I was browsing the used book nook of the Central library the other day and picked up this little paperback entitled Weird Moments in Sports – or as we preachers call it 91 Pages of Sermon Illustrations. It is one of those Scholastic Inc. books the kids still order from school. Before I paid a dime for it, it was owned by J.J. Jocsa (Jorsa?). Little books of this sort are a gold mine for preachers, who, if an illustration were to be found in a sanguine tuber could, indeed, produce blood from a turnip.

I was not disappointed. Opening the book at random I fount this entry:

During the 1965-66 season, Chris Kelley of Wyoming’s Greybull High School pulled off in incredible four-point play. Kelley came out of a scramble for the ball, and in his confusion, broke to the wrong basket. Just as he was about to lay the ball in he was fouled by an opponent. The goal was scored (two points for the opposing team) and then Chris made two free throws for Greybull.

Wow the nuggets are lying there just waiting to be harvested. There are so many angles you can take with this story.

For instance, you could add to it the story of Wrong Way Riegles and launch into a long discussion of knowing which way is home – pulling in Jesus’ comments about the two roads (Matthew 7.13-14), and maybe ending by taking that Robert Frost Poem The Road Not Taken out of context. – I mean it has been done a million times before, and folks seem to really like that poem taken out of context.

Or maybe you could talk about the way grace evens the score – despite all the lunk-headed and downright sinful things we do. History and literature are chock full of reprobates who meet the right woman, get struck by lightening, or loose a limb, and decide to walk the strait and narrow. A preacher prepared to take more homiletical license than I do (does such a man exist?) might even picture Jesus hitting a three pointer to win the game, and gaining us the championship in heaven.

But those are not the angles I choose to take. To me, the real lunk-head is not the guy who made a basket for the wrong team, but the guy who fouled him. What was that guy’s name, and why didn’t author Bruce Weber plaster his name up in his hall of weird sports moments? I mean, if a guy is making a basket for your team why would you foul him?

Why indeed.

You lust and do not have. You commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain. You fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because of your wrong motives – you ask so that you may spend on your own pleasures. James 4.2-3

Letter after letter in the New Testament, the ones Paul wrote, the ones Peter wrote, the ones John wrote, and the ones Jesus sends, deal with Christians who attack, harass, belittle, and disrespect each other. What kind of person foul’s his own shooter?

Most of us are that kind of person at times. Some of us are that kind of person much of the time. Such behavior, if it persists, will not go unpunished:

Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. I John 3.15-16.

If we persist in fouling our own shooters we will not be included in the great hall of Wacky Moments in Sports – there is another place reserved for us.