he flaunted his actions in front of many, and only a few withdrew from him because of his glaring disregard for the sacred rules of baseball. My son, Tim, held him as his greatest hero until he appeared at an event we attended and spoke like the scum of the earth. He spent the night in silence trying to reconcile what he knew was wrong, really wrong, with his hero worship. After that occasion he switched positions, changed his batting stance, and even disregarded the "Pete Rose" patented slide into base. Not once did he ever say anything to me about these changes or why he changed, because he still idolized the man for his skills but not his manhood.
Carter Shelley responds: In presenting the dilemma the people of Judah faced in exile and after their return to Jerusalem and in sharing the main concepts from T. Richard Snyder's book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Punishment, you offer a sympathetic take on the current Pete Rose brouhaha. I am particularly struck by Snyder's distinction between seeking justice as revenge and the notion of restorative justice, which rarely gets a hearing in prisons or by governments. One of President Bush's promises to the nation has been not to let those responsible for 9/11 "get away with it." The problem with punitive justice, of course, is that (a) it isn't Christian and (b) its punishment invariably embraces many who are linked to the terrorist/criminal/guilty party yet are themselves innocent. Restorative justice requires more imagination and creativity than most Calvinists, Puritans, and present-day Americans can envision, because we aren't used to thinking in those terms.
I read the excerpt from My Prison Without Bars in the January 12, 2004, issue of Sports Illustrated. The voice of Pete Rose comes through strongly and plainly, which says to me that Rick Hall, the writer who worked with Rose on the book, captured not only the voice but also the tenor of the man Pete Rose. Despite what I said in the previous paragraph about restorative justice, I have sympathy for the stance of the New York Times, because I am convinced Pete Rose doesn't "get it." He expresses anger that an addiction to gambling receives such decisive punishment while an addiction to drugs merits a rehab program and reinstatement in the game. He expresses dismay that he's been banned from baseball for betting on the game when he asserts that he never bet against his own team; therefore, he never endangered the outcome of any of the Cincinnati Red's games when he served as their manager. He also expresses a sense of betrayal that his lie to baseball commissioners Peter Ueberroth, Bart Giamatti, and Fay Vincent was not believed and so Rose was banned from the game when he thought he'd settled the matter by swearing he never gambled on baseball. In short, he sounds a bit like the child who says she is sorry that she clonked her little brother on the head with a rock, when what she's really sorry about is having been caught!
My understanding of guilt and repentance as presented in the Old Testament is that repentance doesn't occur until a person understands the offense, sincerely regrets the sin committed, and understands that same sin as a destructive element that works against God's created order. Repentance requires a change in perspective and a change in action. I don't think punishment leads to sincere repentance any more than Snyder or you do, Jim; however, the only regret I read in Pete Rose's words in pages 74-82 are the way it has made him notorious and an exile from the sport he loves so much. This leads to another concern I have, only this one is on behalf of Pete Rose and all famous American athletes, namely, the tenuous hold professional athletes have on fame, glory, and economic riches.
As someone over fifty now staring daily at sagging jowls and permanent bags under my eyes, both of which I'd love to excise either by magic or plastic surgery, I sympathize with the grief and loss Pete Rose felt at getting too old to play the game he loved so much. In our culture, getting older is hard, and offers few rewards or compensations. I feel for Pete Rose and all athletes who have nothing to sustain them once the competitive thrill is gone. His whole life was baseball. He wasn't a scholar. He wasn't a devout churchman. He doesn't write of the pleasure he got from time spent with his wife and children. Being a baseball club manager did not replicate the adrenaline charge Rose got from swinging the bat and running the bases while the fans cheered wildly. The closest he could get to feeling the same joy and excitement he got from playing baseball was to play the numbers: horse racing, March Madness, NBA playoffs, NFL -- you name it, Rose bet on it.
Our society is set up to celebrate and adore professional athletes, but our society is not set up to help them become well rounded, centered, mature human beings. The guilt for this distortion belongs to all of us: fans, coaches, ball clubs, etc. We use these people for our own recreational pleasure, and then we forget them. Didn't graduate from college? Too bad. Can't read or spell. That's a shame. Lost that million-dollar contract due to an injury incurred on the job? Well, life ain't fair. Our way of adulating athletes does not include concern for who they are in total; it's all about what they can do with a ball and how many points they can score. Nothing in Pete Rose's life prepared him for the emptiness, grief, and pain he felt once he could no longer play baseball. The most heartfelt words recorded in the SI excerpt concern Rose's sorrow over being too old and too slow to play baseball anymore. He gave his all to the game for as long as his body would let him, and once that was over, he had no deeper underpinnings to help him deal with the loss, which surely felt to him much life the death of a spouse feels to many other people. Pete Rose wasn't intellectually, emotionally, or physically equipped to handle this genuine mid-life crisis on his own. Nor should he have had to do so.
So, I'd like for Pete Rose to "get" why his betting on baseball was a betrayal of the game rather than merely "a bad idea." But I'd also like for those of us who cheer on our high school teams, pay big bucks to watch pro match-ups, and sit mesmerized in front of our TVs during the Kentucky Derby, Wimbledon, the Super Bowl or March Madness to think about the part we play in encouraging athletes to be athletes first and human beings second. Repentance, after all, is an equal opportunity option for all us mortals and children of God.
Carlos Wilton responds: Whether Isaiah 62 was written by the prophet we know as Second Isaiah, or by a disciple, Third Isaiah, the author truly understands God as doing "a new thing" in his time -- reaching out to a people who have called themselves forsaken and bringing them home to a promised land almost none of them know from personal experience. There's no reason God has to do this -- other than sheer, unmerited grace.
The example of this grace inspires us as we reflect on our own broken relationships, betrayed confidences, shattered trust. Can we indeed live this sort of abundant grace ourselves, in our interactions with those who have hurt us?
"Sincerity is the key," George Burns once quipped. "If you can fake that, you've got it made." Is Pete Rose sincere? Who can say, other than the man himself -- and God, who reads all hearts? We do well to avoid placing ourselves in the judgment seat of God. We cannot know, for sure. But there is almost always something to be gained by assuming the best about others, giving them by our trust large shoes (or perhaps baseball spikes) to fill.
Related Illustrations
Fyodor Dostoevsky, in The Brothers Karamazov, tells a little parable about an old woman and an onion. The woman dies, but she has been so stingy in her life that no one can remember a single good deed she has done. Immediately upon her death, the little devils grab her and throw her into the pit. The woman has a guardian angel, however, who pleads her case before God.
