Word Champions

Why do we experience so much joy when our team wins? I didn't play an inning. I don't personally know any of the coaches or players (although I feel as if I do). But it's joy I feel. I just watched the Boston Red Sox win the World Series. They won four games to one over the Dodgers (the one game they didn't win went 18 innings and was the longest game in MLB playoffs history—and yes, I stayed up until 3:30am to watch).

You should know that I've loved the Sox since I was a kid. But this year has been special. Yes, they won 119 games in all (third place in all time most season wins). Yes they dominated the playoffs. But it was special to me (you might think this is dumb) because I watched more baseball—Red Sox baseball—than ever in my life! That's because I broke our TV when we moved back in March. Yes, that's right. And when we bought a new TV, Roku was a free service with the TV that let me choose to have the MLB Network for FREE (I would have broken that old TV much sooner had I known!). I also had a sabbatical this summer. I'm telling you, the only TV I watched all summer was Red Sox baseball, which I could watch anytime I wanted! And did I say it was free? Not just that, but Rich Hatter and I decided to buy tickets to watch the Sox play the Braves in Atlanta way back in February before the season started! He's a huge Braves fan and we thought it would be fun. We joked about how cool it would be if they were both in first place when they played in August—a date that seemed so far away! You guessed it, they were both in first place! And you know who won the game—swept the series in fact—the Red Sox!

The season was full of fun memories: so many late inning come-from-behind wins, so many home runs, so many impossible defensive plays, so many personalities! These guys were serious yet playfully fun. They really like each other. And they were humble. Besides all the other things I love (sometimes irrationally) about baseball, this team was special. And now they are World Series champions. Wow. I can't get this goofy smile off my face!

I was right, now it's official. Red Sox are #1.

Now, why does it give me so much joy?

First, because of something Jesus said. "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:21). As I wrote in a previous post,

To understand [this verse], let’s get the images in two key words: “treasure” and “heart.” 

The word, treasure, is the Greek word, thēsauros. It literally means a “place of treasure,” where one puts one's investments. 

The word, heart, is the Greek word, kardia (yes, like "cardio" and "cardiograph"). It can mean the physical blood-pumping organ, but here "heart" is the symbolic “seat of the passions, desires, affections.”  

Now: notice the tenses of the verbs “to be”: “is” (present tense), “will be” (future tense). 

So here’s what it’s saying:
Where you place your investments NOW, that’s where your affections WILL BE.

Yeah, I invested quite a bit of time and interest in the Red Sox this season. I thought about them, I talked about them, I admired them. My affections followed.

Second, because there's something in the human soul that loves winning. It bothers me a little, but it's true. I like it when my team wins. You do too.

Ok, so here's my big point. God loves when we experience joy. It is a taste of the ultimate joy we have in Christ. Now because he is the only thing that truly satisfies here. It's also known as "abundant life." Later in an incomprehensible way when Jesus returns. That's because we win. Not just the World Series. Everything. Jesus conquers all evil and wins the final battle. Good wins in the end. And those of us who love him win big. We get God in all his fullness without hindrance. We get new resurrected bodies that are free from sin. We get the riches of heaven.

That's why we are crazy not to invest ourselves fully in him. God help me learn this lesson and invest in you with all I have and everything I am.

10 Reasons Why I Love Watching Baseball

A familiar sight: J.D. Martinez praising God upon 
rounding the bases after hitting a home run.

 

I’m making a confession: I love watching baseball. I have watched more this year than any other season in my life, primarily for three reasons: 1.) My favorite team, the Red Sox, are absolutely dominating Major League Baseball; 2.) I’ve got MLB.tv with our (minimal) cable package; and 3.) I had a sabbatical this summer that allowed me time to watch. There are a handful of things that cause me to relax and feel happy as soon as I start. Baseball is one of those things. It doesn’t matter if it’s on TV or live, the effect is the same. So I’ve been wondering, “Why do I love it so much?” On this short post, I’m going to attempt to make a list.

