No Mercy

It was my junior year at Belmont. All of us baseball players just got out of practice and were coming out of the locker rooms when we decided to go into the basketball arena to watch the Atlantic Sun Women’s Volleyball Tournament. Belmont was hosting the tourney and we knew that our girls were playing.

We walked in and sat right on the floor. I noticed that Belmont was up and it was game point in the third game (best out of five) and Belmont had taken the first two games. This meant that the upcoming point was match point, and the opposing team was serving. And a time-out was called on the court.

I found a roster for both teams lying on the ground; I picked it up and began to look over the names for the opposing team. I found who I was looking for.

Somebody’s precious little daughter was serving. And she was a senior. I realized at that moment if this little sweetheart loses this point the match and her career are both over.

A hush fell over the crowd as the sweet little daughter toed the line. She breathed deeply and calmly and became poised to move the game to yet one more point.

Simultaneously I stood in my seat and belted, “Don’t choke; this will be the last serve you ever serve for your entire life!”

I’m now the anthropomorphic manifestation of evil for this girl!

She hits the ball into the net; Belmont wins the match.

Her career – over.

Her memories of college athletics – tainted as my face screaming in celebration at her misfortune sears into her brain.

For me . . . this girl was outside the realm of my mercy.

Why is it so ingrained in human nature to want to be unmerciful? Why is it so easy for us to draw lines in the sand, push people away, vote people in and out, choose who we will save and who we will damn?

We see this all the time. The Republicans have regained enough seats in the House . . . the Democrats are now damned. Muslims are moving from the East to West to live in our free country and we crucify them with our tongues as we pretend to think that racism is dead in the South. Need we even say the word “homosexuality” or phrase “gay marriage”? They haven’t been accepted in Baptist life yet.

We find things that are different, disturbing, or other and we vote it out, disenfranchise it, segregate with it, and damn it. And then we turn right around and justify to ourselves that we are godly, good-natured, and righteous by how we live. And I do it too.

Loving our neighbors is a big deal. I wonder why we don’t think about it more?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Most Difficult Parable Ever

Image
Theologian N.T. Wright finds the parable of the fig tree to be quite strange.  He says, “Jesus' warning in Luke 13 is at once amplified by this almost humorous, yet in fact quite sinister, parable of the fig tree in the vineyard.” And it is sinister.  It’s a hard pill to take.  Jesus' parable goes like this: A man has as fig tree planted in his vineyard.  One day he comes out looking for fruit on it, but there are no figs.  He says to the vineyard keeper, “Look at this tree.  For three years, I've come hoping to find some fresh figs, but what do I find? Nothing.  So just go ahead and cut it down.  Why waste the space with a fruitless tree?” The vineyard keeper replies, “Give it another chance, sir.  Give me one more years working with it.  I’ll cultivate the soil and heap on some manure to fertilize it.  If it surprises us and bears fruit next year, that will be great, but if not, then we’ll cut it down.”...
Read more

The Bird of Dawning Singeth All Night Long

Image
This Christmas I was moved by the words of Frederick Buechner.  For my last blog of the year I offer to you his wisdom rather than my own ramblings.  I hope it does for you what it continues to do for me. Frederick Buechner says in his book The Faces of Jesus: On the dark bulwark of Elsinore, Shakespeare has Marcellus and Haratio reflecting on Christ in the opening scene of Hamlet: Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes Wherein our Savior’s birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad, The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike, No fairly takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallowed and so gracious is the time These lines from the first scene of Hamlet in a sense say it all.  We tend to think time is just progression . . . as moment following moment, day following day, in relentless flow, the kind of time a clock or calendar measures.  But we ...
Read more

Sacrificing Joy

Image
I have been told my biggest weakness is I take myself too seriously. I agree. But here is my dilemma: My life is filled with responsibilities and deadlines. I go to school, pastor a church, assist my seminary in their admissions process, and feel obligated to be a good friend. My school takes up twelve hours a week plus roughly twenty hours of study. I work at least 10 hours on my sermon and spend two days a week with my congregation. Fifteen hours of my week is given to the McAfee Admissions Office and every Saturday I play softball with some friends. With this schedule I am up to 57 hours of responsibility time plus two days are given to my congregants. Why do I do this you ask? Because I can. Because God is blessing me in it. Because it gives me a sense of fulfillment. All of these shape an identity for me. And I love every second of it. We are all busy people. We all know what it is like to work the extra hour or sign up for one my volunteer role. We all over...
Read more