God relents, and says to the angel, "If you can find one good thing this woman ever did in her life, I will allow her to enter Paradise."
The angel thinks and thinks. Finally he says, "I do remember one time when she picked an onion out of her garden and gave it to a beggar woman."
"Take the onion," says God, "and if with that onion you can lift her out of the pit, I will bring her to Paradise."
The angel finds the scrawny little onion and he holds it down to the woman. She grabs hold of it, and he begins to pull her out. She gets nearly all of the way out of this place of suffering, but suddenly other people who are confined there with her reach up and grab hold of her feet. They are hoping the onion will be their way to salvation, too. The woman looks down in disgust, and begins kicking her leg to shake them off. "Let go," she cries out. "It's my onion."
At this precise moment the onion breaks and she falls back into the pit. The angel weeps, and walks away sadly.
***
Some years back, Newsweek covered the memorial service held for former Vice President Hubert Humphrey. As with all political funerals, hundreds of dignitaries were in attendance. Joyfully they greeted one another, glad for this opportunity to see and be seen.
One guest, however, kept to himself. He was ignored by virtually everyone there. He was a pariah: no one would look at him, let alone speak to him. That person was former president Richard Nixon. The memory of the Watergate scandal lingered. He was back in Washington for the first time since he resigned the presidency, but no one would so much as acknowledge his presence.
That is, until President Jimmy Carter came into the room. As he made the rounds of the distinguished guests, he noticed Richard Nixon standing against the wall, by himself. Carter walked over to him as though he were greeting a long-lost friend. He extended his hand to the former president, and flashed his famous grin. "Welcome home, Mr. President!" Carter said. "Welcome home!"
Commenting on that act of hospitality, Newsweek observed, "If there was a turning point in Nixon's long ordeal in the wilderness, it was that moment and that gesture of love and compassion."
***
"Forgiveness is the economy of the heart ... Forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits."
-- Hannah More, "Christianity: A Practical Principle," in Practical Piety
***
"True repentance hates the sin, and not merely the penalty; and it hates the sin most of all because it has discovered and felt God's love."
-- W. M. Taylor
***
"Repentance means 'change of mind,' or 'new mind,' or taking on a 'meta-mind,' that is, a mind beyond, a mind after, a mind transcending. It is a difficult concept to define and even more difficult to attain. For it requires radical openness to new possibilities. Repentance isn't a searing flame of guilt or shame as much as an opening up, a musing, a turning over of life in one's hand, in the way one explores the face of a lover.
Repentance is as close as we get to the mind of God. For as urgently as people want to portray God as rigid and changeless, a stern judge whose law book never has fresh ink and whose mind was fixed eons ago, the Scripture portrays God as one who repents: taking on a new mind, loving in new ways, trying new words, accepting new people, charting a new course, rethinking the old.
Christians have preferred to see themselves as the shock troops of God, armed with verity and virtue and riding forth to command or, nowadays, staying inside to enjoy. With meaningless evasions like, 'Hate the sin but love the sinner,' they have dispensed one-way judgment, like an impatient parent or arrogant boss. Ask the compelling question, and move on. Indict and condemn, and move on. Drop off a pamphlet, and move on. Put an ad in the religion section, and move on.
Repentance takes far more work than that. It takes time, it takes openness, it takes sharing, it takes wisdom, it takes clarity of word and kindness of heart. Minds don't change -- in any meaningful or lasting way -- in response to fear, compunction, force, or fawning. Minds are like flowers. They require water, sunlight, a gentle hand and patience."
-- Tom Ehrich, "On a Journey," e-mail meditation distributed 7/12/03
***
Many may recall the tag line that accompanied the movie Love Story: "Love means never having to say you're sorry." It was the romantic ideal proposed for the young lovers.
A snide, but perhaps truer sentiment uttered by someone long married, put it this way: "Love means saying you're sorry when you're not" -- in order to keep the peace or attempt a compromise.
Worship Resources
CALL TO WORSHIP
The lectionary Psalm makes a nice call to worship this week. Option one is a responsive reading of Psalm 36:5-10
LEADER: Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens,
PEOPLE: Your faithfulness to the skies.
LEADER: Your righteousness is like a mighty mountain,
PEOPLE: Your justice like the great deep.
LEADER: How priceless is your unfailing love!
PEOPLE: The great and the small both find refuge in you.
LEADER: They feast on the abundance of your house;
PEOPLE: You give them drinks from your river of delights.
LEADER: For with you is the fountain of life;
PEOPLE: In your light we see clearly.
LEADER: Continue your love, O Lord
PEOPLE: To those who know and love you.
An alternative approach -- if you are focusing on newness and restoration, which are themes in this week's lectionary passages -- would be to have a very brief time of testimony right at the start of worship. Invite someone whose life has been changed by God to share his or her story in brief form. Follow the story, which will speak of the power that changed water into wine, with a simple statement like, "Let us worship the God who makes all things new."
If you don't have someone available for such a testimony, how about using a short dramatic reading like the following:
My name is Jack. They used to call me "Jack the Attack," because I was so intense and everyone in my group of friends assumed I'd be the first to have a heart attack. I worked hard, played hard, and drank hard. Never had time for a family. I was too busy climbing to the top.
But as I got nearer and nearer my goal I felt more and more emptiness. Self-loathing was a constant companion. My story took lots of twists and turns along the way, but what I want to tell you this morning is the simple and beautiful truth that one day a wonderful friend introduced me to Jesus Christ. At that moment my life began to be changed. Not overnight, but slowly and steadily I have been changing.
I'm not "Jack the Attack" anymore. A guy whose life is being made new by God every day. That's why I worship. Will you worship with me?
A praise hymn or song should be sung immediately.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
LEADER: Stagnant!
PEOPLE: Stalled out!
LEADER: Sliding back.
PEOPLE: Stuck.
LEADER: Lord, these words describe many of us right now.
PEOPLE: We have allowed circumstances,
LEADER: Satan,
PEOPLE: Sadness, and sorrow
LEADER: To short-circuit our growth in you.
PEOPLE: Forgive us for our lack of effort.
LEADER: Help us to stir one another to love
PEOPLE: And good works,
LEADER: So that we may continue toward
PEOPLE: The wholeness
LEADER: And holiness
PEOPLE: That you desire for us.
LEADER: We pray it in the powerful name of Jesus Christ.