1. I so admire the skill it takes to play the game well. Whether it’s a high school game or the Sox, these athletes are just different from most others. They’re not the fastest, tallest, or strongest athletes in sports. But they are so specialized with certain skills, and could be among the smartest or quickest thinkers in the sports world. I was not a very good baseball player (probably due to that “smartest” thing), so that makes me even more impressed with these talented athletes.
2. It’s a thinker’s game. The rules are many and the strategy is multi-faceted. In many ways, it’s like chess with real people. It’s not just the coaches who must do most of the thinking. One small mental lapse from one player can cost the whole team a game. And often does. And it’s the only sport I know that keeps record of errors!

Who encapsulates class and courage more than Jackie?

3. There is an incredible appreciation for history and tradition. I love that the statistics are riddled with players from every decade from the last one-hundred-plus years. Very little rules have changed. The organ is the same. The uniforms are the same (including metal spikes). The bats are made of wood (I wish this were the case with all ages!). While watching I feel somehow connected with generations past.
4. It’s a game that is diverse. Baseball is no respecter of persons. You can be born in poverty in the Dominican Republic or be from a wealthy family in California. It’s the American pastime, but they play it from Japan to Cuba. I read that about 30% of MLB players were born outside the USA. You can be huge or diminutive in size. I love the diversity. Jackie Robinson. ‘Nuff said.

5. It’s a game that requires courage. You stand in the way of a hard ball coming at you at 100 mph. You sometimes have to dive to attempt a catch or slide head-first. The fights are few, but real. Please forgive me, but I love this part. There is a code of respect that demands repayment for those who do something dirty. Come in cleats up on a second baseman, and expect to get beaned when you get in the batter’s box. Then expect retaliation. And when the benches clear, it gets crazy! It’s a man’s world where pride and honor matter.
6. It offers a break from the usual stressors of life. There is just very little politics or cultural rot that spoils the experience. It occasionally happens, but for the most part people behave because they seem to be there to escape the societal noise, too. There seems to be fewer politically active players using their platform to make their causes known. I really don’t want to know about all their causes. I just want to watch baseball. I hope this doesn’t change.
7. It’s not as intense as other sports. Believe me, I love football. Grew up in a football coach’s home, played it for 13 years of my life, and have coached myself. But football is not relaxing to watch (or play). Basketball seems to stay intense the whole game—and especially the last two minutes (which takes a half-an-hour). But baseball has spurts of intense play and moments of incredible pressure interspersed with long periods of deliberate strategy and intermission. You can have ongoing conversations with others during a game. You can enjoy a hotdog, a pretzel, and eat a whole bag of peanuts, all while sitting down and without spilling your drink.
8. It’s like art marrying science. I almost want to call it beauty in motion. Especially at the professional level; the players catch, throw, and swing with such precision and finesse. They make plays together like a symphony. The mathematical unlikelihood of hitting a small, spinning, spherical baseball moving at 100 mph with a small cylindrical bat into a limited area of play without any of the nine opponents catching the ball…is just amazing in itself. And many players average getting a hit between 20 and 30 percent of the time (some even more)!
9. It is a study on persistence and consistency over time. You can have three terrible at-bats, but the fourth might be a home run. Then you can get in a slump for a few games followed by a hitting streak. Unlike football where you can’t really afford to lose more than one or two games (if that many when you’re in the SEC!), you can lose a lot of games, but if you consistently win more than you lose, you’re in good shape for the playoffs. It really is about who can do the best over the long-haul. A lot like life!
10. Baseball players are just cool. They seem so composed and unflappable. They will accomplish some seemingly impossible athletic feat and just carry on afterward with maybe a quick smile to a teammate. Awesome. I wish I could be so cool!

This one's just for fun. There's no spiritual lesson or observation here, except this: every good gift comes from God. I think baseball is one of those. At least it is to me.

Finally, Someone Got It Right.

