the ancient art of shalom

Two Sundays ago, I preached at Baylight on Numbers 32, a passage that gave me a new insight into the expression “taking a hit for the team.” In baseball, the equivalent of that would be putting yourself in the way of a 90+ mile an hour fastball to get to first base. Craig Biggio of the Houston Astros was famous for this, second all-time on the career list, getting hit by a pitch 285 times. Pitchers would complain that he crowded the plate, but from his team’s perspective, if he was able to get on first base an additional 30 or so times a year, that was 30 more chances to score a run, all by being willing to receive a very large bruise. 30 more chances to score a run could equate to a few more wins on the season, potentially the difference between making the playoffs or going home early.

One of the key phrases that I dwelled on in my sermon was the section from Numbers 32:16-27. The tribes of Reuben and Gad saw some good land that fell short of the Promised Land, and decided it was sufficient for their people, and asked Moses if they could just chill east of the Jordan and be exempted from entering and conquering the land. Moses rebuked them, and they have a change of heart. In verse 17, they say, “we will take up arms, ready to go before the people of Israel, until we have brought them to their place.” In that short sentence, there is a huge element of “taking a hit for the team.” First, when they say “ready to go before the people,” they are literally saying they are (1) eager and almost hurrying (“ready to go”), and (2) they are going to the front of the line (“before the people”), thus bearing the brunt of the casualties in battle. Second, they agree to go with every tribe “until we have brought them to their place,” meaning that they’ve changed their tune and instead of being the first to settle in, they’ll be the last of the twelve tribes to finally sit down. Another key component in Numbers 32 is the prevalence of the phrase before the Lord, meaning a holistic approach to life that submits everything to God. The question that I posed was this – What does it look like to go before the people and before the Lord?

I told one story of Maximilian Kolbe (that I heard about from a Michael Frost talk recently) as an example of someone who quite literally took a hit for the team, and in his case someone he didn’t even know. Paul in Philippians 2:3-4 says, “in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others,” and then gives the example of Jesus Christ as the pinnacle of he who truly and completely took a hit for the team of humanity on the cross. We were talking about a similar idea this last Sunday at our church in SF as we read through 1 Corinthians 4. There, Paul’s life as a servant of Christ and a steward of the mysteries of God formed the basis for a lifestyle that continually gave of himself for the benefit of those around him.

In the midst of such powerful, self-sacrificial examples, I think it’s also important for us also to think of examples that permeate our everyday life. In addition to “superman”-like examples, but ones that make an impact even in the seemingly mundane. As we walk into this posture of counting others more significant than ourselves in activities (usually involving a sacrifice of time or money) from big to small, I think there will be a cumulative, transformative effect on our lives. So here’s my first go at a list.

Simple ways to take a hit for the team in 2010

1. Providing a meal.
2. Giving someone a ride.
3. Recommending someone else for a paying gig.
4. Babysitting.
5. Fixing someone’s car.
6. Hosting.
7. Loaning stuff.

Feel free to add to the list.