P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

MOVING UP TO THE MAJOR LEAGUE CLUB

They say that if you play baseball in the big leagues for even one season, or a part of a season, or even just one GAME, you are forever after that a celebrity. Back home in the country diner, they’ll always want your autograph. Some- times one special IDENTITY forever supercedes all others.

Have you ever had an identity — a name, a title, a membership in something noble or ignoble — which was later superceded because you joined something bigger and more lasting? Sometimes people’s last names change when they marry. Or you get a new citizenship and a clean passport which states that from this moment on, you are a part of “X” country.

Maybe you’ve read on the Internet the story of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence. The line that is always used is this classic statement penned by Thomas Jefferson:

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

Those three promises came true with a painful vengeance for almost all of the 56 original signers, beginning with John Hancock and going right down the line. The soundbite for today, though, is where a young Patrick Henry cried out:

“I am no longer a Virginian, Sir, but an American!”

Here in the book of Ephesians, chapter four, we find something wonderfully similar happening. We’ve made the point all through this radio series that Paul was writing to both Jews and Gentiles. New members of the fledgling Christian faith and skeptics looking on from the sidelines. And the NIV heading for chapter four is very simple: “Unity in the Body of Christ.” In other words, we are no more Jews and Gentiles and male and female and white and black and this and that, Paul writes. We don’t come from this theological camp or that one; we’re not part of the Sanhedrin or the Pharisees or the Sadducees. There aren’t 13 colonies or 50 states or 200 denominations. There’s just one group: the body of Christ. Here’s verse four:

“There is ONE body and ONE Spirit — just as you were called to ONE hope when you were called.”

And then the scholars who worked together on the New International Version’s text notes add:

“The ‘one hope’ is our glorious future in Christ, ‘in which all believers share.’”

I wonder how many times we sit in our respective churches on Sabbath or Sunday morning, and have in the back of our minds the thought that we are still the believers from “such-and-such” colony. Over there across the street is the contingent from Georgia, and three blocks down is the delegation from Delaware. And we, let’s say, sitting here in OUR pew, are the people from Virginia. And in our minds we are still more Virginians than Americans. In fact, maybe we think that Virginians — and not to pick on them — but that Virginians are really the only TRUE Americans. Everyone else is perhaps a Tory or a spy, not part of the one true church. You get the idea.

Well, friend, loyalty to denomination and faithfulness to its teachings is still a good thing, and one of the reasons why this radio program has existed for more than 70 years. But I would invite you to think with me about the reality that when a person goes into the water and is baptized, the identity of “Christian” not only is affixed immediately, but it also preempts and overrides every other label we may have adopted through life.

We’ve been sharing some insightful comments from the Tyndale set of Bible study guides, and the set for Ephesians is authored by the very capable Dr. Francis Foulkes. Here’s what he says on the point:

“To be ‘in Christ’ means to be in His Body, members one of another as truly and intimately as are the organs of the human body.” Now please take note of the following: “The unity is indeed a spiritual unity, and therefore TRANSCENDS AND SURPASSES ANY ASSOCIATION OR SOCIETY WITH ITS BASIS IN THE THINGS OF THIS WORLD.”

Now, friend, what does all of that mean? It sounds revolutionary, but what’s it about?
Simply this. When you become a Christian, you are immediately a part of something which is going to last forever. Am I right? The kingdom of God is going to triumph and exist throughout all eternity. And when you accept Calvary, when you join and get a passport, your becoming a part of it is not only permanent and secure, but EVERLASTINGLY permanent and secure. You are ALWAYS going to be a Christian; you are ALWAYS going to be a vital part of the Body of Christ, a miraculous and universal entity which triumphs to the glory of God for all time and eternity.

A wonderful little Disney film coming out in early 2002 told the story of baseball pitcher Jim Morris, who always wanted to pitch in the major leagues. That was his lifelong dream, but a variety of hard life experiences kept him from it. Instead he ended up teaching high school science classes . . . and coaching a bit of baseball on the side. Long story short, doddering along in his mid-30s, he gets a tryout with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and they find out that this old coot still has a 98-mile-an-hour fastball. True story — he ends up pitching in the majors after all. For two years — notice — for two brief seasons he has the identity: major league ballplayer. A participant in “The Show.” Employee of the Devil Rays’ “big club.” Two years: that’s it. Mr. Morris can carry it around forever — “I was in the majors” — but that proud label was really his for just two short seasons.

Let’s say you have on your resumé that you work for a certain company. How long will that last? You might put in 40 years, or you might get laid off tomorrow. Or let’s say you’re an American citizen. Or Canadian. That will probably last for a while — until you die or apply to wave some other flag. Citizens of some countries wake up one morning and find out that falling bombs and gone-berserk military leaders have already made that decision for them. You may have a certain last name today, and then find that death or divorce has erased it for you. But the spiritual unity of the Christian faith, this Dr. Foulkes writes, “transcends and surpasses any association or society with its basis in the things of this [fragile, soon-to-end] world.”

I remember being just blown away by a sentence in C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, where he asserts that a person — any person, old or young, rich or poor, famous or not — is more important than a government or country. And we say: What? One person? How can that be? Individual people die on the battlefield all the time for the greater thing, for the flag and country. But in the larger sense, as he and the apostle Paul point out, a country only lasts for a brief time: a few years or centuries. Nations rise and fall, but a person in God’s kingdom is going to last for all eternity.

Let’s get back to that commentary by our friends at Tyndale, and notice, please, how this new reality shapes our thinking:

“The apostle is aware,” they point out, “of the endless variety of temperaments amongst his readers and the diverse racial and social backgrounds from which they have come into the Christian church.” We think of those 56 men in that one humid room on July 4, 1776, hammering out the phrases of the Declaration of Independence. Dr. Foulkes continues: “But [Paul] would have them even MORE aware of the spiritual realities that now unite them and that should completely transcend differences of background.”

In that sweet, G-rated baseball film, The Rookie, Jim Morris had that incredible, poignant day when he proudly put on the uniform of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. What a moment! Now he was part of a team! Twenty-five guys! Immediately, it became his responsibility to shed other loyalties, to cast away all triple-A farm team ways of thinking, to sacrifice any feuds he had with anybody on the squad. This new calling was the highest calling, and it dominated his life for those two wonderful years. It’s the same here.

How does this work for us, when we sit in our various churches and sing — you from your hymnal and me from mine? Here’s the closing bit to the Tyndale essay:

“All who are members of the one body are that by virtue of the Spirit of God dwelling in them. This fact prevents any view of the Church as a mere organization; for the presence of the Spirit CONSTITUTES the Church and is the basis of its unity. Then, all who have the Spirit have a common hope. From a vast variety of backgrounds they have come, but their goal is now the same. The Spirit is the earnest [or deposit] and the pledge that in the end all will stand together in the presence of the Lord and be restored fully to His likeness and possess His inheritance. For those who share the glory of that hope, and are concerned to give witness of it to the world, it is folly not to strive now to keep a unity of peace and love.”

And here’s a beautiful closing P.S. from the official commentary for my own church family:

“The Christian is not a solitary pilgrim,” they write. “He belongs to a vital organism, the family of God. This unit replaces the state, the club, and even the human family as the SUPREME OBJECT of his attachment.”