PEOPLE: Amen.
ASSURANCE OF PARDON
The old man said, "Aah, it's too late for me. I can't change any more. I'm too old, too set in my ways."
But the Lord said, "I changed the world through eighty-year-old Moses and one-hundred-year-old Abraham and ninety-year-old Sarah.
The young girl said, "I'm too young for the Lord to do much with me.
But the Lord said, "I have done mighty works through young people like David and Daniel and Jeremiah and Mary."
This one said, "I have little to give. My limitations are too much to overcome."
But the Lord said, "I spoke to Balaam through his mule and taught Paul that when he was weak then he was strongest in me."
It is never too late with the Lord.
You are never too young for the Lord.
There are no obstacles he cannot overcome.
You are forgiven, you are loved, now serve him with all your heart. Amen.
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION
Creator God, in the beginning you spoke the word "Light!" and light came into existence. Speak to us in such a way this morning that your word will enliven all that is of you within us. Amen.
PASTORAL PRAYER
Lord, there is so much that needs to be made new in our world, and in our hearts.
The politics of power that keeps millions in our world hungry, that keeps one nation pitted against another.
Lord, bring newness to the realm of politics.
Corporations that put profits ahead of people.
Lord, bring newness to the arena of business.
Ethnic groups that nurse and nurture thousand-year-old prejudices thereby perpetuating violence and conflict.
Lord, bring newness into the sphere where unthinking prejudice reigns.
Parents too busy -- or selfish -- to attend to the needs of their children.
Lord, turn their hearts to their families, that there might be a renewal of the home.
Addictions that degrade and destroy lives.
Lord, break the power of addiction to give the enslaved a new start.
Hearts broken by doubt and self-hatred keeping many from being everything you made them to be.
Lord, open their eyes to see the beautiful image of God in themselves that they might be made new and alive.
Heavenly King, in all these circumstances and more, darkness and death come stalking us and our world. But you make all things new again. Help us to see our way clear of the old and find our way into the newness of Christ that is available to all who embrace it.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Hymns and Songs
My Tribute (by Andrea Crouch)
The God of Abraham Praise
Love Lifted Me
He Touched Me
O How I Love Jesus
O How He Loved You and Me
Peace Like a River
Since I Have Been Redeemed
Jesus Loved Even Me
To God Be the Glory
A Children's Sermon
by Wesley Runk
Isaiah 62:1-5
Text: "You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate." (v. 4a)
Object: The number 14 or a baseball shirt with the name Rose on it and the number 14 or a baseball card or anything else that speaks about Pete Rose (a bat, a glove, or a picture from the newspaper).
Good morning, boys and girls. I brought with me something this morning that you will recognize right away. (hold up the number 14) What is this? (let them answer) That's right, it is the number 14. Does anyone know what the number 14 stands for? (let them answer) It doesn't stand for the fourteen commandments, does it? (let them answer) Were there fourteen disciples or apostles? (let them answer) Were there fourteen loaves and fishes that fed the 5000 people? Could the number 14 stand for the tribes of Israel? (let them answer) It doesn't stand for any of them. I don't think the number 14 stands for anything in the Bible. Then why did I bring with me the number 14 today?
Number 14 was worn on the back of a very famous baseball player. Does anyone know his name? (let them answer) It isn't Bonds, Maddux, Griffey, Jeter, or anyone else that plays today. Number 14 is a man by the name of Peter Edward Rose or Pete Rose. Has anyone ever heard about Pete Rose? (let them answer) Why is he so famous? (let them answer) He holds a lot of records including playing in the most winning games and having the most hits. But he isn't in the Hall of Fame. Do you know why a man with so many records is not in the Hall of Fame? (let them answer) That's right, because he bet on baseball games and he lied about his betting and other things. Pete Rose is banned from baseball. He is not allowed in the clubhouse where baseball players stay before and after games. He is not allowed to be a coach or a manager anywhere in organized baseball. He is an outsider in a game of which many say he was the best player.
Pete Rose told lies and did bad things, and he is out of baseball. But recently he did what many people asked him to do. They asked him to tell the truth about himself. They wanted him to say that he lied and that he bet on baseball. He even said he bet on his own team but only to win. Was everyone happy that Pete Rose said he did bad things and that he was sorry about it? (let them answer) Some people were glad for him but many people say it doesn't change their minds. He should still be kept out of baseball.
The Bible talks a lot about people and nations that did wrong and were punished for doing it. But the Bible also talks about saying we are sorry and asking for forgiveness. When you do something wrong and then lie about it, what happens to you? (let them answer) What happens when you tell people that you are sorry for what you did and you promise never to do it again? (let them answer) Do your parents or teachers send you away and tell you never to come back? Should we put people in jail or prison and keep them there for the rest of their lives? (let them answer)
God told the Israelites that he would forgive them and bring them back into a loving relationship with him and other people. The Israelites were thrilled. They loved God for forgiving them and loving them even though he had punished them. Our parents forgive us and love us. Our teachers forgive us and welcome us back into our classes.
Pete Rose will have to wait while people watch how he lives his life now that he has told the truth. He hopes and I hope that someday the people in baseball will forgive him and welcome him back into the game he loves. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
* * *
The Immediate Word, January 18, 2004, issue.
Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
Second Sunday after Epiphany | Cycle C
Dear Fellow Preacher,
In reading this issue of The Immediate Word, I'm reminded of a typo discovered in the process of editing a commentary on Luke. The author had: "Father, forgive them, for they know now what they do." Might this be an improvement on the original Lukan word of Jesus from the cross? Can forgiveness be offered when the perpetrator has not realized what he or she has done?
Referring mainly to the First Reading of the lectionary, James Evans and other team members demonstrate the ambiguity of the crucial but complex issues of confession, forgiveness, and restoration in the now-notorious case of Pete Rose. Can we know when someone is truly repentant? Or even when we ourselves are? In many cases it matters only that God knows. But in other cases human decisions must be made: Can Pete Rose be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame? How do we practice grace with justice in the real world?
As usual, team comments, illustrations, worship resources, and a children's sermon round out the offerings in this issue.
Sin and Punishment versus Grace and Hope
Isaiah 62:1-5
by James L. Evans
For fifteen years Pete Rose has been banned from baseball. His banishment was the result of breaking one of the cardinal rules of professional sports: he was accused of gambling on the game. In fact, not only was Pete accused of betting on baseball, he also allegedly placed bets on the Cincinnati Reds while he was the manager of the team.
