Sermon Illustrations on Sports
Stories
“Abide with Me” at Wembley
The FA Cup Final is English soccer’s equivalent of American football’s Super Bowl. However, unlike the American tradition of singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” before the big game, at the FA Cup, they sing the first and last verses of the old English hymn “Abide With Me,” a tradition that has been kept since 1927.
How did the rowdy fans of English soccer come to lovingly embrace a 19th century English hymn as the right way to open their biggest game?
To understand, you have to go back to the FA Cup Final of 1923: “The White Horse Final.” It was the first Final to be held in the new Empire Stadium, with capacity for 125,000 fans. The problem: more than twice that many people showed up. When the stadium reached capacity, the turnstiles closed. But people just kept arriving at the stadium—and didn’t take “no” for an answer. The crowd pushed through the barriers, climbed the fences and drainpipes, with at least another 100,000 fans pushing into the stadium.
The crowd inside the stadium swelled. The pressure of the crowd pushed those in front right onto the pitch. 10 minutes before the game was to begin, with one witness that “you couldn’t see a blade of grass,” but “only heads, people.” [1] Any crowd combining that size, density, and excitement risks going from chaos to tragedy. But, it didn’t.
Part of that story is the choir of St. Luke’s. On hand to be part of the program that day, to pass the time and calm the crowd, they sang the popular old hymn “Abide with Me.” That stuck in people’s minds, even amid all the other incredible events of the day, from the arrival of the King to the lone policeman on his white horse, Billy, who started the process of clearing the pitch so the game to begin. It became part of that legendary day of sport.
It was included again as part of the pre-game program in 1927, the first time the game broadcast with live commentary over radio. Amid a number of patriotic songs, “Abide with Me” stood out, with a newspaper writing that, “the Stadium soared to emotional heights that obliterated for a time all thought of the gladiatorial show that had gathered us together.” The communal singing was so heartfelt and powerful that the hymn was permanently added to the pre-game program—a tradition that still continues with great feeling, even in this post-Christian age.
[1] Phil Dawkes, “The White Horse Final: 100 years on,” BBC news. (A major source for this illustration—it contains amazing photos of the 1923 match.)
William Rowley
Always Make Sure You Are Aiming at the Right Target
If you were lucky enough to watch the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, you probably remember swimmer Michael Phelps bursting onto the international scene. Phelps won six medals in those games—four gold and two bronze—to launch his career as the most decorated Olympic athlete in history. But when I think back to those games, I think of Matt Emmons. Emmons represented the United States in the three-position, fifty-meter rifle event, and he was dominating the competition as he advanced to the final shot of his signature event.
His combined score was so far ahead of the other shooters that all he had to do was hit the target. I don’t mean he had to hit the bull’s-eye; he just had to hit anywhere on the entire target to secure a victory.
A sportswriter named Rick Reilly said it like this: With one shot to go in Athens, Emmons was on his way to a laugher of a win. . . . In fact, all he had to do was hit the target. It’d be like telling Picasso all he had to do was hit the canvas. In preparation for the shot, Emmons pressed his cheek against the rifle’s stock and sighted down the barrel through the scope. He took a breath, let it out, and squeezed the trigger. The sound of the gun firing was unmistakable.
What happened next was shocking. When you watch the sport of rifle shooting, a monitor focused on the target is always on one of the corners of the TV screen. When a competitor takes a shot, that monitor almost immediately signals which part of the target was hit, and then a score is generated based on the quality of the shot.
When Emmons lowered his weapon, he immediately looked to see where his bullet had struck the target. But there was no mark. And there was no score. Confused, he began talking with the judges, indicating he believed he’d hit the target. Why was there no score? Eventually, the lead judge picked up a microphone to explain. He announced that Emmons’s score was zero because of a “cross shot.”
The crowd gasped! Emmons lowered his head, obviously unable to believe what had happened. A cross shot is when a shooter hits a target that’s not the one he’s supposed to be shooting at. At some point while going through his pre-shot routine, Matt had zeroed in on the target next to his. His zero score not only lost him the gold medal; he fell out of medal contention completely. Matt Emmons’s story provides a great lesson: always be sure you’re aiming at the right target.