For all but a very few years of my life, my father has been the head football coach of some team, and for the last 35, for Carson-Newman University where he's been pretty successful. There have been quite literally thousands of articles written about him. While that may seem cool, it's sometimes just not. I want you to know, I've learned a lot about the media. Let me just name two things: 1. Many stories don't get it right,
even the basic facts. 2. Most reporters have an agenda and a preconceived narrative they want to press on the story. The two are usually related.

My dad when I played at CN,
circa 1988. 

It must be nice to be an average person who hasn't experienced being the subject of so much media attention. It must be nice to pick up a newspaper or magazine and read the stories without wondering what the reporter got wrong, or what the agenda is, or how the subjects of the story and their families feel about how they were made to look. But I can't. I'm forever scarred. I'm sure I share these thoughts with any child of any well-known coach, politician, celebrity, or successful person. I have NO desire to be the subject of media attention, and desire to spare my own family from it.
There have been so many times I have been angered when I read the way my dad was wrongly portrayed: the uneducated coach, the clichéd Christian, the hypocrite, the simpleton who can't do anything else in the world but coach, or (perhaps worst of all) the win-at-all-costs self-promoter.

A youthful Ken Sparks
circa 1973 on CN's staff
as Offensive Coordinator.

I want to be fair. Perhaps reporters write with these narratives in mind because they've known coaches which are one or more of the above. I've certainly known coaches that belong in each of those categories. Maybe they've become so jaded that they've lost their hope that good people with selfless motives actually exist. Perhaps they've never really met someone who has truly been impacted by Christ. Or maybe they're blinded by their own narcissism and assume everyone else is as they are.

My opinion of journalists in general is also shaped by the fact that I graduated with a Bachelor's in Communication, and classes in media and journalism were a part of my studies. Glenn Cragwall, my broadcasting professor set the bar high for what media professionals should be all about, yet so many fellow students who ended up in some form of journalism failed to practice these principles, and became activists or ideologues disguised as journalists. What's more, I am a sports fan! In my lifetime, I've watched as ESPN and other media power-players corrupt sports from what I perceived as the one of the last apolitical and relatively honest pastimes into a platform for egotistical hero worship, unlimited commercialism, and tool for politically-correct culture formation. The liberal bias and political activism of sports journalists and networks is just sad.

So I am admittedly calloused.

Occasionally I've been called and interviewed by reporters for my thoughts about my dad. I'm always guarded with my comments. I try not to give a reporter too much "peripheral fluff" from which he can cobble together some pithy sentence I didn't really say to support his narrative, but I stay focused and repetitive on what I know to be true and what is hardly ever conveyed in stories about my dad: He coaches for one reason: to bring glory to God and to bring people to Christ. This usually means my comments don't make it into the story. That's ok with me.

I am happy to say there's an exception to reporters/stories that have jaded my perspective.

My dad hardly ever tells me whenever he wins some award or when a big article or story comes out about him in the sports media. In fact, I can't remember a specific time when he has. It is usually someone at church or a friend or someone on Facebook who says, "That's a great article about your dad," or "Did you see that story about your dad on TV?" or "Congrats to your dad on winning the [Greatest Most Winningest Hall of Fame Coach on the Planet Bla Bla] award." This can be a weekly occurrence. It happened yesterday at church. A friend who played college football and a little professionally told me about yet another story. But this one, he said, is different. He sent me the link.

It is different.

I owe the writer, Reid Forgrave of Fox Sports, credit for getting it right. In fact, I feel I owe him an apology. Not just because I pressed on him my own narrative of sports journalists, but because I was probably a little curt with him over the phone, especially at first. You see, about a month ago, Reid called me to interview me about my father and his status of being the winningest living NCAA football coach. I reluctantly took the call. I asked about his agenda and what narrative he was pursuing, while doing what I usually do. He patiently told me he understood, and that he was different. I loosened up a little, but then after hanging up, couldn't help but thinking, "I wonder if he was for real, or if he was just saying that to get more out of me."