Additionally, for the past fifteen years, Pete Rose has denied his guilt. From the earliest accusation all the way to end of the inquiry that found him guilty, Pete Rose has denied any wrongdoing. He has declared his innocence and decried those who accused him.
But now, two years before his eligibility for admittance to the Baseball Hall of Fame runs out, Rose has admitted his guilt. In his new book My Prison Without Bars, Pete Rose admits that he did bet on baseball. He admits it all -- every charge. He has confessed to the Commissioner of Baseball, Bud Selig. He has confessed to baseball fans everywhere on various news and sports programs. He has confessed to the public at large, admitting freely that what he did was wrong and he is sorry.
So now what? Will Pete Rose be allowed to return to baseball? Will he be allowed to manage a team? Will he have a chance to be honored for his many accomplishments as a player?
Critics, such as the editors of the New York Times, believe that Rose's confession changes nothing. In a recent editorial they write, "We hope Commissioner Bud Selig resists the temptation to play to the gallery of die-hard Rose fans and lets the banishment stand."
Why this harsh stance? Primarily because there are many who believe Rose has failed to demonstrate, in the words of the New York Times, "sufficient contrition" (a religious word, in its original usage). The Times editors write, "Now we know what it takes to coax a confession of sorts from the long defiant Pete Rose ... Just give him a large advance payment for a confessional autobiography that is designed to persuade the baseball commissioner to lift the ban."
Without passing judgment on the Pete Rose case one way or the other, the entire dilemma serves as a provocative case study for considering the biblical meaning of things like repentance, contrition, redemption, and forgiveness, and how such ideas are understood and practiced in our culture.
Other Exiles Banned from the Game
The First Lesson of the lectionary for the Second Sunday after Epiphany, Isaiah 62:1-5, has reference to another far-reaching banishment -- not from baseball, but from God. The prophet addresses the people of Israel who have only recently been released from exile in Babylon. They were there a long time, much longer than the fifteen years of Rose's exile.
During the time of their exile the people of Israel had every reason to consider their situation permanent -- that God would never relent. They began to use words such as "forsaken" (62:4) to describe their state -- forsaken, as a bride abandoned by her husband.
Tormented by their captors, ground down by their despair, facing daily the full extent of their failure and guilt, it was easy for the people of Israel to give up hope. But in 537 B.C.E. something happened that rekindled the hope that God might yet reclaim God's people. Cyrus, king of Persia, issued an edict allowing several thousand Jews to return to Jerusalem to begin rebuilding the Temple.
It is not hard to imagine the euphoria this event must have generated. Hopeful words spoken by Second Isaiah were surely coming to pass. In language intended to recall the incidents of the exodus that prophet had promised:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. (Isa. 43:1-2)
And again:
I have swept away your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you. (Isa. 44:22)
And in language richly extravagant and powerful, the prophet pours out his hope:
In a time of favor I have answered you, on a day of salvation I have helped you; I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people, to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages; saying to the prisoners, "Come out," to those who are in darkness, "Show yourselves."
They shall feed along the ways, on all the bare heights shall be their pasture; they shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down, for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them. And I will turn all my mountains into a road, and my highways shall be raised up. (Isa. 49:8-11)
But the return did not live up to the hopeful promises of Isaiah's songs. They did not glide into Jerusalem on broad highways. They did not feed effortlessly from rich pastures. Instead their way was hard and brutal. Famine and violence marked their daily activities. The hopelessness born in exile slowly began to extend its way into the community in Jerusalem. Old feelings of "abandonment" and "desolation" began to reappear. Worst of all, God was silent. God did not speak. Only the harsh events of their daily lives spoke to them, and the message from those harsh words was "punishment."
That's what pain always feels like -- punishment. What did I do to deserve this? What must I do to stop this?
God Breaks the Silence
In their guilt, pain, and frustration, the people of Israel surely began to speculate about God's role in their new sufferings. They read into the challenges and difficulties of rebuilding Jerusalem and the Temple a continuation of God's self-imposed absence. The stage of their punishment had shifted from Babylon to Jerusalem, but their salvation was no closer -- they were still in exile!
Isaiah 62:1 breaks God's silence on these matters. "For Zion's sake I will not keep silent ... I will not rest until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch" (Isa. 62:1). In other words God had not abandoned the people of Israel and was not continuing to punish them with an extended exile. God was with them; God was for them. God would end their exile, even their sense of exile within their own borders, and create circumstances that would usher forth the same sort of joy that exists at a wedding when a young man takes a bride (v. 5).
From Judgment to Grace
The experience of the people of Israel, from their initial embrace of the covenant to their failure and subsequent exile, has come to serve as a paradigm of the way God deals with God's people in the world.
First, there are expectations growing out of covenant promises. God promises to be our God, and we promise to be God's people. As God's people we promise to live by certain standards and virtues. There are things we promise to do and not do.
Second, there are consequences for failing to keep our promises. God does not turn a blind eye or deaf ear to our failures. God expects us to keep our promises -- we are held accountable. And should we choose to disobey, there are consequences.
In this way the image of "exile" has come to represent everything from the actual consequences of sinful behavior -- such as the bodily deterioration associated with drug or alcohol abuse, all the way to the psychological suffering associated with moral failure. Exile is absence from God. Exile is the silence of God. Exile is due penalty for our error.
Third, God does not leave us in exile. God takes the initiative to rescue God's people from the consequences of their own behavior. God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. God saves us and brings us home.
This, of course, is the beginning point for our understanding of grace. Unmerited favor: while-we-were-yet-sinners favor, those-who-sit-in-darkness favor, those-whose-hearts-are-turned far-from-him favor. Grace is the scandalous act of God moving towards and acting on behalf of the very ones who have violated the covenant and failed to keep their promises.
We stumble over this grace.
A Spirit of Punishment
In fact, according to T. Richard Snyder in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Punishment (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), we stumble over it pretty badly. With insights gained from more than twenty years of working with inmates in New York City prisons, Snyder believes that our culture is committed to punishment, but not redemption. In other words, the pain inflicted on wrongdoers is not intended to bring about repentance or rehabilitation; it is strictly to punish, to inflict pain for pain's sake.
Snyder believes that a distortion of Christian theology is partly responsible for this vindictive spirit rampant in our culture. He argues that Creation and redemption have been split apart and as a result so have grace and nature. Because of our culture's ties to Protestantism, there is a "strong emphasis upon the fall, original sin, and total depravity, it is difficult to find within (this strain of) Protestantism an affirmation of the beauty, goodness, and worth in all creation" (p. 12).
