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            The 1921 issue of Who’s Who in America failed to mention Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth was already the most famous athlete in America, and perhaps the most famous American altogether. Yet, he was not to be found in the pages of the volume which was supposed to include anybody who was anybody.  His failure to make the grade in 1921 was particularly glaring because in 1920 he swatted 59 home runs, a record he would keep until he hit 60 in the 1927 season.  The closest you could get to George Herman Ruth, Jr. in Who’s Who, alphabetically, was Filibert Roth.  Filibert Roth, Ph.D., born 1859, was a botanist, forestry expert, and professor of forestry at the University of Montana. He was the author of three books: Forrest Conditions in Wisconsin, The Uses of Wood, and Timber Physics.

            In a 1922 piece in the New Yorker, Heywood Brown makes the argument that Babe Ruth’s demonstration of the uses of wood was equally as important as Dr. Roth’s textbook on it.  He wrote: “There have been occasions, and will be in the future, when Ruth’s bat will be the only thing which stands between us and the loss of the AL Pennant.  In times like these who cares about Forrest Conditions in Wisconsin?”*

            It is the old argument between the theorist and the practitioner, between the ivory tower and the ploughed field.  In matters of righteousness, Jesus clearly comes down on the side of the practitioner.

Not everyone who says to me “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven……Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.....and everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand (Matthew 7.21, 24, 26 ESV).

In Jesus description of final judgment in Matthew 25.31-46, the difference between the sheep and the goats will be the application of righteousness, not just right thinking about it.

            Even when Jesus describes us as “a city on a hill” it is not to describe us as a beacon from a remote lighthouse. He uses the image to describe the brightness of our deeds (Matthew 5.13-16).  Jesus’ brother James demonstrates the absurdity of thinking we can have faith in the abstract without expressing it in deeds of righteousness.

Be doers of the word and not hears only, yourselves…..What good is it, my brothers, is someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works is dead.  But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works James 1.22; 2.14-18 ESV).

            Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and Christians gotta serve – it is what we are made for (Ephesians 2.10).  Understanding the many uses of wood, and writing about that understanding cannot substitute for applying the sweet spot of a Louisville Slugger to a baseball crossing the plate thigh-high at 93 miles an hour. Understanding righteousness, talking about righteousness, writing about righteousness are not substitutes for practicing righteousness.

            And so let us do something – every day, every waking hour, that makes a difference to somebody somewhere. The Lamb’s Book of Life, is not the Who’s Who. The spiritual Ruths, not the spiritual Roths make that list.

*The Lost Algonquin Round Table, compiled and edited by Nat Benchley and Kevin C. Kirkpatrick, Universe Books, 2009.

 

 

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