Kids today are introduced to sports at earlier and earlier in their lives. Sports teach valuable lessons on teamwork, creates opportunities to get exercise, and gets them out of the house. When I was young, and that was a very long time ago, my first organized sport was baseball. In our little town, there were two levels of Little League: National League and American League. All the good kids, the ones that actually had talent were all in the National League and the not so talented were in the lower American League. The year I started I was in the not so good group. For some unknown reason the coach decided that I was going to be the catcher.
I played in the American League for two years and finally moved up to the big league. I never moved out of the role of catcher. I learned the game from the side of the plate most don’t see. All the other players had positions inside of the playing field. Only the catcher has a position outside of the foul lines.
Since that time, I have played both baseball and softball. Most of the time I always was outside of the lines. Once in a while I pitched, but most of the time you could find me squatting down behind the batter with a mask, a breast protector, knee pads and waiting on someone else to do something.
The game has changed much from a little kid with a wood bat to modern aluminum double walled nitrogen filled force multiplying bats of vengeance. But one thing has not changed. The home shaped base where everything started and ended never changed. It was always seventeen inches wide. In the first year of the American League to now that seventeen-inch-wide white home plate has always been the same. Uniforms would change, bats would change, even the ball changed, but the plate stayed the exact width of seventeen inches.
If a pitcher would miss the edge of the plate it was not up to the umpire to make the strike zone a little wider because the pitcher was outside by only an inch. The strike zone was defined by the width of the plate and the plate was always seventeen inches. The strike zone was not fungible because the plate did not change. It was a constant. No matter what park you went to, no matter what game you saw on the television it was unalterable.
During all of those games and practices, I noticed something.
The plate was one of the most holy things in baseball. It was holy because it was unchangeable. It was always an absolute part of every game, the size and position of the plate was immutable. It was holy because it was set apart from opinion; it was not dependent upon public opinion. It was holy because majority rule did not dictate the width. A pitchers preference has no bearing on it. No one can change it. It is sacrosanct from the smallest Little Leaguer, to the big show of the major leagues.
So what does this mean to theology? What can we learn? If a man made game can consider something as small as the width of a piece of rubber being holy, what does God consider as Holy? What does God set as his seventeen-inch home plate? What does God consider Holy? For that matter is raises the question of “Why is it Holy to God?” And one more step in our rise to understanding, “Are God’s concept of Holy the same as my concept of Holy?”
Quickly here is a list that I believe is on the God’s Home Plate list.
You are holy.
If you are a follower of Christ, you have been bought with a price. You are united with Christ and you are now holy because God’s holiness is your holiness. You because of your acceptance of a free gift from God you are “set apart for a purpose.”
Human life is holy.
God’s plan was to create life that would be his. Every beating heart matters to God. It does not matter if that heart is in the chest of a prisoner, in the chest of an elderly senior in a convalescent home, in the chest of a great theologian, in the chest of a child in the womb of a mother. All are holy to God
Marriage is holy.
When the officiant speaks of holy matrimony, it is not by mistake. Marriage is a set apart relationship. That is true for good marriages or not so good. It is not stretched to a different dimension just because the pitcher would like to be a little wider. I believe that marriage even if there has been betrayal, or other circumstances that have broken trust, marriage is still holy.
The Sabbath is holy.
It is God’s dimension of our lives to take a day off. Six days are enough. And now that I am older I am thinking one and a half may suit me better. But at last one day for God as the only focus of my life is what is designed.
Our tithe is holy.
“A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD; it is holy to the LORD.” (Leviticus 27:30 NIV) The first ten per cent of everything you earn is, in God’s eyes, holy money. We never give it to God, we return what is already his. The tithe is holy.
The name of God is holy.
God’s name is holy. It is not to be used in a slur or in a time of frustration. The use of God’s name in profanity is simply making something holy to extend into the unholy. It dilutes the holy name of God; it rubs the shine of His Glory of the beauty of God. The world would like the children of God to be so common that God’s holy name becomes common.
The Holy things of God are few and many. But they must be the same as they were in the old times and the modern. As the width of the home plate will always stay at seventeen inches, so God will be the same and with that unchangeability comes the Holy things of God.
Our world around would have us change the definition of life not to include the unborn. Sex outside of marriage is seen as the normal. We work every day with the expectation to rest latter and we are rewarded for it by a bigger paycheck. We want make it a free will offering and not a tithe. People become disposable. Life becomes more of an existence instead of something to please God. Everything of the world would have us say “that home plate is old school.” “We need to make is broader so everyone can get a better shot at winning.”
The width of home plate is not up for discussion, neither is God’s call to holiness.