As a result, it becomes easy to split humanity apart as well, and draw a dividing line between superior and inferior persons, between those who have "fallen" and those who are "graced," or between those who "broke a law" and deserve what they are getting and, on the other hand, those who have followed "the straight and narrow" and "deserve" to prosper. All that is to forget that the dividing line between good and evil runs through each person. The saying, "So long as there is life, there is hope," is true only so long as "grace is present and at work within all of human experience" (p. 41).
Where There Is No Grace, There Is No Hope
In the grand scheme of things it probably doesn't matter very much whether Pete Rose gets into the Baseball Hall of Fame or not. It's hardly life or death. However, Rose's ordeal may serve as a parable illustrating the truth of Snyder's insight. Wrongdoers, whether the wrong is large or small, remain wrongdoers. There is no way for them to find their way to forgiveness because forgiveness is not an option.
This attitude shows up at almost every level of life -- from the sins against baseball, to sins against society, to the most intimate levels of family failure.
I was asked to write a church curriculum several years ago relating to marriage and family. One of the units had to with the incidence of infidelity in marriage. At one point as I was trying to describe the devastating effects of infidelity and how hard it is to reconcile couples when it occurs, I wrote, "Infidelity in marriage almost always ends badly."
When the curriculum was released the publisher was besieged with mail responding to this remark. The criticism, almost the same in every letter, was that infidelity always ends badly. The writers (and there were many!) could not conceive of an instance in which a couple would choose to work past the hurt and betrayal and find a way to remain married -- as if there was no forgiveness for such sin.
The New York Times complains that Rose is not contrite enough -- that his repentance is insincere because he hopes to gain something from it. It is hard not to ask, what else is repentance for? Is it possible to exclude from all acts of contrition and all rituals of repentance, secular or sacred, an element of self-seeking and self-serving? What is the meaning of the plea, "Save me!" but the desire to be saved?
It is also tempting to conclude that for the sins against baseball committed by Pete Rose, there will never be enough contrition, because there is no forgiveness available. We would rather punish than heal.
Snyder addresses this with a discussion of the word "justice." To "seek justice" in our society almost always means punitive justice -- to seek revenge, to get even. Snyder asserts that there is another aspect of justice often overlooked. He calls it "restorative justice." Recognizing that there is a due penalty for failure, what do we want beyond that? What does God want? What is the purpose of exile?
The separation imposed by God for the sins of God's people was never intended to become a permanent state of being. Exile was for a moment in time and was designed to restore a people, not destroy them. Exile was for a time of discipline -- for learning a better way. It was not merely an exercise in inflicting pain.
It is not the role of culture, no matter how enlightened or influenced by the religious ideas of its people, to embrace or much less practice the meaning of God's grace. It is, however, the proper role for communities of faith. Consequently, we cannot afford to stumble over the very grace we proclaim. Our challenge is to embrace the truth that even in the midst of exile God comes to us with an offer of new life and a fresh start.
As we embrace that challenge and live out its meaning, however, it may be possible that we will have some mediating effect on our culture. We may, like salt, permeate our culture with an alternative vision to the one that says there is not forgiveness there is only unrelenting punishment and exile for those who sin. May we become communities that embrace that new life for ourselves, and then, in the freedom and hope created by that gracious life, proclaim its reality for all captives everywhere -- even the fallen saints of baseball.
Team Comments
George Murphy responds: One of the major points at issue in the Pete Rose case is whether or not he has shown enough "contrition" for gambling on baseball -- something that many people familiar with the case had long thought that he was guilty of, and that he has finally admitted. I don't expect the baseball's commissioner or Hall of Fame to use the term with scholastic precision, but it might be wise for preachers to make the appropriate distinctions if they're going to talk about the Rose situation.
For the theologians of the later Middle Ages, "contrition" meant essentially sorrow for sin because of love of God, i.e., simply because God had been offended. "Attrition," on the other hand, was sorrow because of the fear of God's punishment, i.e., because one would be punished. Some of the debates at the time of the Reformation had to do with whether attrition, rather than contrition, was adequate for genuine repentance. If we want to apply the distinction in a secular situation, we could say that contrition is sorrow simply for having done something wrong while attrition is sorrow for having gotten caught and having to suffer the consequences of one's actions.
Has Pete Rose shown contrition for gambling on baseball while he was involved in the sport? Is he really sorry that he did something wrong? Or is he just showing attrition -- regret that he's been kept out of the Hall of Fame and not allowed to manage a team? You'll have to decide that yourself if you're interested in his case. His long delay in admitting what he'd done and the title of his book, My Prison Without Bars, which tries to claim victim status, make me strongly suspect attrition.
Of course a sermon shouldn't be primarily about Pete Rose, but the distinction I've made is quite relevant to the status of the repentance and the faith of some churchgoers -- and in many cases it's the fault of some styles of preaching. The whole point of "fire and brimstone" preaching is to get people to repent, turn from sin and accept Christ because of fear of punishment -- literally "to scare the hell out of them." Jonathan Edwards was too great a theologian to be remembered only for his "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" sermon, but it and sermons like it unfortunately have had too much influence on American homiletics.
Attrition rather than contrition doesn't just mean that a person has shown a deficient kind of repentance. It also means -- unless there is a deepening of spiritual awareness -- that there will be a deficient kind of faith. It means the difference between putting oneself first, and wanting to avoid suffering, and putting God first. Contrition corresponds to having God as the ultimate object of one's trust and love and saying, "Thy will be done," as far as one's final status is concerned. Confession of sin should be more than mere recital of facts, and penitence brought about only by fear of punishment can lead at best to a quite immature faith.
I'm not in the habit of recommending Islamic piety, but many years ago I heard a Muslim prayer that is worth reflecting on -- even though I'm not sure of the exact words. But approximately:
O God, if I worship you in fear of Hell, burn me in Hell.
If I worship you in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise.
But if I worship you for your own sake, do not exclude me from your everlasting glory.
Shifting from theology back to Pete Rose, some people who aren't familiar with professional sports or organized gambling may wonder why an athlete (and the issue extends to sports other than Major League baseball) gambling on the game he or she competes in is such a big problem. If Pete Rose never bet against his own team (as he claims), what was wrong with what he did? But things are more complicated than just wagering that Team A will beat Team B on a given day.
