There’s a great new movie playing in theaters now titled Million Dollar Arm. Jon Hamm, whom you may know as the main character in the T. V. series Mad Men, plays the role of a sports agent, J. B. Bernstein, whose once active clients have all retired. He and his two assistants haven’t brought in any new clients for a couple of years and they’re facing the possibility of having to close the business.
Bernstein has the inspiration of getting baseball to become a sport in India, and of him and his assistants being the agents for all of the new baseball stars issuing from the sport. Watching American Idol, he decides they should go to India and find candidates who could learn to be pitchers, having a contest like American Idol, with an international audience, in which contestants would vie for a million dollar award for being the best pitcher.
So Bernstein goes to India and has tryouts in several cities for those who think they can qualify. After almost despairing of finding anyone who has potential, he finds two amazing pitchers, Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel. Bernstein brings them back to the United States to train as baseball pitchers, getting ready for the final tryout to see who would win the million dollars.
These are young men who have never been away from home, and Bernstein plucks them out of their home and their country and brings them to a completely foreign environment, and then basically leaves them alone throughout the whole training period.
In spite of their ability, Rinku and Dinesh, on the big day of the tryout, both fail miserably. A friend of Bernstein suggests to him that their failure is because the only person they care about in the United States, the person who had brought them here, has completely ignored them. She suggests that he needs to focus on supporting them and caring for them if they are going to succeed, and if he is going to make good on his own investment.
Bernstein realizes that his friend may be right and begins to be present for training sessions and to show that he cares in other ways as well. In the process, Bernstein himself changes and begins truly to take an interest in the boys for their own sakes.
The day for the tryout finally arrives; agents from ball teams from across United States are present. Before Rinku and Dinesh go out to show what they can do, Bernstein tells them to have fun, and in so doing communicates that they as persons are the most important thing to him and not whether or not they perform well.
They do perform well. They actually end up being signed on with the Pittsburgh Pirates and go to training camp in Bradenton. Basically, the message of this true story is that no matter what circumstance you’re talking about, people need love. As far as I can recall, the word love wasn’t mentioned in the film, but what the boys were suffering from when they first came to the United States was a lack of it. They had left family and friends who dearly loved them and showed that love every day of their lives, and when they came here they were not only separated from that love, but also they were surrounded by people who cared nothing for them as persons, but only as commodities.
We’re good at doing that in our culture. I believe it was John Powell who said, “God created us to love others and use things, and all too often we use others and love things.” Dinesh and Rinku were being used royally, and they suffered for it in their spirits, and it affected even how they performed as pitchers. When Bernstein began to care for them as fellow human beings, he didn’t tell them he loved them; in fact, he probably didn’t think of his caring as love. He simply started showing acts of love: spending time with them, showing up for their practices, taking an interest in them as human beings. And they responded like a withered plant soaks up water.
Love is what your faith and mine is all about. And it’s about love because that is the very being of almighty God. Whenever love is present, whether the person is religious or not, God is present.
And by love I don’t mean a feeling. I mean an intention for the other that manifests itself in concrete acts of love. It means giving of one’s time, talent, and treasure for the well-being of others.
Jesus was talking about this kind of love when he told his disciples, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Loving isn’t feeling a certain way, it’s doing: showing God and others our love through acts of love: forgiving others, feeding the hungry, visiting the sick and shut-in, taking time to be with those nearest you.
And our Lord ties this love to the coming of the Holy Spirit. When we love, truly love, not for what we can get in return, but for the good of the other, God shows up, whether we recognize him as God or not. Wherever love is, God is present.
The Church is a community of believers who seek, by God’s grace, to live fully in this divine love, manifest most fully in our Lord Jesus Christ, showing the world what God intends for all people. We aren’t perfect, but I believe that in spite of its failings, the Church is indeed that sign. Think about it. That’s what the world has come to expect of the Church. That’s why, when the Church fails to live into it’s calling, it makes news.
The story of Dinesh Patel and Rinku Singh is not just a story of human love, but a story of how God is present when love is present. Take time today and every day to love those around you through acts of love.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
The Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota, Florida
6th Sunday of Easter
25 May 2014