Will this finally be the year the Chicago Cubs win the World Series, last won in 1908, or the year of the Cleveland Indians, who last won it in 1948?
A
lifetime ago in 1968, when I still lived in Detroit, my Tigers won the pennant
and then the World Series. At the end of the regular season, the Tigers had
clinched the pennant and they were playing their last home game against their
nemesis, the New York Yankees. Mickey Mantle was at the plate in the late
innings, and the Tigers were leading 5 to 1.
Mantle
had announced that he was retiring from baseball, and everyone knew that this
was his last at-bat in Tiger stadium. Denny McClain was pitching.
When
Mickey stepped into the batter’s box he smiled at McClain and motioned with his
bat to a spot right down the middle of the plate, belt high. He was kidding,
saying, Serve up a pitch right there
for me to hit.
The
first pitch was right down the middle, belt high, and Mickey was so surprised
he didn’t even swing at it. McClain got ready for the next pitch, and he nodded
his head saying, I’m going to do it –
put it right there where you want it. He did, and Mickey Mantle hit it
into the right field bleachers. The crowd went wild and gave Mantle a standing
ovation as he trotted around the bases. As he rounded second he turned toward
McClain and tipped his hat, saying Thank
you. It was one of those great moments in sports.
Now
if Mickey Mantle had bragged about this – saying how he hit a home run off
Denny McClain when he was at the peak of his pitching career – it would have
been the wrong thing to do. The pitch was served up to him right down the
middle. In a sense it was an unearned
run. But Mickey didn’t brag about it. He thanked Denny as he rounded second
base.
In
today's gospel, the Pharisee brags
about earning God’s love by fasting, tithing, and leading a good life. He didn’t realize that God's grace and love
were unearned, served up to him by God right down the middle.
The tax collector on the other hand
knew he didn’t earn anything on his own. He simply turned to God and asked for
mercy. He knew that the love God had for him was unearned.
We have to open ourselves to God’s
grace and respond to it. When Mickey Mantle got that first
pitch he didn’t swing at it. But he did on the second one. Goodness doesn’t happen automatically. We have to do something. But the initial source of any good thing we
do is really God. We receive God’s unearned love, God’s unearned grace, and God
serves it up to us right down the middle.
It
can help to understand this and come to know God better if we think about the
unearned love we have receive from other people, our parents, grandparents, and
so many others.
When we realize that God's love and
our talents are unearned, we act differently; we start giving unearned love to
others – not just to our children or grandchildren, but to people who aren’t
easy to love and who certainly don’t "earn" our love.
Thank you, Father.
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