The Rev. Fred G. Garry - June 17, 2001
Texts: Lamentations 3 and Luke 7 "If you build it he will come;
ease his pain; and, go the distance." Most of us just remember
the first voice that led Ray, the Iowa farmer and former hippie,
to plow up his fields to build a baseball park. "If you
build it he will come." The "he" we assumed was
Shoeless Joe Jackson, the defrocked baseball player whose legend
still lingers decades after the scandal that shaped baseball
forever.
Ray hears voices in the movie "The
Field of Dreams," which was based upon the novel, Shoeless
Joe. Shoeless Joe is the one you believe that Ray is doing
this for. The voice tells him, "if you build it he will
come." And so with a little persuasion he convinces his
wife that what he needs to do this year is plow under their fields,
also known as their income, and devote his time, money, and energy
to crafting a baseball diamond any devotee would be proud of
A baseball field, like a baseball swing or pitch, is a crafted
gem whose beauty needs constant care. And Ray is willing. He
even puts in lights for night games, assuming, I guess, that
since Wrigley Field did it, it was inevitable.
As Ray builds the field you get caught
up in the construction. As he builds you forget this is crazy.
Yet with each step with each final preening, there is just enough
time for everyone in town to become convinced that this college
boy become fanner went off the deep end. There is just enough
time gone by that their family finances begin to tighten and
the bank begins to get anxious and a little frustrated that their
lended money has been squandered. There is just enough time going
by that the audience wonders if this is a story about pure folly.
And then he shows up. Shoeless Joe that is. He walks onto the
field and like a weary traveler letting each nook and cranny
of home sink in, he takes it all in.
After some introductions they do what
any good American would have done; they play some catch. Ray
is rusty, but Shoeless Joe bedecked in an early Whitesox uniform
is limber and agile, showing the dexterity and intuition great
baseball players are made of. For just a moment you believe this
is it! Like the first time as a young boy I met a professional
baseball player; I thought I was standing next to the word become
flesh full of grace and truth-, for as a young boy the word was
"baseball" summer after long summer. So it is with
Ray. All his work, all the rumors and innuendoes they faded,
for he had built it and he had come. And for just an instance
life was full and good.
Before Shoeless Joe leaves the field
he asks if he can come back and bring some friends. To this Ray
gives an enthusiastic assent. And then Shoeless Joe asks a great
question, "Is this heaven?" To which Ray offers, "no,
it's Iowa." For just this twinkling of an eye Ray imagines
I believe that he is done. "Is this Heaven? No, it's Iowa."
He heard a voice, saw a vision, performed his task, and now with
the restless spirit of Shoeless Joe come home he can get back
to his life and maybe even repair his lost revenues and precarious
future. But then the next voice came: "ease his pain."
Knowing the limits of persuasion had
been reached for poor Ray to convince his spouse that he should
set off on some other hair-brained idea his wife hears the voice
as well. They had both assumed that building the field was the
deal. Yet it would seem that this is just the beginning. But
the beginning of what? Then through a series of events that include
an attempted kidnapping of J.D. Salinger, a baseball game at
Fenway Park, and a short stay in a remote Minnesotan town reading
stories about a deceased doctor, Ray begins to realize that his
baseball field, what is called a field of dreams, is much more
than a place to play.
The field is a place of healing, of reconciling
lingering doubts and those broken dreams that are ever a part
of an anxious night. The field of dreams was a place where lives
that were not right, could become right, what the church has
always called reconciliation (to be reconciled is to be settled,
to be made friends again, to bring into harmony; this was his
field.
In our New Testament reading today we
have an image of reconciliation. A woman, a woman with no name,
known simply as a sinner, comes to the house of Simon the Pharisee
and finds Jesus. In a moment of devastating beauty she falls
to the floor and weeps, with her tears she bathes his feet wiping
them with her hair. As a reader the images flood in. By identifing
her simply as a sinner, she could have been anyone, anyone in
need of reconciliation, anyone who woke up too many mornings
looking in a disappointing mirror, and wondering, where did I
lose it? When did I wander so far from what I know is good, is
life, is true?
And in a similar fashion to the book
Shoeless Joe, Luke builds a field of dreams here. In essence
he builds a church. A church is where Jesus comes to dwell, where
there is fellowship, teaching, healing, where souls made wen
depart in peace. All the parts are there. Like Ray building a
baseball field, he knew what to include, so did Luke. As the
gospel writers love to do, he has hidden a beautiful picture
of the church in this passage. The church is a gathering, a fellowship
where those who are lost can be found, where we can come to Jesus
and be reconciled, made right with our spirit, made right with
others, and made right with God, where we can hear the words,
your sins are forgiven. With the alabaster jar there is even
an offering. Perhaps the only missing piece was a committee,
but maybe that is prophetic.
