A Gospel Preacher, A Home Run Hitter, and A Junior High Football Player

I spent a little time this past weekend pondering the impact Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Since I was born in 1963, my firsthand memory is only of a post-legal-segregation world. That doesn't mean our world was truly integrated by any measure; it simply means the laws had changed and the courts were forcing compliance. So, I went to integrated public schools, and I, thank God, never remember seeing Colored Only or Whites Only signage. There was still plenty of separation, to be sure, but at least it didn't have the power of law behind it.

There was a genius to changing the law. Now, I don't say this to claim that all is right today, nor do I contend that the fight for full equality and justice is complete. Certainly not. That being said, one can't help but look around and see our great strides forward.

Putting people together had the practical effect of fostering relationships. It is hard to hate and look down on others when you begin to deal with one another more equally, when you share space. People learn each other's stories and relationships develop. Working together, playing on the same team, sitting together in class - all these things, over time, break down the walls and barriers.

Two examples come to mind from sports. The first is personal and took place when I played on the Fayette County Junior High Cubs football team. I discovered that on that field and in that locker room only one color really mattered. That was the color of the jersey. Freeman and Buddy and Greg were just as much my teammates as Jerome and Bill and Hal. We sweated and bled together, and every last one of them knocked the stuffing out of me, the smallest kid on the team.

I left my mouthpiece at home one game day. This was an unforgivable sin as it was a penalty for any player to be on the field without his mouthpiece firmly in place when the ball was snapped. Honestly, I wasn't too worried about it because we were playing a pretty good team and I never got off the bench until our first stringers had beaten our opponents into submission, which they pretty much did in every game. But I figured that day's enemy would put up a good enough showing that I'd get away with it.

I was wrong. With 4-5 minutes left in the game, our coaches sent us scrubs in to wrap things up. Now, I had a problem, but one of my more accomplished teammates came to my rescue. Knowing my plight and knowing he was out of the game for good, he handed me his mouthpiece. Dripping wet with his spit, I popped it into my mouth, trotted onto the field, and took my position at free safety.

That young man was an African American. His sharing would have never happened without the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others in the Civil Rights Movement. How do I know? Because I'd have never been in an integrated school, so Freeman wouldn't have been wearing the same jersey I was. That happened less than 10 years after Dr. King was assassinated. Freeman likely doesn't remember it, but I will never forget it.

The second example took place on an April evening in Atlanta, Georgia when Henry Aaron stepped up to bat. Minutes later, when the 715th home run of his Major League career cleared the fence, the campground in which my family was staying that week erupted in cheers. People went nuts!! And my memory is that every single face was . . . white.

Baseball had integrated before the laws changed, but the truth is still the same. We were a bunch of Georgians cheering for Hammerin' Hank, our Hammerin' Hank. He played for our favorite team, the Atlanta Braves. Yes, he'd received hate mail and threats and had suffered through the indignity of nasty racism, but Mr. Aaron pulled us together. Who knows the power of a bunch of white kids growing up and wanting to be like Hank Aaron or Jim Brown, Willie Mays or Bill Russell or Gale Sayers or Jackie Robinson.

Changing the culture began to change the people. And people changing will, over time, change the culture even more. Again, I'm not saying our problems are solved and I'm not saying racism isn't still alive, but things continue to change.

That's the practical side, but this weekend I thought a bit deeper. Too often, I think people overlook the fact that Dr. King had a seminary degree and that his PhD was in Systematic Theology. The man was a pastor, a minister of the Gospel, and that Gospel influenced not only his non-violent approach but his very thinking on all matters of race. I'm no scholar, but I've read enough to know that politically speaking he was simply pushing for the American dream to be extended to all people, regardless of color or creed. He wanted those "truths we hold to be self-evident" to apply to every American. Period.

But the politics flowed from two great Gospel truths. First, we are all "equal sinners." Romans 3:23, in the English Standard Version, says "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." I see no asterisk or "certain exclusions apply." Rather, all have sinned. No one, Biblically speaking, has a leg up with God. Jesus didn't come to tell any of us how proud He is of us, nor did He come to compliment us on our excellent behavior. If you're breathing, you're a sinner. That settles it. Billy Graham, and others, have been fond of saying "the ground is level at the foot of the Cross." That means we stand shoulder to shoulder in front of Jesus. Equal sinners.

Here's the second great Gospel truth which comes from that most familiar verse, John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." There's a lot in that verse, so much that it's easy to miss two words - the world. Look for the exclusions or the disclaimers, the exceptions and the technicalities. You won't find them. The world means the world. Everybody. God loves us all. Jesus died for us all. Equally. Not more for one and less for another. The. World.

Yes, we have to believe in Jesus in order to receive eternal life, but that doesn't negate nor diminish the totality of His love. And, if we take Jesus seriously, we have no room to love people any less than He does. How can we look down on people He doesn't look down on? How can we diminish or demean those He has not only died for, but has "created in His own image?" How can we seek separation from those He died to include?

So, a Gospel preacher who took seriously both his Bible and his nation's founding documents helped paved the way for a better America. In so doing, he made us both more American and more Christian. He had a little help from a home run hitter, too. And a junior high football player. I sure am glad.