Vance Pitman, Unburdened: Stop Living for Jesus So Jesus Can Live through You, Baker Books, 2020.
Be a Catalyst for Change
At the 5-mile mark in the Old Kent Riverbank Run a guy passing me said, “Hey buddy, you dropped your key.” There was no getting home without my key. Like a salmon swimming upstream I headed back into the crowd of runners dodging expletives and elbows. And there it was. I was relieved, but also out of my rhythm. The rest of the run was a dirge.
Would it really have been too much trouble for that runner to bring me my key rather than just telling me it was back there somewhere? It’s one thing to name a problem, it’s quite another to do something about it. The Lord put it this way to Moses.
I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them. (Exodus 3:7-8)
A catalyst is an agent that speeds significant change. That’s who God is. That’s who you are. Me too. Elbowing our way around in this world of hurt, we’re here to find the key that frees people to run their race—beyond observing, beyond hearing and beyond knowing, we’re here to deliver.
David Peterson
Being a Master of Maneuverability
The great San Francisco 49ers football coach Bill Walsh, when asked about legendary wide receiver Jerry Rice said, “Rice was considered too slow for NFL greatness.” But,
when you studied the film from Rice’s college games, you saw two things different about Rice. One, he could turn on a dime. He could run sideways faster than anyone I’d seen. His maneuverability left defenders wondering what happened. Two, Rice always finished his pass route within one foot of where he needed to be. Like he had a GPS in his head. [Quarterbacks] Joe Montana and Steve Young could count on him.
In the words of Rich Karlgaard and Michael S. Malone, “In today’s economy, it is essential to be maneuverable.”
William Rowley, source, Rich Karlgaard and Michael S. Malone, Team Genius: The New Science of High-Performing Organizations
The Dart-Board
The Benedictine nun Joan Chittister recounts a story she once heard by a communications professor, which she said fundamentally changed the way she thought about success and failure:
A young boy was given a dartboard for Christmas one year and he instantaneously began playing with it. In a complete shock, his first dart hit the bull’s-eye. Surprised and excited, the father yanked the child’s mother from the other room in time to watch the young boy throw a second bull’s eye! At this point, the father gathered the entire family to watch him throw the third dart. Amazingly, he did it again. A third bull’s eye!
At that point, the boy stopped throwing the darts, and promptly shelved the dart board. Over and over again the family pleaded with him to throw another dart, but he refused to do so. As Chittister said in retelling the story, “The child with the dartboard knew what his father did not intuit: A record like his could only be shattered, not enhanced. From now on he could only be known for losing because he could never win so much again.”
Stuart Strachan Jr., source material from Joan Chittister, Between the Dark and the Daylight, 2015, p.61, The Crown Publishing Group.
Follow Jesus All the Time, in Life and in Sports
The hymn Abide with Me is important to the world of soccer. In England each year the championship game, the FA Cup Final, begins with the song, “Abide with Me.”
It is odd that a professional sporting event championship begins with a hymn. What does a hymn have to do with soccer? But English soccer fans know that being a follower of Christ does not start and end. It does not start in worship and end when you exit the building. Being a follower of Christ has everything to do with soccer, working, school, love, and everything else we do. There is no corner of our lives that should not be affected by the presence of God. And so we long, we long for God to abide with us. The song is about hope for God in our lives at our lowest moments. The song’s writer, Henry Lyte, composed this song only three weeks before his death by tuberculosis in 1847. Being so close to death, the composer realized how fragile life really is. And even in his fragile state, Lyte knew that his hope, and indeed our hope, is in life beyond death. It was the event of Jesus’ death on a cross that gave Lyte hope in the present and in the future. Jesus’ death was God’s ultimate proof that we are loved. And as Jesus rose from the dead, he showed us that there is hope and indeed life beyond the grave.
Of course, the presence of our heavenly father is not something we need to plead for- it is promised to us as Hebrews 13:5 reminds us, “For God himself has said, ‘I will never leave or forsake you.'”