If a player or manager generally bets on Team A to beat Team B but one day puts his money down the other way -- or even doesn't place a bet on their game at all -- it can send a signal to bookies and others involved in gambling that he has some inside information. It could affect the odds and result in gains or losses of large amounts of money. The temptation for a player to accept payoffs for such indirect supplies of information to gamblers is obvious. Furthermore, sports betting is often more complex than just choosing whether Team A or Team B will win. There's often a "point spread" so that one is betting that a team will or won't win by at least a certain margin. That introduces the possibility of further manipulation by unscrupulous players.
Wes Runk responds: Growing up in Cincinnati and being a fanatical fan of the Reds since I was five years old, I still have mixed feelings. Pete was a hero in high school and the hardest competitor anyone ever knew. His father was a hero who held Pete to a standard that no one else had to endure. That is how someone with less talent still became one of the best where individualism stands out. But he was a bad husband and father while a great teammate. He loved Tony Perez, manager Sparky Anderson, and almost all of his peers, including sports writers and umpires. His language was awful, and on several occasions I remember Joe Morgan apologizing for his speech and behavior. He was opportunist but he loved the game and would give himself for it. In the days of his addiction he flaunted his actions in front of many, and only a few withdrew from him because of his glaring disregard for the sacred rules of baseball. My son, Tim, held him as his greatest hero until he appeared at an event we attended and spoke like the scum of the earth. He spent the night in silence trying to reconcile what he knew was wrong, really wrong, with his hero worship. After that occasion he switched positions, changed his batting stance, and even disregarded the "Pete Rose" patented slide into base. Not once did he ever say anything to me about these changes or why he changed, because he still idolized the man for his skills but not his manhood.
Carter Shelley responds: In presenting the dilemma the people of Judah faced in exile and after their return to Jerusalem and in sharing the main concepts from T. Richard Snyder's book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Punishment, you offer a sympathetic take on the current Pete Rose brouhaha. I am particularly struck by Snyder's distinction between seeking justice as revenge and the notion of restorative justice, which rarely gets a hearing in prisons or by governments. One of President Bush's promises to the nation has been not to let those responsible for 9/11 "get away with it." The problem with punitive justice, of course, is that (a) it isn't Christian and (b) its punishment invariably embraces many who are linked to the terrorist/criminal/guilty party yet are themselves innocent. Restorative justice requires more imagination and creativity than most Calvinists, Puritans, and present-day Americans can envision, because we aren't used to thinking in those terms.
I read the excerpt from My Prison Without Bars in the January 12, 2004, issue of Sports Illustrated. The voice of Pete Rose comes through strongly and plainly, which says to me that Rick Hall, the writer who worked with Rose on the book, captured not only the voice but also the tenor of the man Pete Rose. Despite what I said in the previous paragraph about restorative justice, I have sympathy for the stance of the New York Times, because I am convinced Pete Rose doesn't "get it." He expresses anger that an addiction to gambling receives such decisive punishment while an addiction to drugs merits a rehab program and reinstatement in the game. He expresses dismay that he's been banned from baseball for betting on the game when he asserts that he never bet against his own team; therefore, he never endangered the outcome of any of the Cincinnati Red's games when he served as their manager. He also expresses a sense of betrayal that his lie to baseball commissioners Peter Ueberroth, Bart Giamatti, and Fay Vincent was not believed and so Rose was banned from the game when he thought he'd settled the matter by swearing he never gambled on baseball. In short, he sounds a bit like the child who says she is sorry that she clonked her little brother on the head with a rock, when what she's really sorry about is having been caught!
My understanding of guilt and repentance as presented in the Old Testament is that repentance doesn't occur until a person understands the offense, sincerely regrets the sin committed, and understands that same sin as a destructive element that works against God's created order. Repentance requires a change in perspective and a change in action. I don't think punishment leads to sincere repentance any more than Snyder or you do, Jim; however, the only regret I read in Pete Rose's words in pages 74-82 are the way it has made him notorious and an exile from the sport he loves so much. This leads to another concern I have, only this one is on behalf of Pete Rose and all famous American athletes, namely, the tenuous hold professional athletes have on fame, glory, and economic riches.
As someone over fifty now staring daily at sagging jowls and permanent bags under my eyes, both of which I'd love to excise either by magic or plastic surgery, I sympathize with the grief and loss Pete Rose felt at getting too old to play the game he loved so much. In our culture, getting older is hard, and offers few rewards or compensations. I feel for Pete Rose and all athletes who have nothing to sustain them once the competitive thrill is gone. His whole life was baseball. He wasn't a scholar. He wasn't a devout churchman. He doesn't write of the pleasure he got from time spent with his wife and children. Being a baseball club manager did not replicate the adrenaline charge Rose got from swinging the bat and running the bases while the fans cheered wildly. The closest he could get to feeling the same joy and excitement he got from playing baseball was to play the numbers: horse racing, March Madness, NBA playoffs, NFL -- you name it, Rose bet on it.
Our society is set up to celebrate and adore professional athletes, but our society is not set up to help them become well rounded, centered, mature human beings. The guilt for this distortion belongs to all of us: fans, coaches, ball clubs, etc. We use these people for our own recreational pleasure, and then we forget them. Didn't graduate from college? Too bad. Can't read or spell. That's a shame. Lost that million-dollar contract due to an injury incurred on the job? Well, life ain't fair. Our way of adulating athletes does not include concern for who they are in total; it's all about what they can do with a ball and how many points they can score. Nothing in Pete Rose's life prepared him for the emptiness, grief, and pain he felt once he could no longer play baseball. The most heartfelt words recorded in the SI excerpt concern Rose's sorrow over being too old and too slow to play baseball anymore. He gave his all to the game for as long as his body would let him, and once that was over, he had no deeper underpinnings to help him deal with the loss, which surely felt to him much life the death of a spouse feels to many other people. Pete Rose wasn't intellectually, emotionally, or physically equipped to handle this genuine mid-life crisis on his own. Nor should he have had to do so.
So, I'd like for Pete Rose to "get" why his betting on baseball was a betrayal of the game rather than merely "a bad idea." But I'd also like for those of us who cheer on our high school teams, pay big bucks to watch pro match-ups, and sit mesmerized in front of our TVs during the Kentucky Derby, Wimbledon, the Super Bowl or March Madness to think about the part we play in encouraging athletes to be athletes first and human beings second. Repentance, after all, is an equal opportunity option for all us mortals and children of God.
