church without the expressed written consent

of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball

My teenaged son skips a stone at sunset at his favorite camp. Photo: his mom, 2013.

My 28-year-old son is a participant in the glorious Sandlot baseball movement quickly rising in popularity across the southern United States and now into northern climes. It was at a Sandlot tournament last summer that I gained some insight into the nature of church.

For his entire life up until last September, my son only knew me vocationally as a parish minister. His older sister was 2 when I first stepped into the pulpit. Neither is the least bit interested in joining a religious community of any stripe. I'm so very proud of the wonderful, positively engaged people they are.

Every year, my son’s Sandlot team sponsors a tournament that takes place in Durham, NC, in the stadium where much of the film Bull Durham was shot. Naturally, teams from around the country flock to play out their cinematic fantasies on location, surrounded by friends and family. I was already soaking in the camaraderie and mutual encouragement I saw at every turn that weekend. But it was an incident that occurred in the final inning of one of the final games that led me to realize that my son had found and embraced an intentional spiritual community.

With two outs in the last inning of a tie game, a runner from 2^nd base rounded 3^rd and headed for home on a bloop single to shallow right field. He changed his mind midway. As he scrambled back toward 3^rd, the outfielder threw a perfect laser behind him to the bag. They arrived simultaneously. The third baseman was sure he'd tagged the runner out. The runner was sure he had beaten the tag. The umpire’s view had been blocked.

As the third baseman and the runner were debating the play, a crowd of nearby players, coaches and umpires tightly encircled them. We in the stands waited. Suddenly that giant circle of debate parted, and we witnessed the third baseman and the runner laughingly determining a game-hinging call by shooting rock-paper-scissors.

My spirit soared, and it continued to do so as I saw with fresh eyes that all these souls had intentionally gathered from near and far to enjoy each other as they basked in their shared love of a game. All cheered when anyone did well. All commiserated when anyone suffered a gaffe. All benefited from the incredible vibe.

The stories I had heard of team members crashing on each other's couches, helping each other move after a relationship breakup, attending weddings and funerals, and finding time to break bread together somewhere midpoint between far-flung places of residence helped me to see communion laid out before me. This was Eucharist in its finest form.

I take my children's generation’s near wholesale rejection of religiosity as a positive sign. How do we religious reverse millennia of our institutions starting on the wrong side of history regarding almost every important issue? Perhaps by replacing this or that god with something potentially less threatening to gather around: baseball or gaming night; community gardening or an art class.

In Isaiah 6 in the Hebrew Bible the writer asserts that The Temple cannot even contain the hem of the robe of God. It is high time we stopped viewing our church buildings as sanctioned dispensers of holiness and realize what we are attempting to invoke is already present and in play well beyond the sanctuary walls.

I see this generation not simply walking away, but also walking toward. The fairly large sample size with which I am acquainted possesses a deeper, more concerned humanness, a heightened awareness of the interconnection of all. I see them bringing these important outlooks and life philosophies into all manner of intentional communities. I see them helping to restore each other's souls. I see them endeavoring to reverse centuries of damage done to our planet and its inhabitants by the entropic institutions they refuse to inherit.

My son inherited a love of baseball I inherited from my father and his father before him. I’m remembering now a baseball camp he attended where a kid botched a simple catch, resulting in groans from his teammates and laughing derision from the other team. The leader of the camp, a former professional player, shut it down and called everyone into the infield.

“Look up at the scoreboard,” he said. “What does that E stand for?”

“Error,” everyone answered.

“What a beautiful thing,” he continued. “That E is on every scoreboard at every level. That E is on the scoreboard at Yankee Stadium. That E means it is expected we will screw up in the field, no matter how skilled we are. And at the plate? If you screw up two out of every three times there? Well, friends, that kind of abysmal failure rate will put you in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Now let’s PLAY ball!”

We may find grace at church, but only because it’s dropped by for a visit; just like anywhere else two or more are gathered, whether in capital-h His name or not.

You are loved.