Mia Levetan
Gipp’s Ghost Helps Notre Dame to Classic Win
George Gipp was the first All-American football player to play for Notre Dame. He played multiple positions including halfback, quarterback, and punter. His career was tragically cut short in 1920 when a throat infection turned to a deadly case of pneumonia. While on his deathbed, he said to his coach, the renowned Knute Rockne, “Someday, when things look real tough for Notre Dame, ask the boys to go out there and win one for the Gipper.”
Almost ten years later, in 1928, the Fighting Irish were recovering from a horrible previous season in which they lost 18-0 to Army. Before the game Rockne called the team into a huddle and repeated Gipp’s deathbed request.
“I’ve never used Gipp’s request until now,” he said. “This is that game. It’s up to you.” The Fighting Irish went out and played some of the best football of their lives. At the end of the game, the score was Army 6, Notre Dame 12.
The next day the New York Daily News headline read: “Gipp’s Ghost Beats Army.” After that, legend of George Gipp was forever immortalized as “the Gipp Game” and “Win one for the Gipper” had become a household name (phrase).
Stuart Strachan Jr.
Giving a 110 Percent
There are few things in life as unenlightening as the postgame interview. Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t always bad. Some athletes and coaches can be quite insightful. I’ve seen real poise and humility in some of these interviews. But in general you don’t expect to hear original insights surface thirty seconds after the game has ended. What you do expect is a lot of talk about how we never gave up, how we always believed in ourselves, how we gave it 110 percent, and how these kids deserve all the credit in the world (really? all of it? the whole world? no credit left for anyone else?).
Taken from The Hole in Our Holiness by Kevin DeYoung, © 2012, pp.79. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org
Golf and Power Dynamics
George Bush Sr. (41) enjoyed the game of golf, even if he wasn’t necessarily very good at it. Following his presidency and his return to private life, he began to notice something: It’s amazing how many people beat you in golf once you’re no longer President.”
Source Material from Clifton Fadiman, Bartlett’s Book of Anecdotes.
He is Coming: A Triumphal Entry
Just under 80 years ago, a crowd gathered on a humid August day to commence what was to be an unparalleled event for its time. Hundreds of thousands of spectators, police officers, and soldiers gathered for an event so spectacular, so colossal, it almost seemed to come out of a fairy tale rather than real life. Some six continents and 49 countries were represented, with most guests, especially the athletes wearing clothing with their own home flag represented, either on their person, or as they waved their flag for the crowd to see.
And I would argue not just because we know what leadership under Hitler would bring to the modern world, but also, the messianic overtones that we hear in the shouts of Hail! And He is coming. I could not help but compare this scene to the day we celebrate as Palm Sunday…the day Jesus entered into the Holy City, not standing on a Mercedes, or even the ancient world’s equivalent, the chariot, but rather he came on a donkey.
Liddell’s Sabbath Exception
Randy Alcorn relates meeting Margaret Holder, born to missionary parents in China and interned by the Japanese with Eric Liddell, the “Flying Scotsman,” whose story is featured in Chariots of Fire. She remembered him as “Uncle Eric.” She told the following story, particularly interesting in light of his refusal to run competitively on Sundays:
The children played basketball, rounders, and hockey. Eric Liddell was their referee. Not surprisingly, he refused to referee on Sundays. But in his absence, the children fought. Liddell struggled over this. He believed he shouldn’t stop the children from playing because they needed the diversion. Finally, Liddell decided to referee on Sundays. This made a deep impression on Margaret—she saw that the athlete world famous for sacrificing success for principle was not a legalist. When it came to his own glory, Liddell would surrender it all rather than run on Sunday.
Randy Alcorn, The Grace and Truth Paradox: Responding with Christlike Balance (Multnomah, 2003).
No Need to Hold Anything Back
In the sport of cycling, one of the most important things necessary to be successful in a race is the ability to manage the timing of when “to burn a match.” This is a phrase that all bike racers know and refers to when one must put in a big effort to either stay with the pack, get up a hill, or to break away at a key moment. Knowing when to “burn a match” is critical because in any given race, one only has so many “matches to burn!” If you were to do any entire race going your hardest at every moment in that race, then it would be impossible to make it all the way to the finish line, little alone to win. Thus, knowing when and how hard to go at any given point in a race is constantly on your mind and after every big effort, the anxious thoughts begin: “How many more of those efforts do I have? What happens if there’s a hill around the next corner? How many miles until the finish line? I’ve got to take it easy if I’m going to make it to the finish!”