Reid, I'm sorry. Your article is accurate. And even more, it is well-written. There need to be more sports journalists like you. Thank you for giving me hope.

http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/story/ken-sparks-carson-newman-college-football-winningest-coach-325-wins-faith-082015 

The Home Stretch

A long time ago in high school I ran track. As a sprinter, I loved the 100 and 200 (it was 220 yards back then). But occasionally, my coach asked me to run the 1/4 mile (i.e., the 440 yard dash—a couple of steps longer than the 400 meters in today's track meets).

My track team from 1985. I'm a junior. Third from the left on the bottom row.

It was brutal! One lap around the track at full speed. I can remember what it was like to turn the final corner and see the finish line. Back then they would stretch "the tape" across the finish line and the winner got the privilege of "breaking the tape." So there it was, the tape just glimmered there at the end of the home stretch. My legs would be burning, my lungs hurting, and every muscle in my body strained forward for that tape. Interestingly, it is in the last 100 yards (or, um...meters) that the race is usually won or lost. That’s where you find out two things: who has the best training and who has the most determination. No matter how much I was hurting or how far I was behind, the thought of quitting was out of the question! “What, after I have come so far? Are you crazy?” I rarely finished first, but the satisfaction of knowing I had given it my all was worth more than a blue ribbon or medal.

In case you're wondering, that's not me--it's the
very humble Usain Bolt breaking the tape.

The Journey 2012 is now in the home stretch. I can see the tape. We have one more month. I try not to whine, but this has been the most difficult year of teaching for me in my life! Just the reading alone has been tough. If you struggle to read the average 23-or-so chapters each week, I get to read them multiple times and then read what the various commentaries say! Don't get me wrong, I've loved it. But those of you at Providence know how hard it is for me to speak concisely. Imagine trying to do that while teaching entire books (vis. 1 and 2 Corinthians as we’re doing this week! Impossible! It took us over 2 years to cover these books before!).

I’m chuckling as I notice I haven’t written a blog post since September! It’s just been too busy. The Journey has been great—perhaps the best thing we’ve ever done together as a church! The last month’s material (most of the New Testament!) is the focus of 80% of the sermons of most evangelical preachers and churches! And we’re going to cover it in 5 Sundays!? Insane.

Hang in there. If you've given up, just read the book of 1 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians is on the plan for next week. We can see the tape at the finish. Let’s all be able to say in 31 days, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2Tim. 4:7). It has been awesome. But I can’t wait to celebrate once things are finished!

A Modern Prophet

What would a prophet look like today?

As I’m reading Jonah, Amos, and Isaiah I’ve been pondering this question. These guys were bold, many times unpopular, and believed what they said—because they believed in the God who said it first. They weren’t (contrary to popular belief) just crazed preachers who flew-off-the-handle every chance they got. They were neither gluttons for punishment nor did they have some kind of martyr-complex. And they certainly weren’t out for personal gain. They were lovers of God in a world that was running away from God as fast as it could. They were lone voices proclaiming hard truth when all other voices were spewing lies. They were people who loved their nation and loved people enough to warn and admonish—sometimes through tears.

A few months ago, Ron Brown, an assistant football coach for the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers, found himself in the news for being, well, a modern-day prophet. I know Ron. He and I were the speakers for a Fellowship of Christian Athletes leadership camp in Shreveport, LA a few years ago. Quite frankly, he may be one of the godliest men I know and perhaps the best speaker I have ever heard. Yep. You read that right. He’s not hateful—quite the contrary. He is a compassionate and loving man. I saw this in the way he treated his wife with honor and how he spent many hours with high school and college students that week that he didn’t even know. He was vulnerable and humble. He genuinely wants people to know the Christ that saves sinners. He’s also passionate and uncompromising about God’s word. Of course that means he's a lightning rod for controversy. That’s what makes him, in my estimation, about as close as we can get today to a prophet.

He proved it when he weighed in on a hot issue this April—perhaps the hottest of our time: homosexuality. It’s the same issue about which I get pushback almost every time I mention it in light of God’s word.

