This event always kind of rubbed me the wrong way.
It wasn't because I thought it was a publicity stunt. This particular baseball club often got some flack for its (at the time) manager's open faith in Jesus, and for placing a high value on moral character when it came to drafting players or acquiring them through free agency or a trade. I think those players and coaches who stuck around after the game to give testimonies were genuine in their faith and desired to use their position in life to encourage others to follow Jesus. That's a really good thing.
The reason the event rubbed me the wrong way was because many believers I knew--especially in my church--were more amped up for this event than just about anything else we would do as a church throughout the year. And every time the event would come up, I would wonder, "Why don't we have a day when we put a lot of focus on people who have given up everything they have--sometimes even their own lives--for the sake of people knowing Jesus?
You should know that I was (and still am) an avid fan of this particular team--even to my own emotional suffering during most seasons. And I understand how refreshing it is when a celebrity in our culture is known more for their faith and their commitment to their family than for their rap sheet. And I'm not saying that you can't be a professional baseball player and be used by God at the same time, or that they don't suffer or struggle in their faith. My question is this: who are the real heroes?
Why is it that the people we (as American Christians) tend to celebrate the most are those who seem to have lives we would want and who also happen to also follow Jesus? We take a celebrity who happens to profess a faith in Jesus and say to our kids, "Now there's someone I want you to be like." Why don't we read a news story about someone who's imprisoned or killed for preaching about Jesus, and tell our kids, "That's what I want you to aim for?" Or what about the overseas missionary who's been struggling in these tough financial years because people are giving less to support missions, and so they sell whatever stuff or property they have left and chew up their savings because they were called there by God, and until they hear differently from him, they will stay there despite how their supporters' hearts or economic situations fluctuate? I can honestly say that I have never prayed over my daughters that they would share in Christ's suffering. Yet that's Paul's hope for Timothy's life (2 Timothy 2:3-7). Perhaps it's because I rarely--if ever--ask Jesus if I can share in his suffering in my own life. I probably need to start.
We have an anesthetized view of what it means to give everything we have for the sake of Jesus. Because of this, we have an anesthetized view of what a hero in the faith looks like. And our heroes tend to end up looking just like the celebrities of our culture, rather than people who have truly counted "everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Philippians 3:8). The next time we're tempted to make a hero out of a celebrity, let us ask the question: Who are the real heroes?