This wonderful story, this story of wonder,
the wonder of reconciliation, though, has a question, a lingering
query. What happens to Simon? It is fair to say that this was
not his plan and there would indubitably have been a certain
level of embarrassment. He is a Pharisee, a man of standing and
decorum. The house has been defiled according to Pharisitic code;
this woman was a sinner. And the story Jesus told was not very
flattering. This was the kind of story that always infuriated
the scribes and Pharisees because they always came out looking
bad. In this instance, a sinful woman is seen as more loving,
more righteous than Simon, a powerful and important man. You
just can't gloss over something like that.
So what was Simon to do? One guess would
be call an end to the evening, feign an illness, and say, "good
night." Certainly an option. Could he have acted as if nothing
happened after she left? Possible. But Jesus always strikes me
as someone with whom it is tough to stick to polite conversation,
topics like the weather. "Well, that was interesting. Humid?
Do you think it will rain?" I don't think so. The other
option is almost too radical to consider. But it is there and
as strange as it may seem, it is possible. What if this woman's
repentance, what if this womans weeping and her receiving of
forgiveness, salvation, and peace, what if this were all meant
for Simon?
I am not saying this was a plan. I don't
believe we can plan the moments of salvation. But what if this
was a gift for Simon, a breaking through of years of polite religiosity
and correct behavior? What if this was his glimpse, his vision
of what life can be? Life can be vibrant and joyous and true;
life can be lived in freedom. Could this be a space, a field
where Simon could dream, "what if you were free?"
In the story of Ray and Shoeless Joe,
this is the case. All the voices: "'if you build it he will
come, ease his pain, and go the distance," all of these
were in the end a slow thaw. They were a slow undoing of years
of regret Ray, the farmer, held toward his father, a man who
wanted to be a professional baseball player. And in the final
scenes we are met with what is my hope for Simon. Ray meets his
deceased father on the field. His father is a young man filled
with dreams, filled with the kind of splendor Ray had never seen
in his father. He introduces him to his granddaughter for the
first time, and then Ray and his dad play catch. And for just
a moment heaven and Iowa, saints and ball players, are one. For
an instance reconciliation triumphed over regret.
But what about Simon? What became of
him? Did he get past the offence, the scandal of the woman and
see the beauty? It is hard to say. It is so much easier to see
what is less, to live with less. Reconciliation sounds great
but it doesn't come easy. To be reconciled comes with a price:
you have to believe. This is the message Jesus leaves Simon with,
or the one Luke leaves with us. "Your faith has made you
well, go in peace." Your faith has made you well. In this
declaration Jesus gives us a glimpse, a vision of what it takes
to be right, you have to believe. Believing is not the same as
regret; it is not the same as a grudge; it is not the same as
assuming the worst. Believing in reconciliation is much more
challenging than these. I hope Simon took the road less taken.
During the course of the last three weeks
I spent a great amount of time with a fellow I met when I was
in Princeton in October. His name is Roger. Roger was the one
I mentioned in a sermon who lost his father: he was slain by
a man looking for money, dying in Roger's arms. I am not sure
if it is because Roger feels free to speak of his father with
me, or maybe I remind him of his father. Roger's father was a
bookish man who lived in a world of ideas, I guess there is a
slight point of contact there. Whatever the reason, I enjoy the
glimpses he offers, for they are moments of reconciliation and
I feel like Simon being offered a vision of heaven on earth.
We spoke of this movie and what it meant
to each of us, what it meant to be reconciled, to be made right,
and how easy it is to live without it, yet how empty and painful.
But mostly we spoke of how life is lived as an illusive vision
that keeps calling us toward a place ahead, a field of reconciliation
a place where brokenness and envy and strife are laid aside;
they are removed. We are not in that place, like in movie, "is
this heaven? No, it's Iowa." We live in the not yet. But
yet, from time to time, we glimpse the already.
For in Jesus Christ we are already made
right, we are reconciled to God. Sometimes as a pastor, I feel
as foolish as Ray did plowing up his field to build a baseball
park. I am ever aware of the way the Gospel calls us to contradict
the logic of the world, to deny, not affirm yourself, to be willing
to carry a cross, not a grudge, to follow, not lead. These are
things that don't make a whole lot of sense to the world; these
are the things though that dreams are made of. And from time
to time we can see it, catch a glimpse, and if we dare, we can
live it. We can dare to live trusting forgiveness, believing
in the power of love to reconcile all things, especially when
it seems impossible. For in Jesus Christ we are already made
right, we are free to believe, to hope, and to love. Amen.
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