Of course, the popular media frame his words and edit his comments to make him seem like an unloving, extreme fundamentalist. He’s not. He’s a prophet. And like those of old, after the names of all the “kings” that “rule” today are relegated to obscure lists that no one knows except to note their collective complaisant (read: cowardly) attempts to be considered tolerant and hip, Ron Brown will be remembered for much more. He is FAR from hateful. He is faithful to be a lone voice of grace, love, and truth to sinners like me whose salvation is found in no other name but Jesus. He could just enjoy his own redemption and wait around for heaven. But he chooses to put his reputation on the line to invite others to find new life in Christ.

We need prophets today.

Does God Care Whether Tim Tebow Wins on Saturday? - The Atlantic

What an awesome article! Job makes us ask, "Would God really make bad things happen to good people?" Tebow (at least right now as I write a few hours before his playoff game with the Patriots) makes so many ask, "Does God really make good people win?" It all boils down to the same issue. How does our goodness (or badness) affect what God does? Or does it? This article is true. And in light of Job, it gives much to think about!

Does God Care Whether Tim Tebow Wins on Saturday? - The Atlantic

Déjà Vu: Sox are Through.

Ok, indulge me a little hyperbolic sports drama.

It's been almost a week and I'm still not over it. The Red Sox are done for the season. I'm experiencing this subtle underlying disappointment. It occurred to me yesterday that I used to feel like this all the time! This is only the third time in the last seven years that Boston has not played in the American League Championship Series. But as most baseball fans know, this level of success has not always been the norm for the Sox.

I've been a Sox fan since the late 1970s. Until 2004, I felt like I was the only one in Knoxville! Here's how it happened: Like most other East Tennessee kids who were not Braves fans, I liked the Big Red Machine—the Cincinnati Reds. Bench, Rose, Morgan, Pérez, Concepción, Griffey, Foster, all led by Sparky Anderson—those guys were great. A really cool style among teenagers back then was to wear one of those fake plastic batting helmets. I wanted one and couldn’t find one anywhere. Some of my friends got theirs at Six Flags in Georgia for $6. Soon thereafter, I went with my church youth group to Six Flags determined to buy one for myself with $6 I had saved. All day, I walked the whole park seeking one of those Reds helmets, to no avail. The Reds were so popular! Finally, at the end of the day, I decided to just buy a helmet of another team. At that time, the Red Sox helmets were red with a navy blue bill, and looked really cool. Pointing to one, I asked the vendor, “What’s the team with the B?” “Boston Red Sox” was the answer (I should have known, they had played the Reds in the 1975 World Series). I bought one. While walking across Six Flags, people kept giving me the “thumbs up” sign saying, “Go Sox!” That was cool. So I started keeping up with them. I started collecting baseball cards and collected all the Sox cards. I fell in love with Rick “the Rooster” Burleson, Carlton Fisk, Jim Rice, Carl “Yaz” Yastrzemski, Butch Hobson, Dwight Evans, George Scott...I can remember them like it was yesterday.

(This is my favorite player Rick Burleson in that cool red batting helmet!)

In high school I got to visit Boston and saw a few Sox games in Fenway. Then I was hooked. It was magic. I also got to see them play in Texas, Atlanta, and Baltimore. Like all true Sox fans, a tragic moment in my life was when the ball went through Bill Buckner’s legs in 1986. I’ll never forget it. I found out later that he is a Christian. I actually got to meet Buckner in 1999. I introduced him at an FCA banquet (I had forgiven him and said nothing of his infamy).

Point is, through all those years, I always got myself worked up that this was to be a championship year. And it never was. In fact, most years we didn’t even get to the playoffs.

That’s why I’m experiencing déjà vu. I’ve been here before. Left feeling empty after the one team I have stood by through good years and bad failed to get past the wildcard series. It’s the team I have loved irrationally and emotionally who play a sport I was never really good at but that I respect and enjoy watching. I really thought they would do it! All my shirts, hats, and jerseys are now useless to me (not really) until next April! That's sports!