A Better Man

A part of my generation, a rite of passage for most young boys of twelve is the first time you face the heat. Standing in the batter's box ready to hit a home run and then suddenly you hear it. The ball comes fast. There is a hiss and a hum and then a "thwamp" in the catcher’s mitt. First time this happens you know things just got dangerous. One young boy's arm was visited by lesser gods of baseball and now he can bring the heat.

              The rite of passage is a choice.  At the age of twelve you can pull back from the plate, recognizing the danger afoot.  Or you can lean in believing now things are happening.  I will confess like most of my peers, I stepped back, I didn’t lean in.  Too fast.

              Years ago I was talking to a director of the YMCA about their local swimming program.  He described it as an open door, a great sport for all.  This y’all come persists even through high school.  But like baseball there is a moment when the kids reach about thirteen, a few of them rise above the rest.  They are faster.  These kids hold the school records, go to state finals, and some receive scholarships to D-1 colleges where they compete at the highest of collegiate levels. 

              He went on and said, from this national cohort of the very fast a few rise higher, they rise above, endowed with godlike speed.  They are Olympians.  Olympians. He paused for a moment and continued.  Even higher than Olympians are the medal winners. The elite of the elite, fastest of the fastest.

              A part of loving baseball, growing up with baseball is how such clarity, such a winnowing you can see in swimming doesn’t happen, can’t happen in baseball.  There are too many contingencies, too many factors.  It is not just the ones with the most hits or strikeouts, the one with the most world series rings or the one who was named an all-star the most, it is a confluence of factors demanding consideration to determine who is the greatest baseball player, the best of the best.

              Being named to the Hall of Fame helps, certainly a requirement.  But then things get fuzzy.  Is Ty Cobb the greatest of the greatest?  Is Hank Aaron?  Is it the Great Bambino, the Sultan of Swat or is it Lou Gehrig who is better?  Two players often debated as being in the “greatest of the greatest” are Mickey Mantle and Stan Musial.  Contemporaries, rivals, great competitors, these two often make the top of the list.

              A year before Mickey Mantle died he had dinner with Stan Musial at the home of Bob Costas, the writer, commentator.  After dinner Musial and his wife went home, but Mantle stayed and spoke with great candor.  He offered a kind of confession, appraisal—who was greater, Musial or himself?  Mickey Mantle said, we were the same in terms of talent and skill and possibility, but Musial was the better ball player, he was better because he was a better man.

              A year after this late-night confession Mantle died and Costas was asked to speak at his funeral.  In his eulogy he praised and lamented the achievements and challenges Mantle lived.  Thirty years later, Costas gave another eulogy, this time for Musial.  He brought up the funeral service for Mickey Mantle where he spoke.  How when he was speaking he could see in the front row all the Yankee elite, celebrities, family.  All were in the best seats.  Then he said, off to the side, alone, back a way was Stan Musial.  He flew from St. Louis to New York, no fanfare, no special seat. Musial came a long way to comfort the family of a friend.

              Costas told this story in the eulogy he gave for Musial.  He also told of Mickey Mantle’s late-night confession.  To make his point clearer, Costas recounted something Hank Aaron told him.  It was the time in the fifties in baseball when integration happened, or was trying to happen, and it wasn’t easy.  Aaron recounts how the first few all-star games were rough.  The club houses while not segregated were divided.  Black players for the national league sat on one side of the clubhouse around a table playing cards; white players sat on the other side talking amongst themselves.  Aaron says in walks Stan Musial.  He gets to the center of the room, surveys the landscape.  Then he walked over to the table where the black players sat.  He pulled up a chair and said, “deal me in.”  Aaron said, “This changed our lives.”   

              I love the story of Mantle saying Musial was better because he was a better man.  I do because I don’t know of a better example of the difference between the resume, the record, the trophies and the eulogy, the obit, the tribute to a life lived well.  Mantle and Musial have a lot of the same resume.  Great ball players.  Elite.  But there was more to Musial than the resume.  Ty Cobb said Musial was the greatest and he hated everyone.  Like Mantle, he most likely saw the depth of character, the kind of man who says, “deal me in.”  There is the resume and there is the eulogy, the record and the obituary.

              It’s funny how we can argue about the record, the resume, but we really don’t debate the eulogy.  The good words spoken at the end of life are not a debate, they are a moment of splendor.

              The challenge, and this is a challenge reaching far beyond baseball, the challenge is to have both, to live both.  To not sacrifice one over the other, to lament neither.  This was David Brooks' point when he distinguished resume virtues from eulogy virtues.  Both important.  One much more important than the other.