However, if you could somehow line up on the start line of a race knowing that you were going to win no matter what happens on the road, all anxiety over when to “burn a match” would suddenly disappear. There would be no need to manage your physical resources or monitor how hard you are going. You could just go all out any time you wanted, free of any worry that your investment of effort would go to waste or put your race in jeopardy.
This is just like serving the coming King Jesus. We can have to confidence to use whatever we have for His kingdom and His glory in the knowledge and assurance that He is returning, that we live for another Kingdom, and that no investment for Him goes to waste.
Jeff Volkmer
Nowhere to Go on Sunday
The announcement that the Cleveland Browns were moving to Baltimore after 30 years in Cleveland devastated many people. Among the many Browns fans interviewed, one man sat in his pickup truck and wept as he said, “Now me and my family will have no place to go on Sunday.”
Parables, Etc. 15:12 (February 1996).
ONE MORE LAP!
I recently heard a story about a race in which one runner had a significant lead over the rest of the field. As the man rounded the final turn, the crowd roared as he inched closer and closer to the finish line, visibly exhausted but simultaneously elated at the result. Everything seemed normal as the crowd continued to congratulate the runners at the finish line, until the “front runner’s” coach ran frantically up to him yelling “ONE MORE LAP! ONE MORE LAP! ONE MORE LAP!
Stuart Strachan Jr. Source Material from “For the Church: Gospel Centered Resources from Midwest Seminary, Kevin Halloran, Article: Should a Preacher Use Humor from the Pulpit.
The Only Opinion That Matters
Most of us have heard of Babe Ruth, but have you ever heard of Babe Pinelli? Pinelli was an umpire in Major League Baseball who once called The Great Bambino (Ruth) out on strikes. When the crowd began booing in disapproval of the call, Babe turned to the umpire and said “There’s 40,000 people here who know that the last pitch was a ball.”
The coaches and players braced for a swift ejection, but instead, Pinelli responded coolly, “Maybe so, Babe, but mine is the only opinion that counts.” In life it’s easy to get caught up in the opinions of others, but in the end, it’s not our scoffers or critics by whom we will be judged, only God.
Stuart Strachan Jr.
Running His Race
In his book The Burden is the Light, Jon Tyson shares how, as a child, he had excelled as a runner, winning a number of races and even breaking state records. But everything changed when another athlete joined their club, who ultimately would supplant Jon as the fastest kid on the team. This was the first time Jon had lost a race, and it was ultimately devastating to his 10-year old psyche. After that point, Jon gave up running altogether, not wanting to compete in something he couldn’t be the best at. But Jon’s story with running were not over altogether. There was something God still wanted to teach Jon through the sport of running, and it had everything to do with the problem with comparison:
I quit running when I was a wounded child, but in my early thirties I took it up again. I was looking for a way to stay healthy, and my best friend talked me into running the Chicago Marathon to raise money for a charity that works with children. I was nervous at first. Running 26.2 miles seemed about as possible as swimming the Atlantic, but everyone has to start somewhere. So I bought some running shoes and began.
When I first began training, it was humbling to realize how out of shape I had become. I couldn’t finish a single mile without stopping. Yet I would faithfully get up early to run laps around Central Park.
…My innate desire to summon my body to faster speeds had been tempered by the passage of time, but I recognized in my soul the root of something that I didn’t like. One time, when a woman who appeared to be in her sixties overtook me, I tried to increase my pace—but I couldn’t keep up. The tank was empty.
Discouraged, I slowed to a walk, breathing heavily, outdone by a senior citizen. I contemplated abandoning my plan to compete in the marathon. But as I was walking, I was seized by a new thought. I had no one to compare myself to.
