The day before the final game of the 1941 baseball season the Red Sox’ Ted Williams had a batting average of .39955. Since the league rounds to the nearest decibel, he could have benched himself for the next day’s double-header, thus clinching the only .400 average in the history of the game.
Williams chose to play.
“If I’m going to be a .400 hitter,” he insisted, “I want more than my toenails over the line.” He went six for eight and finished at .406, a mark that remains unmatched to this day.
Paul would’ve liked Ted Williams.
Paul insists on intensity in the pursuit of Christ. Three times in two verses the apostle uses a term that is of the break-the-tape type vs. the toenails-over-the-line variety: “Lay hold . . . laid hold of . . . having laid hold . . . .” A preposition intensifies the basic Greek verb: The idea of the Christian life is not to sneak in on a technicality but to finish with a flourish.
But Paul tempers this intensity with soft-hearted humility and hard-headed reality. First the humility: What really counts here is not how hard he holds on, but who holds onto him. The center-piece of his grabbing is the certainty of having been grabbed: “I was laid hold of.” We call this grace. Bluesman Bill Withers once told his children that we pass through “all right” on our way to “wonderful,” “and when you get to all right, take a good look around and get used to it because that may be as far as you’re going to get.”
Then the reality: Paul denies perfection in v.12, but appeals to the perfect in v.15, and counts himself among their company! I approach this paradox as a rejection of perfectionism. New York Times reporter Lawrence Cheek describes his efforts to construct hand-crafted frames for the portholes in a boat he built. He produced work that was flawed but serviceable, something he had to come to terms with as a “recovering perfectionist.” He calls his productions, “a recording of my own skills at the time – imperfect, but not because of sloth or carelessness. They testify to the best work I had in me at the time.” Paul’s “not that I have . . . already become perfect” echoes the Greek verb and tense of Christ’s cry of “It is finished” from Calvary’s cross. (Jo 19.30) Our momentary best finds sufficiency in the permanent best of Our Lord.
Intensity: I won’t sit safe on a .399 batting average while the season’s still going on.
Humility: I won’t worry that a subpar performance undoes the gift I didn’t earn in the first place.
Reality: I will give to God the best work I have in me today.
Intensity, humility, reality: Not a bad formula to bear in mind on your next trip to the plate.
Batter Up!
Doug
Collect
Heavenly Father, Your Son declared His perfection at the moment of His death. Grant us grace to pursue perfection without fear, knowing that in the end we cannot fail because we are held fast in the grip of Your perfect grace. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Benediction
May you serve Christ with intensity
That demands the best you have.
May you serve Christ with humility
That demands your best be better.
May you serve Christ in the reality
That He makes your best sufficient.
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