Carlos Wilton responds: Whether Isaiah 62 was written by the prophet we know as Second Isaiah, or by a disciple, Third Isaiah, the author truly understands God as doing "a new thing" in his time -- reaching out to a people who have called themselves forsaken and bringing them home to a promised land almost none of them know from personal experience. There's no reason God has to do this -- other than sheer, unmerited grace.
The example of this grace inspires us as we reflect on our own broken relationships, betrayed confidences, shattered trust. Can we indeed live this sort of abundant grace ourselves, in our interactions with those who have hurt us?
"Sincerity is the key," George Burns once quipped. "If you can fake that, you've got it made." Is Pete Rose sincere? Who can say, other than the man himself -- and God, who reads all hearts? We do well to avoid placing ourselves in the judgment seat of God. We cannot know, for sure. But there is almost always something to be gained by assuming the best about others, giving them by our trust large shoes (or perhaps baseball spikes) to fill.
Related Illustrations
Fyodor Dostoevsky, in The Brothers Karamazov, tells a little parable about an old woman and an onion. The woman dies, but she has been so stingy in her life that no one can remember a single good deed she has done. Immediately upon her death, the little devils grab her and throw her into the pit. The woman has a guardian angel, however, who pleads her case before God.
God relents, and says to the angel, "If you can find one good thing this woman ever did in her life, I will allow her to enter Paradise."
The angel thinks and thinks. Finally he says, "I do remember one time when she picked an onion out of her garden and gave it to a beggar woman."
"Take the onion," says God, "and if with that onion you can lift her out of the pit, I will bring her to Paradise."
The angel finds the scrawny little onion and he holds it down to the woman. She grabs hold of it, and he begins to pull her out. She gets nearly all of the way out of this place of suffering, but suddenly other people who are confined there with her reach up and grab hold of her feet. They are hoping the onion will be their way to salvation, too. The woman looks down in disgust, and begins kicking her leg to shake them off. "Let go," she cries out. "It's my onion."
At this precise moment the onion breaks and she falls back into the pit. The angel weeps, and walks away sadly.
***
Some years back, Newsweek covered the memorial service held for former Vice President Hubert Humphrey. As with all political funerals, hundreds of dignitaries were in attendance. Joyfully they greeted one another, glad for this opportunity to see and be seen.
One guest, however, kept to himself. He was ignored by virtually everyone there. He was a pariah: no one would look at him, let alone speak to him. That person was former president Richard Nixon. The memory of the Watergate scandal lingered. He was back in Washington for the first time since he resigned the presidency, but no one would so much as acknowledge his presence.
That is, until President Jimmy Carter came into the room. As he made the rounds of the distinguished guests, he noticed Richard Nixon standing against the wall, by himself. Carter walked over to him as though he were greeting a long-lost friend. He extended his hand to the former president, and flashed his famous grin. "Welcome home, Mr. President!" Carter said. "Welcome home!"
Commenting on that act of hospitality, Newsweek observed, "If there was a turning point in Nixon's long ordeal in the wilderness, it was that moment and that gesture of love and compassion."
***
"Forgiveness is the economy of the heart ... Forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits."
-- Hannah More, "Christianity: A Practical Principle," in Practical Piety
***
"True repentance hates the sin, and not merely the penalty; and it hates the sin most of all because it has discovered and felt God's love."
-- W. M. Taylor
***
"Repentance means 'change of mind,' or 'new mind,' or taking on a 'meta-mind,' that is, a mind beyond, a mind after, a mind transcending. It is a difficult concept to define and even more difficult to attain. For it requires radical openness to new possibilities. Repentance isn't a searing flame of guilt or shame as much as an opening up, a musing, a turning over of life in one's hand, in the way one explores the face of a lover.
Repentance is as close as we get to the mind of God. For as urgently as people want to portray God as rigid and changeless, a stern judge whose law book never has fresh ink and whose mind was fixed eons ago, the Scripture portrays God as one who repents: taking on a new mind, loving in new ways, trying new words, accepting new people, charting a new course, rethinking the old.
Christians have preferred to see themselves as the shock troops of God, armed with verity and virtue and riding forth to command or, nowadays, staying inside to enjoy. With meaningless evasions like, 'Hate the sin but love the sinner,' they have dispensed one-way judgment, like an impatient parent or arrogant boss. Ask the compelling question, and move on. Indict and condemn, and move on. Drop off a pamphlet, and move on. Put an ad in the religion section, and move on.
Repentance takes far more work than that. It takes time, it takes openness, it takes sharing, it takes wisdom, it takes clarity of word and kindness of heart. Minds don't change -- in any meaningful or lasting way -- in response to fear, compunction, force, or fawning. Minds are like flowers. They require water, sunlight, a gentle hand and patience."
-- Tom Ehrich, "On a Journey," e-mail meditation distributed 7/12/03
***
Many may recall the tag line that accompanied the movie Love Story: "Love means never having to say you're sorry." It was the romantic ideal proposed for the young lovers.
A snide, but perhaps truer sentiment uttered by someone long married, put it this way: "Love means saying you're sorry when you're not" -- in order to keep the peace or attempt a compromise.
Worship Resources
CALL TO WORSHIP
The lectionary Psalm makes a nice call to worship this week. Option one is a responsive reading of Psalm 36:5-10
LEADER: Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens,
PEOPLE: Your faithfulness to the skies.
LEADER: Your righteousness is like a mighty mountain,
PEOPLE: Your justice like the great deep.
LEADER: How priceless is your unfailing love!
PEOPLE: The great and the small both find refuge in you.
LEADER: They feast on the abundance of your house;
PEOPLE: You give them drinks from your river of delights.
LEADER: For with you is the fountain of life;
PEOPLE: In your light we see clearly.
LEADER: Continue your love, O Lord
PEOPLE: To those who know and love you.
An alternative approach -- if you are focusing on newness and restoration, which are themes in this week's lectionary passages -- would be to have a very brief time of testimony right at the start of worship. Invite someone whose life has been changed by God to share his or her story in brief form. Follow the story, which will speak of the power that changed water into wine, with a simple statement like, "Let us worship the God who makes all things new."
If you don't have someone available for such a testimony, how about using a short dramatic reading like the following:
My name is Jack. They used to call me "Jack the Attack," because I was so intense and everyone in my group of friends assumed I'd be the first to have a heart attack. I worked hard, played hard, and drank hard. Never had time for a family. I was too busy climbing to the top.