…I knew then that I had to run my race and that unhealthy comparison could lead to serious injury, burning out, and possibly even death. A sense of freedom washed over me. It was as if a heavy burden I had been carrying since childhood fell onto the loop around Sixty-Fourth Street and Central Park West. This revelation changed my training.
I began comparing myself against my own goals and pace, and I was making real progress.
…One humid Chicago morning, I lined up with thousands of other registrants, eager to test my training against the course…The gun went off, and rather than sprinting, I jogged along in a delirious shuffle. The temperature was ninety-nine degrees the year I ran the marathon, and at mile seventeen I hit the wall with tremendous force. But with determination and grace, I kept going. Any thoughts of comparison were pushed from my mind by the sweltering heat; I just had to finish my race. The next few miles were excruciating, and every step felt like the last I would take.
At mile twenty-five, the roar of the crowd kicked in. A man leaned toward the road, glanced at my name tag, and then looked me in the eye and said, “Go get your medal, Jon—you’ve earned it.” A lifetime of emotions rose in my heart, and I began to weep. It would be a medal not for winning but for running my own race. A medal not for finishing first but for finishing the race I was called to run.
Size is not Authority
I am a huge football fan and there have been several times in my life where I have either met or have happened upon an NFL player. Whenever this occurs, I can never get used to just how big these people are! When seeing them on television, where everyone else is just as large, it is sometimes difficult to really appreciate just how large-than-life NFL players really are!
We just don’t have a category in our minds for a Tyron Smith, an O-lineman for the Dallas Cowboys, who is 6’5” and 320 lbs or the 6’1” and 285 lbs of Aaron Donald who can also run a 4.6, 40 yard dash and has a 32” vertical jump!
But what is interesting is that when you watch an NFL game, there are seven additional people on the field who are always much, much smaller than every single player, and yet, each one of the players listens and does everything that these seven people tell them to do!
You would have probably guessed that these seven “small” people on the field are the referees and the reason why the much larger players listen to everything they say is because they know how to recognize authority.
Authority is not something that is earned through might or performance, but is rather given from some higher authority. The tenant farmers in today’s lesson might have been more powerful than the slaves and then the son of the vineyard owner, but failed to recognize their authority.
God will seldom show up in our lives as a 300 lb NFL lineman to make us do what we ought to do, but it is no less important for us to recognize His authority so as to listen and obey.
(This illustration is based upon a story that one of my professors told while I was at Dallas Seminary. I cannot remember who it was in order to give them credit, but I did take the core idea and made it my own here.)
Jeff Volkmer
The Story of Eric Liddell
Eric Liddell, the “Flying Scotsman” was made famous by the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire. He was born to missionary parents in China in 1902 and educated in the United Kingdom.
Though he made the British Olympic team for the 1924 Paris Olympics, he withdrew from his best event, the 100 meter dash, when the heats were held on a Sunday. A Sabbatarian, Liddell would not participate. Instead, he ran the 400-meter, an event he was not favored to win. In a surprising turn of events, Liddell beat the favored American runners and set an Olympic record that stood for 12 years.
Shortly after his stunning victory on the field, Liddell returned to China as a missionary and teacher. He served there until the Sino-Japanese War overtook the region he lived in. He was imprisoned by the Japanese army in 1943 in the Weihsen Internment Camp.
He is remembered as living an exemplary witness under trying circumstances, especially for his care for the children and the elderly.
He succumbed to a brain tumor in 1945, only five months before the liberation of the camp. His last words are reported to be, “It’s complete surrender…”
William Rowley (various sources, including https://ericliddell.org/about-eric-liddell/)
“They Ain’t Learned You to Hit that Curveball…”
The American Baseball player Moe Berg (catcher) was more than just a ballplayer. Berg attended Princeton University and the Sorbonne, knew several languages and later served as a spy during WWII. He was known for reading 10 newspapers a day, and his etymological erudition (grasp of languages) led to a quiz show where he would describe various words’ origins.
But of course he was mainly known as a baseball player, making his debut for the Brooklyn Robins in 1923, and whose career spanned 16 years, playing for the Chicago White Sox, the Cleveland Indians, the Washington Senators, and finally the Boston Red Sox.
