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If you’ve been to the new Busch Stadium this year, you are probably familiar with the phrase, “Baseball Heaven.” Well, nearly 20 years ago, there was a movie that was both about baseball and about heaven. It also happened to be a lot about faith, which is why it’s a great illustration of our gospel lesson today. The movie is called Field of Dreams and starred Kevin Costner as an Iowa farmer named Ray Kinsella. Ray’s childhood hero was Shoeless Joe Jackson, a Chicago White Sox player who along with 7 other players got expelled from baseball for throwing the 1919 World Series. Ray has never done a crazy thing in his whole life and is struggling to make it as a farmer. He needs every last acre of corn to just break even and to save the bank from repossessing the land. One day however, Ray hears a voice while working in his cornfield and this clip picks up when he comes inside.
“Are you really hearing voices?” clip
Ray eventually determines that the voice is really telling him to build a baseball field in the middle of his cornfield for Shoeless Joe Jackson. Despite the financial ramifications and having no clue what will happen, Ray decides to put his faith into action, and he builds a baseball field in his backyard.
“Something’s going to happen out there, I can just feel it.” clip
The Field of Dreams is a story about faith in action – believing in something so much that it influences your actions. In fact, James says in today’s 2nd lesson that you don’t even have a real faith until it influences your actions. Ray certainly had a living faith in the voice he heard. He risked his entire farm, built a baseball field, and hoped that it might help someone. The people in our gospel lesson today were just like Ray. They started hearing voices also – not necessarily voices from heaven, but voices of the people around them. Did you hear about that Jew? Did you hear that he heals people? Did you hear that he can do miracles? Did you hear that he’s coming this way? If you take your daughter to him, maybe he can heal her. If you take your friend to him, maybe he will help him to hear and to speak. Maybe, just maybe… Today’s gospel stories aren’t just about hearing voices however. If the characters in these stories had just heard the voices and done nothing, then Mark wouldn’t have much of a story to tell. The desperate mother and the caring friends did more than just listen to the voices, they acted on what they heard. These are stories about faith in action, just like the Field of Dreams, and what can actually happen when you put your faith into action. Because she acted on her faith in Jesus, the woman’s daughter was healed. Because the friends acted on their faith, the deaf/mute man was healed. Because Ray acted on his faith and built the baseball field, a miracle happened. Shoeless Joe appeared on the field one night.
Is this heaven? clip
As the story continues, Shoeless Joe Jackson begins bringing other ball players to this field so they can experience this little bit of “heaven.” This ballfield becomes a place of grace, forgiveness, and ultimately redemption. Because Ray acted on his faith, the world was changed, not just for one ball player as he thought, but for a lot of former ball players also. Faith in Jesus is much the same way. It means that you get to experience a little bit of heaven. Faith in Jesus give us hope that miracles really do happen, that there is grace and forgiveness when we mess up, that love conquers evil. Having faith in Jesus ultimately means redemption and eternal life. Yet, if we fail to act on our faith, if we just say the words or fail to help others, our faith ceases to serve its purpose and it actually dies. Your faith, when it is put into action however, cannot help but effect and change others for good. Sunday School teachers, today is Rally Day, the start of the Sunday School year, and you will soon discover how your faith will help change the youth of this congregation for good. Your faith & works, the baseball fields you create during the Sunday School hour, will help our children experience the same miracles, love, and grace of God that you have experienced in your life. Our Stephen Ministers started their training this past week, and as they put their faith into action, they will soon discover how their faith will help people get through difficult times. Most of them have already experienced this in their life, which is why they decided to become Stephen Ministers in the first place. In less than a month, we will be breaking ground on our new building. As a congregation, we have decided that the leap of faith we are taking with this project is not for our benefit. We are creating this building so that it can help our community. We are putting our faith into action so that lives in St. Charles can be changed by the love of Jesus. This is the message of our gospel text today. God didn’t give us our faith just so that all of us believers could go to heaven. God gave us our faith so that we can do good works in the world. God gave us faith so that like the desperate mother, we can come to Jesus on behalf of others. God gave us faith so that like the friends, we can help others know the healing that Jesus gives. Like James said, God gave us faith so that we can feed and clothe the needy. God gave us faith so that we can show the world how much God loves them. When Ray put his faith into action and built that baseball field, he had no idea what would happen, he just hoped that it would help somebody. It ended up helping a lot of somebodies. When we put our faith into action, we don’t always know what will happen either. Crazy, illogical things might start happening. Demons might be driven out. Deaf people might begin to hear. Mute people might begin speaking. What we do know is this – that God is out there working in the world, changing it, healing it, shaping it, and he wants us to be a part of it. His voice may not always be obvious and it may not always be clear. But God is always calling us to put our faith into action and to help others experience a small part of heaven. Amen.
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