Have You Been Drafted?
Speaker: David Hawk, Lay Leader
Location: Whitney United Methodist Church
Date: May 10, 2009
Good Morning. There are two things I want to discuss with you today. One is mothers and the second is the National Football League draft. You got a little example of how the draft works by listening to Lorrie as she read from the Bible regarding Jesus choosing the Disciples. But first, it is more than a cliché to say that we wouldn’t be here without our mothers. I hope we can all look back and remember the wonderful love our mothers have shown us throughout our lives. I hope that we will each know that, regardless of life’s conditions with which we were dealt one can and one card we can play, it’s relevant that someone loved us enough to carry us and deliver us and someone loved us enough to feed us and that is a mother. To the mothers that are here today, and particularly those who may become mothers, I offer this challenge on motherhood, not that there aren’t a plenty. A child only wants fond memories of their mothers. You have the choice to invest those sentiments. Children, on the other hand, will thrill and disappoint you but you will be there for them because you will, and to you I say “God’s blessings.” To my mom I say, “God’s blessings.”
And now the pro football draft. As a typical child, boy child, I wondered about my potential college football career and, ultimately, my professional football career. I’d done well in the sixth grade at Hawthorne Elementary. I had scored a few touchdowns as a running back, and as a blocker I was able to connect with people, and as I entered later, though, Jr. High School and High School I was struck by two of life’s most important emotional lightening bolts. I realized size and speed were important to the game of football but it wasn’t really clear to me until I saw the physics formula F equals MA. Force equals Mass times Acceleration. Then it became quite clear to me. Since I was slow and small, my attributes were okay as long as everyone else was slower and smaller. Obviously they were not. You see there’s…in the experience and the belief that I could play in college and in the pros.
In those days we only had a couple of TV stations here in Boise and on one we got the pro football game of the week, which was the San Francisco 49ers. Now I used to claim that was a cosmopolitan experience for me, watching those games, with people with names like Leo Nomellini, Y. A. Tittle, John Brodie, Hugh McElhenny. I mean, after all, and R C Owens, after all you had both minority folks, you had Irish, you had Italians, you had Catholics, you had Polish people playing. What a wonderful cosmopolitan experience pro football must be, and therefore I really wanted to be a part of it. Many from my high school team actually went on and played college ball and several played professional football.
The second emotional realization that I had was that of fear. There is a certain amount of pain associated with a collision between a 5’ 10” 135 pound end a 6’ 2” 235 pound defensive lineman who was quicker. I actually, turns out I actually could kick pretty well. That was the one with the lease contact that I could find, but the problem was in those days they wanted that 6’2” 235 pound kicker whose last name ended in SKI. This is before the soccer kickers. So, as my wife typed this for me she typed “illegible” so I wasn’t ill..ill…boy, this is a tough one….so I wasn’t ineligible for the pro draft nor was I eligible for the pro draft.
Every year I’ve watched the talking heads pontificate on the subject of what every team needs and who they will draft and in what round. How many of you have seen the pro draft on television? Its fun isn’t it? It’s kind of interesting. All week long, for the months leading up to the draft they tell you that the Denver Broncos need this, they tell you that the Washington Redskins need this, they tell you that Oakland Raiders need this, need that, and this is how they should draft. Now everyone pretty much agrees on the first five players taken in the draft, but after that there’s not a lot of agreement. A good example this year was a former head coach at the University of Idaho who did not do particularly well there and now he’s the head coach with the Oakland Raiders. I don’t know whether….I’m sure financially that was a step up but I’m not sure career wise this isn’t an ender. But, in fact, Oakland chose early and they chose a wide receiver that other people had rated down versus several other wide receivers. So the talking heads were all atwitter about this. They were excited to be able to point out what a bad move it was that Oakland made, but the fellow happened to be the fastest guy in the draft. Ran about a 4/3…40 yard dash.
So, anyway, we’ll see whether it turns out if they were right or they were wrong. Everybody wants to tell you….I remember one week I looked down and Denver needed a linebacker and then the same writer, the next week, pointed out they needed a defensive end, then they needed a quarterback. I don’t know what they need, truthfully. And so you have to trust that they drafted correctly, I mean, they’re paid to do it and they know more than I do. But when draft day comes the TV cameras will focus in on the young men waiting to be called, one by one, by a team who is ready to hand them a logo cap, a jersey, and a contract, And the players’ emotions run the full gamut of wonder, excitement, hope, fear, trepidation, relief, joy, and disappointment.
And folks, as Christians we get to go right to the joy when we’re chosen by the Lord because Jesus, the Son of God, has given us the tools to cope with the other upsetting emotions. Isn’t that amazing? We don’t have to go through the fear and trepidation. We don’t have to go through the relief or the disappointment. It’s all right there. Jesus took all that, for us, and just gives us the joy. What if we spent the same amount of time in our culture, public time, doing for others and doing for our children, including ourselves, both corporately and individually, as we do preparing for the football draft? What if we truly let everyone know that they are one of God’s first round draft choices?
As you could see from John and Mark that Lorrie read to us here this morning, it’s interesting. Jesus picked position players, from sinners to tax collectors. Maybe that’s the same thing, I’m not sure. But, in fact, he picked those who had employees, those who were employees, those who have some wealth, those who had nothing. He picked someone that represented all of us, and they were all first round draft choices. Jesus did not have a second round draft choice. Now, I don’t know if he’d traded them away for a player to be named later. I don’t think so. I think there’s only one round in Jesus’, or the Lord’s draft. First round.
We can do both. We can have the fun and the enjoyment. There’s nothing in the Bible that says we can’t enjoy ourselves and take some pleasant respite watching the NFL draft on television, on and on as it does seem to go. And, of course, the player I favored most is, you know, somewhere down in the seventh round, and then you fall asleep on the couch and you miss it, and when you come on there’s some ad. But do you realize, do I realize, that we have been drafted, just as we are, onto the Lord’s team, and do we fulfill our responsibilities associated with our commitment, just the same way as a new player must to make grade? It’s through God’s grace that we make his team. We didn’t have to play in the Pop Warner League in elementary School. We didn’t have to play in Jr. high, or high school, or college, and we don’t have to be drafted or become a free agent in the pros to make the team. We were special from day one, without lifting any weights, without running a 40 yard dash, without crashing into a metal post and trying to move it, without hitting another player and knocking them down. We were special from day one in the Lord’s eyes and in our mother’s eyes.
The truth is we aren’t going to get unlimited airtime, folks, on ESPN or Cable News. So how will we communicate the goodness of Jesus, the rich reward of being a Christian, and the opportunities for all to share therein? As in the Bible verses this morning, Jesus found those of different backgrounds, he found those of different skills, of whom all could relate, and they were equally all first round draft picks onto his team of the New Christians. I ask you today, and I ask myself, regardless of who we are and where we have been, Christian draft day is today and it is every day. Have you taken the cap and the jersey and the contract for everlasting life? Will you take it? Reach out and take it. It’s yours.
May God add his blessing to this prayer.