While playing a game, one of his less educated rivals said to him, “Moe, I don’t care how many of them college degrees you got. They ain’t learned you to hit that curveball any better than me.”
Stuart Strachan Jr.
Training Harder Than Necessary
As a young boy, around the time my heart began to suspect that the world was a fearful place and I was on my own to find my way through it, I read the story of a Scottish discus thrower from the nineteenth century. He lived in the days before professional trainers and developed his skills alone in the highlands of his native village. He even made his own discus from the description he read in a book. What he didn’t know was the discus used in competition was made of wood with an outer rim of iron.
His was solid metal and weighed three or four times as much as those being used by his would-be challengers. This committed Scotsman marked out his field the distance of the current record throw and trained day and night to be able to match it.
For nearly a year, he labored under the self-imposed burden of the extra weight, becoming very, very good. He reached the point at which he could throw his iron discus the record distance, maybe farther. He was ready.
The highlander traveled south to England for his first competition. When he arrived at the games, he was handed the wooden discus—which he promptly threw like a tea saucer. He set a record, a distance so far beyond those of his competitors one could touch him. For many years he remained the uncontested champion. Something in my heart connected with this story.
What I am Supposed to Do?
The American Golfer George Archer had a relatively successful career on the PGA tour, winning thirteen PGA tournaments, including the 1969 Masters. As he drew closer to retiring from the sport, he wasn’t exactly sure how to spend his time. One reporter asked what he would do during his retirement. Archer said, “Baseball players quit playing and take up golf. Basketball players quit and take up golf. Football players quit and take up golf. What are we supposed to do when we quit?”
Stuart Strachan Jr.
Analogies
No Need to Hold Anything Back
In the sport of cycling, one of the most important things necessary to be successful in a race is the ability to manage the timing of when “to burn a match.” This is a phrase that all bike racers know and refers to when one must put in a big effort to either stay with the pack, get up a hill, or to break away at a key moment. Knowing when to “burn a match” is critical because in any given race, one only has so many “matches to burn!” If you were to do any entire race going your hardest at every moment in that race, then it would be impossible to make it all the way to the finish line, little alone to win. Thus, knowing when and how hard to go at any given point in a race is constantly on your mind and after every big effort, the anxious thoughts begin: “How many more of those efforts do I have? What happens if there’s a hill around the next corner? How many miles until the finish line? I’ve got to take it easy if I’m going to make it to the finish!”
However, if you could somehow line up on the start line of a race knowing that you were going to win no matter what happens on the road, all anxiety over when to “burn a match” would suddenly disappear. There would be no need to manage your physical resources or monitor how hard you are going. You could just go all out any time you wanted, free of any worry that your investment of effort would go to waste or put your race in jeopardy.
This is just like serving the coming King Jesus. We can have to confidence to use whatever we have for His kingdom and His glory in the knowledge and assurance that He is returning, that we live for another Kingdom, and that no investment for Him goes to waste.
Jeff Volkmer
Working on Our Muscle Memory
Editor’s Note: The following illustration came from one of my own sermons, as I was trying to help a congregation see itself not as a building, but the body of Christ. It has been adapted for TPW.
Now, one of things I’ve realized, even in my own perspective on the church, is that we all have a default way of thinking about “church.” That is, for the majority of us in North America and Europe, when we hear “church” we often think of a building with a cross on top.
We know from studying biblical passages about the church we should picture a human body or a gathering of Jesus followers instead, right? But it’s kind of like muscle memory. You all know what muscle memory is right? It’s the idea that we have certain ways of doing things, say swinging a golf club and when we try to say, change that swing, we struggle, because we already have muscles that expect to move a certain way right? So for instance, recently I had a golf lesson. And the instructor, who knows a lot more about golf than I do, said, “I think I’d like to change your swing.”
Now, this wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear, “Oh, you are just doing this little thing wrong. Fix it, and you’ll have a zero handicap.” Okay, let’s be honest, that was never going to happen.
So, let me demonstrate how I used to swing. (Show the congregation.) It wasn’t terrible, but it also had its problems. So the instructor made a couple tweaks, and I’ll be honest, at first, felt very awkward, even flat out wrong. I thought to myself, “I’m pretty sure I’ll never hit the ball well with this swing.”
