Hey There 👋
I’ve been pretty dormant in my writing, but I had to gather some thoughts on a really cool thing I did over the weekend. Hope to be back in your mailbox more consistently soon!
I’ve played 1,000+ games of pickup basketball in my life. Even if my skills don’t reflect it, I’m a pretty competitive person who loves the sport of basketball, and I can run, so that qualifies me to play (people think they have to be good at basketball to play pickup… not true - you just have to be able to move your body).
I’ve played in games with people ranging from middle schoolers, college basketball players, men 60+ years of age, and everything in between. Yet, every time I lace my shoes up, stretch, and shoot a few warm-up shots, I receive either a jolt of confidence or an insecure nervousness and it stems from the competition around me. Usually, I think one of the following:
“Okay, I’m going to really have to try.”
“Use your teammates… Don’t ball hog even if you can score in this one.”
“I might be the worst player on this court… Don’t embarrass yourself.”
“This is probably a waste of time.”
The constant in those thoughts is that I’ve always played pickup basketball for myself - my workout, my success, my failure, my competition, my enjoyment. On Saturday, I played my first pickup basketball game that began about me, and ended about something far greater.
The church that I’m a member of, Immanuel Nashville, partners with the ministry Men of Valor, which helps men who have been incarcerated transition to life after jail. As a van with ten Men of Valor arrived at our church gym, I don’t care who you are; it’s an intimidating feeling watching ex-inmates walk in the door.
Why is that? Because I’m used to my perfect little world. Whenever what society deems a potential threat enters my presence, my comfort zone starts to shake. In other words, my faith is tested: “Do I really believe these men are worthy of the grace of God, and am I willing to not judge them because of their past, and much less share a basketball court with them?”
Shamefully, my answer to those questions has been no for so long, even if I display an outwardly front of yes. But if we look at Matthew 13:24-30, we find some truth about God:
The Parable of the Weeds
24 Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
27 “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
28 “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
29 “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”
I am always quick to determine who is a weed and who is wheat. My fellowship with the Men of Valor for an hour and a half playing a sport I love taught me that I am the servant in the parable who would have thrown out these men as weeds, but they are wheat.
I could not hit a shot on Saturday, which typically would have frustrated my whole day. But it’s impossible to care about yourself when you are in the presence of joyful redemption.
It took until pickup basketball game 1,001, but the game of basketball is not about me and my performance. Instead, it’s about another man who has done 20 years in prison and sharing a love of the game with him, who could not be more different than I am. Yet, we are both saved.
And that’s what the gospel of Jesus is all about.