              In Matthew’s parable of the talents, we can see this difference, the resume, the obituary.  We can see this if we walk through the three investments.  Matthew describes one person getting five talents, another two, and the last one.  Then after a long time, meaning the end of life, the master comes to settle accounts.  The one who buried the talent is the moment of the heat, the rite of passage, the decision to live life forward, to risk, to lean in, or not. 

              I didn't, and I assume none of us here, leaned into the pitch, the moment, early in life and became a baseball legend, an Olympian, a lesser god of sport or fame.  This is common of twelve-year-old children.  Often after singing quite loud in the kitchen while cooking I will say to my children and now grandchildren, I could have been a rock-n-roll star, but I put this aside for my wife and family.  Even the grandchildren who should be susceptible to fantasy laugh and pat my back.  But I am just as sure how many of us have leaned into life.  I have. It wasn't baseball, but it was life lived forward.  What Bruce Springsteen called fun. "Mama, that's where the fun is." 

              In the parable there is a man who did not lean in.  This happens.  Life is squandered, dashed, forsaken, bitter even.  The greatest of all tragedies, life not lived at all.

              Then there is the one who made four of two.  This is the resume.  Nothing wrong.  He is commended.  What joy it is to love what you do and do it well.  Not for fame or fortune, but for purpose and a deep and abiding peace you did the right thing.  Resume virtues.  Integrity, honesty, ethics, fairness.  She was fair to all concerned.  A good reference.

              But then there is the one who turns five into ten.  This is the eulogy, the grandchild who weeps for you, the friend who says, she made me want to be a better person.  Eulogy virtues are the only thing of consequence in the end, yet they are not everything of importance along the way.  You want the resume and you want the eulogy.  Matthew is saying, it's possible to have both; it is good to have both.  Strive for such.

              And then along comes Luke.  Scholars are baffled, I would say hate what Luke did to Matthew's parable.  It's as if he sullies it, compromises it with politics and violence and revenge.  He does.  Absolutely.  Luke takes Matthew's beautiful image of seeing the measure of life and throws it into the mud of brokenness and tawdriness.  Luke's parable could be read as a cynical rebuke of Matthew.  Such a reading is fair.  Just not very profound. 

              Notice how Luke changes the parable. Not a merchant, but a would-be king.  Not three people but ten.  Not different amounts but an equal share to all.  Not a verdict for one person, but a political vendetta.  Lots of changes.  But lots of connection.  Investment, risk, return, judgement.  All there in both.

              The difference in Luke's parable could be a rebuke of mystical, reflective spirituality trying to escape the world.  You pursue godliness, a great eulogy, by leaving the world, rising above the world.  Luke seems to say, no.  You can't.  Whether you want this or not success connects you to greed and violence and power, no matter what success is.  Again, this is a fair interpretation.  But still not the best.

              I saw the best interpretation of Luke's parable a few years ago.  We were wrestling to understand, speak, respond to the murder of George Floyd as a church.  We met as a task force many, many times.  There were books read and events of dialogue.  All good.  All hard and deeply challenging but all good.  The task force was at a moment of decision.  Say something, say nothing, put up a banner, hold a vigil, or be patient. We were not sure.

              We were debating a banner.  All agreed to “justice” and “mercy” to be displayed on the pillars.  But then how to speak to black lives valued less, being killed more, imprisoned more, arrested more?  How do we speak to this? I learned many, many years ago, I am not here to guide or create the heart of a congregation. As a pastor I am here to listen, listen for the heart. Because our heart is the hardest thing to hear.

              In the tension and ambiguity of the moment, when we needed to hear our heart, a voice rose above the silence.  If there is no banner, what's the point?  This was the voice of Reynolds Shaw.  I can hear his voice now.  If there is no banner, what the point of this?  It was like Stan Musial saying, "deal me in" except this was to say, "if we're not gonna play, why are we here?"  Like Hank Aaron said, changed my life. Changed our church.

              Not everyone liked the banner.  The depth of America's struggle with race and caste was not healed because we had a banner.  But we became a better church, better people, because we leaned in; we risked even if it wasn't a lot, we did.  We said, "deal me in."  Sometimes it is in such moments where the resume is laid aside for the eulogy. Reynolds Shaw gave such a moment. 

              You have what makes the eulogy already.  You do. I look out and I see eulogy virtues everywhere.  You made ten of five.  What if you accept this, how much you have loved, been loved, what if you accept this as true and say, "thank you.  Thank you, God, for a good life."

              And then, what if we do more?  What if our purpose is to help others make their eulogy?  You can help people build a resume.  True.  But as a church, what if our voice is here to create the question, “what is the point?”  What if living in courage is good, but then truly better when we empower the words, “deal me in?" Amen.