But strangely enough, with a little practice, not only did I start to hit the ball straighter than I was before, but I was also hitting the ball further. So why do I bring this up? It’s because we all have quite a lot of “muscle memory” related to the church. We all see and expect the church to look and act a certain way. The problem is, sometimes, in order for the church to grow, we need to look back at scripture and ask, “What if our muscle memory is off?” What if we are doing things, not because they have to be done that way, but because they used to work well this way, but they don’t really work anymore? Remember, we’re not talking about changing the gospel or the essence of the Church. We are talking about fixing some of our mechanics in order to more faithfully proclaim the good news that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, in our place and time.
Stuart Strachan Jr., Sermon, Luke 15: Locating the Lost, Oct.10, 2017.
Humor
Golf and Power Dynamics
George Bush Sr. (41) enjoyed the game of golf, even if he wasn’t necessarily very good at it. Following his presidency and his return to private life, he began to notice something: It’s amazing how many people beat you in golf once you’re no longer President.”
Source Material from Clifton Fadiman, Bartlett’s Book of Anecdotes.
ONE MORE LAP!
I recently heard a story about a race in which one runner had a significant lead over the rest of the field. As the man rounded the final turn, the crowd roared as he inched closer and closer to the finish line, visibly exhausted but simultaneously elated at the result. Everything seemed normal as the crowd continued to congratulate the runners at the finish line, until the “front runner’s” coach ran frantically up to him yelling “ONE MORE LAP! ONE MORE LAP! ONE MORE LAP!
Stuart Strachan Jr. Source Material from “For the Church: Gospel Centered Resources from Midwest Seminary, Kevin Halloran, Article: Should a Preacher Use Humor from the Pulpit.
The Only Opinion That Matters
Most of us have heard of Babe Ruth, but have you ever heard of Babe Pinelli? Pinelli was an umpire in Major League Baseball who once called The Great Bambino (Ruth) out on strikes. When the crowd began booing in disapproval of the call, Babe turned to the umpire and said “There’s 40,000 people here who know that the last pitch was a ball.”
The coaches and players braced for a swift ejection, but instead, Pinelli responded coolly, “Maybe so, Babe, but mine is the only opinion that counts.” In life it’s easy to get caught up in the opinions of others, but in the end, it’s not our scoffers or critics by whom we will be judged, only God.
Stuart Strachan Jr.
The Simplicity of Basketball
Arnold “Red” Auerbach was one of the winningest coaches in NBA history. He won 9 championships as coach of the Boston Celtics and was named NBA Coach of the Year in 1965 and NBA Executive Coach of the Year in 1980. Auerbach would regularly state that Basketball was a simple game, which surprised many sports fans. When asked why, he said, “ “The ball is round and the floor is flat.”
Stuart Strachan Jr.
“They Ain’t Learned You to Hit that Curveball…”
The American Baseball player Moe Berg (catcher) was more than just a ballplayer. Berg attended Princeton University and the Sorbonne, knew several languages and later served as a spy during WWII. He was known for reading 10 newspapers a day, and his etymological erudition (grasp of languages) led to a quiz show where he would describe various words’ origins.
But of course he was mainly known as a baseball player, making his debut for the Brooklyn Robins in 1923, and whose career spanned 16 years, playing for the Chicago White Sox, the Cleveland Indians, the Washington Senators, and finally the Boston Red Sox.
While playing a game, one of his less educated rivals said to him, “Moe, I don’t care how many of them college degrees you got. They ain’t learned you to hit that curveball any better than me.”
Stuart Strachan Jr.
What I am Supposed to Do?
The American Golfer George Archer had a relatively successful career on the PGA tour, winning thirteen PGA tournaments, including the 1969 Masters. As he drew closer to retiring from the sport, he wasn’t exactly sure how to spend his time. One reporter asked what he would do during his retirement. Archer said, “Baseball players quit playing and take up golf. Basketball players quit and take up golf. Football players quit and take up golf. What are we supposed to do when we quit?”
Stuart Strachan Jr.
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