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Sermon Series:
Following Jesus
Earthly Cross
His Name Is
Apostles Creed
Dealing with Feelings
Jonah
Get Real
Promised Land Living

Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

Email:
Pastor Scott Carson

Secretary Patti Hall

PASTOR'S PENS 2007

Grace Church of Burlington May 6, 2007 “No game in the world is as tidy and dramatically neat as baseball, with cause and effect, crime and punishment, motive and result, so cleanly defined.”                                                                                                           Paul Gallico             I’m not sure when it started. Maybe it was going to Braves’ games when I was a kid. I was there several times in old Fulton County Stadium that legendary summer when Hammerin’ Hank finally hit that magic 715. In high school I was our team’s statistician one season and even played on the church softball league as catcher. But I’ve always loved baseball. A year is just not quite complete for me unless Jane and I get to at least one professional game. Now I like football and basketball but I have to confess that I love baseball.             Many of us remember a little less than a decade ago when Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire were in a dead heat to break the late Roger Maris' single-season home run record. The race to break the record first became an international media spectacle as the lead swung back and forth. On September 8, 1998 McGwire hit a pitch by the Chicago Cubs' Steve Trachsel over the left field wall for his record-breaking 62nd home run, setting off huge celebrations at Busch Stadium. The fact that the game was against the Cubs meant that Sosa was able to personally congratulate McGwire on his achievement. Members of Roger Maris' family were also present at the game. Mark McGwire finished the 1998 season with 70 home runs and ended his career with 583 home runs.             To honor him a bronze statue was forged. The big question is whether it ever will see the light of day. The St. Louis Cardinals commissioned the statue after McGwire hit those 70 homers in 1998. There's a place set aside for it alongside other mini-monuments to Cardinals’ legends outside Busch Stadium. But currently, the bronze statue is draped in cloth, hidden in a downtown warehouse. Its place in the limelight has been thrown into question, like so much of McGwire's legacy, by suspicion that steroid use enhanced his career. While Mark McGwire hit 583 homers, he was named on just 23.5% of the ballots this past January in his first year of eligibility for the Hall of Fame, far short of the 75% necessary to be enshrined.             The statue was commissioned in 2002, the year after McGwire retired. At that time it seemed like Mark McGwire was a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame. But that all changed in 2005 when McGwire was evasive in testimony to Congress regarding  steroid  use in baseball, even  though  professional baseball didn't ban steroids until after the 2002 season. Currently, the statue is hidden away at an undisclosed location. The Cardinals own it and don't want anyone taking a peek. The version that remains under wraps is three-quarters life-sized (statues are always a little bigger or a little smaller than normal people). The  warehouse where it's being stored is within a couple miles of Busch Stadium. The statue’s artist, Harry Weber, recently lamented, “He’s very close to the stadium. Just not there.”             As I read about this recently, I thought “How sad that just one choice can so cloud over a person’s entire life.” (Add to that the fact that steroids were not even banned when McGwire was playing). Yet how many individuals have “lost” a lifetime of wonderful deeds and achievements because of one choice in a moment of weakness. How sad that we so frequently fail to consider the long term consequences of our choices. Both history and Scripture are filled with examples of those who threw away a lifetime of faithfulness in one brief moment of a sinful choice. King David will forever be remembered as the adulterer and murderer. Moses lost the Promised Land for one temper tantrum. Peter, in the heat of the moment, denied his Lord.             All of us make hundreds, if not thousands, of choices every day. It’s imperative that we choose wisely, that we make each decision according to the light of God’s Word and the leading of His Spirit.             I’m not sure if Mark McGwire will ever make the Hall of Fame but all of us can make the Hall of Faith. Let’s determine by God’s grace to choose both  Biblically and wisely so that one day we can hear those wonderful words from the lips of King Jesus, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21).