But as I got nearer and nearer my goal I felt more and more emptiness. Self-loathing was a constant companion. My story took lots of twists and turns along the way, but what I want to tell you this morning is the simple and beautiful truth that one day a wonderful friend introduced me to Jesus Christ. At that moment my life began to be changed. Not overnight, but slowly and steadily I have been changing.
I'm not "Jack the Attack" anymore. A guy whose life is being made new by God every day. That's why I worship. Will you worship with me?
A praise hymn or song should be sung immediately.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
LEADER: Stagnant!
PEOPLE: Stalled out!
LEADER: Sliding back.
PEOPLE: Stuck.
LEADER: Lord, these words describe many of us right now.
PEOPLE: We have allowed circumstances,
LEADER: Satan,
PEOPLE: Sadness, and sorrow
LEADER: To short-circuit our growth in you.
PEOPLE: Forgive us for our lack of effort.
LEADER: Help us to stir one another to love
PEOPLE: And good works,
LEADER: So that we may continue toward
PEOPLE: The wholeness
LEADER: And holiness
PEOPLE: That you desire for us.
LEADER: We pray it in the powerful name of Jesus Christ.
PEOPLE: Amen.
ASSURANCE OF PARDON
The old man said, "Aah, it's too late for me. I can't change any more. I'm too old, too set in my ways."
But the Lord said, "I changed the world through eighty-year-old Moses and one-hundred-year-old Abraham and ninety-year-old Sarah.
The young girl said, "I'm too young for the Lord to do much with me.
But the Lord said, "I have done mighty works through young people like David and Daniel and Jeremiah and Mary."
This one said, "I have little to give. My limitations are too much to overcome."
But the Lord said, "I spoke to Balaam through his mule and taught Paul that when he was weak then he was strongest in me."
It is never too late with the Lord.
You are never too young for the Lord.
There are no obstacles he cannot overcome.
You are forgiven, you are loved, now serve him with all your heart. Amen.
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION
Creator God, in the beginning you spoke the word "Light!" and light came into existence. Speak to us in such a way this morning that your word will enliven all that is of you within us. Amen.
PASTORAL PRAYER
Lord, there is so much that needs to be made new in our world, and in our hearts.
The politics of power that keeps millions in our world hungry, that keeps one nation pitted against another.
Lord, bring newness to the realm of politics.
Corporations that put profits ahead of people.
Lord, bring newness to the arena of business.
Ethnic groups that nurse and nurture thousand-year-old prejudices thereby perpetuating violence and conflict.
Lord, bring newness into the sphere where unthinking prejudice reigns.
Parents too busy -- or selfish -- to attend to the needs of their children.
Lord, turn their hearts to their families, that there might be a renewal of the home.
Addictions that degrade and destroy lives.
Lord, break the power of addiction to give the enslaved a new start.
Hearts broken by doubt and self-hatred keeping many from being everything you made them to be.
Lord, open their eyes to see the beautiful image of God in themselves that they might be made new and alive.
Heavenly King, in all these circumstances and more, darkness and death come stalking us and our world. But you make all things new again. Help us to see our way clear of the old and find our way into the newness of Christ that is available to all who embrace it.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Hymns and Songs
My Tribute (by Andrea Crouch)
The God of Abraham Praise
Love Lifted Me
He Touched Me
O How I Love Jesus
O How He Loved You and Me
Peace Like a River
Since I Have Been Redeemed
Jesus Loved Even Me
To God Be the Glory
A Children's Sermon
by Wesley Runk
Isaiah 62:1-5
Text: "You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate." (v. 4a)
Object: The number 14 or a baseball shirt with the name Rose on it and the number 14 or a baseball card or anything else that speaks about Pete Rose (a bat, a glove, or a picture from the newspaper).
Good morning, boys and girls. I brought with me something this morning that you will recognize right away. (hold up the number 14) What is this? (let them answer) That's right, it is the number 14. Does anyone know what the number 14 stands for? (let them answer) It doesn't stand for the fourteen commandments, does it? (let them answer) Were there fourteen disciples or apostles? (let them answer) Were there fourteen loaves and fishes that fed the 5000 people? Could the number 14 stand for the tribes of Israel? (let them answer) It doesn't stand for any of them. I don't think the number 14 stands for anything in the Bible. Then why did I bring with me the number 14 today?
Number 14 was worn on the back of a very famous baseball player. Does anyone know his name? (let them answer) It isn't Bonds, Maddux, Griffey, Jeter, or anyone else that plays today. Number 14 is a man by the name of Peter Edward Rose or Pete Rose. Has anyone ever heard about Pete Rose? (let them answer) Why is he so famous? (let them answer) He holds a lot of records including playing in the most winning games and having the most hits. But he isn't in the Hall of Fame. Do you know why a man with so many records is not in the Hall of Fame? (let them answer) That's right, because he bet on baseball games and he lied about his betting and other things. Pete Rose is banned from baseball. He is not allowed in the clubhouse where baseball players stay before and after games. He is not allowed to be a coach or a manager anywhere in organized baseball. He is an outsider in a game of which many say he was the best player.
Pete Rose told lies and did bad things, and he is out of baseball. But recently he did what many people asked him to do. They asked him to tell the truth about himself. They wanted him to say that he lied and that he bet on baseball. He even said he bet on his own team but only to win. Was everyone happy that Pete Rose said he did bad things and that he was sorry about it? (let them answer) Some people were glad for him but many people say it doesn't change their minds. He should still be kept out of baseball.
The Bible talks a lot about people and nations that did wrong and were punished for doing it. But the Bible also talks about saying we are sorry and asking for forgiveness. When you do something wrong and then lie about it, what happens to you? (let them answer) What happens when you tell people that you are sorry for what you did and you promise never to do it again? (let them answer) Do your parents or teachers send you away and tell you never to come back? Should we put people in jail or prison and keep them there for the rest of their lives? (let them answer)
God told the Israelites that he would forgive them and bring them back into a loving relationship with him and other people. The Israelites were thrilled. They loved God for forgiving them and loving them even though he had punished them. Our parents forgive us and love us. Our teachers forgive us and welcome us back into our classes.
Pete Rose will have to wait while people watch how he lives his life now that he has told the truth. He hopes and I hope that someday the people in baseball will forgive him and welcome him back into the game he loves. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
* * *
The Immediate Word, January 18, 2004, issue.
Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
