People will come, Ray. People will most definitely come. You know the movie, right? Ray plows down part of his corn field to build a field of dreams… and they do come.
My daughter Ruby is playing t-ball for the first time this summer. If you have ever watched a t-ball game, you know it is easily the most entertaining sporting event. She is on a great team with great coaches and the program is organized by the Lamar Ruritan. We are very thankful for everybody who is volunteering their time to make this program happen.
Both my Dad and I played baseball for the Lamar Ruritan so it was pretty special to take Ruby to the old field for her first practice. It had been a long time since I had had walked out on the field, but the memories of summers spent racing around that red clay field came rushing back. All of a sudden I saw the field filled with the guys I used to play with at their positions fielding the ball. And I understood how it was that my Dad often reminisced about the guys he played with when we were at the ball field when I was a kid.
The second reading from the Revised Common Lectionary for the Second Sunday after Pentecost, June 6th, is 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1. Verses 4:17-18 and 5:1 says…
Our temporary minor problems are producing an eternal stockpile of glory for us that is beyond all comparison. We don’t focus on the things that can be seen but on the things that can’t be seen. The things that can be seen don’t last, but the things that can’t be seen are eternal. We know that if the tent that we live in on earth is torn down, we have a building from God. It’s a house that isn’t handmade, which is eternal and located in heaven.
The word eternal is used in each of the final 3 verses of this passage of scripture. The Apostle Paul tells the Corinthians not to focus on the things that can be seen, but on the things that can’t be seen, the eternal. The things that can be seen don't last, but the things that can’t be seen are eternal.
That beloved baseball movie, Field of Dreams, addresses things that are eternal. It’s a movie all about parents and children, generations past, answering a call, and baseball. Because Ray had the courage to give up financial stability for something greater, something magical happens on this baseball field in the middle of an Iowa corn field. Famous great deceased baseball players appear and play the game. Suddenly something that can’t be seen is very present and real.
Eternity is central to our faith as Christians. It's communicated to us in multiple ways over and over in our faith. Jesus triumphed over death and gives life to all and we trust in that life, as 2 Corinthians says that house that isn’t handmade but eternal and located in heaven. When we receive Holy Communion we remember that we not only commune with one another, we not only commune with God, but we also commune with all of those who have passed on before us. They are so very present and with us even now, though unseen.
In that most iconic speech in Field of Dreams, James Earl Jones tells Ray…
People will come, Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn into your driveway, not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door, as innocent as children, longing for the past. “Of course, we won’t mind if you look around,” you’ll say, “It’s only twenty dollars per person.” And they’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it, for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they’ll walk off to the bleachers and sit in their short sleeves on a perfect afternoon. And find they have reserved seats somewhere along the baselines where they sat when they were children. And cheer their heroes. And they’ll watch the game, and it’ll be as they’d dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they’ll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come, Ray. The one constant through all the years Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. Oh people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.
The movie ends with the greatest crescendo. Ray, who had been estranged from his deceased father, suddenly sees his Dad on the baseball field. The eternal reality of reconciliation occurs for each of them and they have a catch. Meanwhile while they pass ball the people come, the community starts arriving to this heavenly field.
In the Ken Burns documentary Baseball, historian John Thorn says, ‘the feeling of connection, bat against a ball, ball back and forth with your father or brother, the idea that you can throw a piece of yourself out there into the ether, a ball into the ether and it comes back to you. This is the promise of everlasting life that it’s not going to end, it’s going to come back to you.’
Sitting beside my Dad watching my daughter play on the same field he and I both played on as children, I recognize the unseen eternal realities of God’s grace that surround us all.