Ready in the Outfield

"Ready in the Outfield"--December 15, 2017

"Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you.  For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night." [1 Thessalonians 5:1-2]

What makes the players on the local college baseball team better athletes than the kids just signing up for their first year of little league?  Why is it that when a ball gets hit out to center field in a little league game (or rolls there because none of the infield players got it as it went past), you either watch the outfielders act surprised to see a ball come their way at all, or you see kids fumbling all over each other, all trying to get the same ball?  And yet you don't see that kind of reaction by the time the kids are in high school and college and have been playing for a while. Why is that?

Of course, some of it is just physical growth and physical repetition.  But there's more to it than that, I think.  Somewhere along the way, good ball players learn to anticipate what is going to happen.  That's not to say they can predict which pitch will be a ball or a strike or a hit.  But they are ready for any one pitch to be "the one" and posture themselves to be ready to make a catch at any time.  In a game where even the best players only get a hit about a third of the time (only one major league player ended the season in 2017 with an average above .333, for example), you know that not every pitch will send a fly ball your way.  In fact, if you play the odds, you can bet that a majority of pitching will not end up in your part of the field.  And that can make it that much harder to keep yourself prepared for the one that does come your way. 

You have to be watchful, you have to be ready to move, and you have to be able to stay still, too.  You have to be postured, in other words, like any pitch could be hit out in your direction, and you have to be able to get there and get under the ball to catch it.  That's something the kids just starting out in little league haven't developed yet, because most of them are either afraid of the ball coming their way, not paying attention to what's going on all the way over at home plate, or convinced that every ball is their to retrieve and then colliding with the other outfielders when a ball is hit.

This is the posture Paul would have us take when it comes to preparing for Jesus' return.  It's very much like learning to be a good outfielder.  Paul's imagery for it--which seems to have been inherited from Jesus, who used the same comparison--is like a thief breaking into your house in the middle of the night.  And the point, whether it's Jesus or Paul who's making it, is that none of us will get to know when Jesus, or "the day of the Lord" is coming (the phrase "day of the Lord" is a phrase the prophets in the Old Testament used quite a bit to refer to numerous times when God stepped into Israel's history in dramatic ways, but the New Testament writers borrow the phrase to talk about Jesus' coming).  But the idea is about the same, whether we're talking burglary or baseball--you can never tell exactly what moment you will need to be ready, so you had better be ready all the time.  You have to be alert enough that a single noise in the night or the trajectory of the ball as it leaves the pitcher's arm can signal you that you are going to need to move.  But you can't be so tense that you lock up or expend all your energy being on "red alert" for nine innings, nor so worked up about possible burglars that you cannot get any rest.  In other words, for both baseball and burglary, you have to be ready, watchful, and flexible. 

Simply put, we are all called to be ready for Jesus' coming without ever knowing precisely when he will come.  The only choice for us, then, will be to live our lives now as though we would be glad to be caught doing whatever we are doing when he comes.  You don't want to be caught staring into the sun or looking out at the bleachers when a fly ball finally comes your way.  And you don't want to be working against the other outfielders, either, going after the fly balls that are in their territory and then colliding into one another.  You want to have your eyes on the ball, to be able to breathe and be ready to run, and also be prepared for the possibility that you could wait for a while, too, before anything comes your way.  For us, too, living in the time between Jesus' resurrection and his coming again, we want to be living our lives now in a way that we don't mind being caught at when he comes.  We don't want to be distracted by things that are not important, and we don't want to get so worked up that we can't snap into action when it is time to snap into action. 

As we keep exploring what it means to be keeping an eye on the ball and having our legs bent and feet ready to move, for today maybe it is enough to say this:  each day when we wake up, we are called to be ready in the outfield for whatever will come.  From your own days playing ball as a kid, or from watching it over the years, think about what makes a good outfielder, and consider how you could do the same with the day laid out in front of you.

Lord God, help us to be ready for the day when Jesus comes to restore all things and to put creation right, and let us have a posture ready for you to move among us.  Help us keep our eye on the ball today.