Mystery Basketball Player March 3, 2007
Posted by ericflore in Assignments, Rock Guild Posts.trackback
I was eighteen years old when I heard my first real Gospel message. It came strangely.
It was summer, 1983. We had just graduated high school. College loomed. My friends and I were at a local basketball court. Some other kids and some guy no one knew were there playing. We all did a pickup game. We hardly noticed the mystery guy. He was much older, in his mid-thirties, with straight, sandy hair and glasses; a burly guy, but he could shoot hoops. My friends and I all played wildly. He quietly, but effectively, played too.
It’s funny how the devil uses the lost. I remember cussing wildly during that game. I mean, even at the time I knew I was cussing way overboard, using every word in the book, even when it wasn’t necessary, but not knowing way I was doing so. I can only imagine now what that guy was thinking: “This kid’s too lost, Lord! He’s going straight to hell! I might as well give up doing what I’m thinking about doing ’cause these guys are way over the top!”
The mystery basketball player did have other motives than a great game of hoops. We ended. Some of us complimented him for bringing it on so hard in the game. We turned to leave, he had the basketball in his hand. About twenty steps later we heard from behind us something that changed my life forever: “Hey, guys, can we talk for a minute?” It was mystery guy. We all looked at him and back at each other. We were eighteen year old tough guys. Who actually wanted to ever just “talk” to us? This wasn’t “Phil Donahue,” for Pete’s sake. We relented and went back over to him, anyway.
I remember, he was a little hesitant as we approached him. But he gathered his confidence, got down on one knee, steadied himself with one hand on the basketball, and asked us: “Has anyone ever talked to you about the salvation of Jesus Christ?”
Negatory on that one, Mister. But he DID, and preach to us he did! He was from Georgia, had been a bluegrass player for years (already a turn-off to a pagan Led Zeppelin fan), ran the wild life, and was left hurt and empty. But Jesus saved him, set him free, and he was a new man. He went on to tell us about the Bible and then the “Rapture.” I had never in my life heard of the Rapture. First time. He said Jesus would return and take all Christians with Him in the air. They would all disappear. POOF! Then he asked us if any of us wanted to pray and invite Jesus into our hearts to save us.
It was at that time that all the demons inside me exploded. Using my extensive Roman Catholic background (hey, I actually DID pay attention to those priests and nuns at St. Mary’s and all the Catechism teachers in high school CCD!), I argued this guy down into the ground. Salvation? Are you nuts? Rapture? WHAT?! And my friends all looked at me like I was crazy, but I argued this guy up one side and down another. I was quite effective in the devil’s hands, ’cause if one of my friends had been about to accept this guy’s offer of praying for salvation, I was the one standing in their way. I remember telling this guy to meet us in a bar at ten that night, and that I’d have my brother, who’d been to seminary for six years, to meet us and HE’D tell him like it was too. He graciously declined. He was totally floored by my vehement fight against the Gospel. I think he did manage to get a quick prayer off over us, and then we parted. He walked away with a little less swagger than he’d had on the court. And that was MY fault. We never saw him again.
So that was my first ever exposure to the Gospel. The thing was, I never, ever forgot it! Even though I was Damian the 666 Anti-Christ out there on that basketball court in Beaver Falls with that guy, his every word, his Southern cadence, every Jesus Christ seed he put out there, fell deeply into my heart.
Mystery Basketball Player was the digger of hard, fallow ground: that rock hard, dusty dirt full of stones and weeds and rooty-tendrils that’s never seen a human shovel or pick-axe ever. That guy, that night, was Holy Spirit’s first attempt to turn over the crusty dirt of my heart and plant the precious seeds of Jesus Christ. And I proved myself SOOOOO unworthy. But Jesus graciously planted them anyway…
The nuns would have gotten you good if they heard you use such language! But God got you instead.
The last paragraph was my absolute favorite. Your depiction of the heart as hard ground is perfect, one that a person in the same condition could identify with readily.
Another great story by a great storyteller.
My favorite part was when you were talking about cussing so hard. I remember vividly a volleyball game I was invited to right after my divorce at a Baptist family center. I could not stop cussing to save my life! I kept apologizing and trying to stop. The guys kept grinning and laughing at me and saying it was ok. They were so great- they treated it like a big joke, but I was humiliated. It took me years to break that language habit.
I was really touched by your feelings about how you treated the guy. Isn’t it incredible how God uses our obedience, even when we see ABSOLUTELY NO FRUIT AT ALL from what we’re doing? We think we blew it, and God uses it. I hope he uses some of my “failures” the same way.
My last comment is about toughness. You were tough. I tried to be tough. Underneath, I’m about as tough as custard, but for years I was as icy, tough, and mean as I could possibly be. Someone once told me that all arrogance is a coverup job for feelings of inadequacy. That anger rises from fear. What were you afraid of, Eric, that caused you to form that tough and spiky shell?
As I said in class I would like to know more about what the argument you had with the man was about. Fill in the missing parts for those of us without Catholic backgrounds, while at the same time honoring their devotion and not trashing them. Just your understanding of what it meant to be Catholic, and how it differed from what this man was saying about Jesus.