Hello,
I am a bad
golfer. Off the tee anyone standing in
the fairway, or at least my fairway, is under no threat of being struck by my
ball. Worms need to stay in their holes
when I shoot my long shots. If there is
sand or water….I find it, and when I am on the green, I have a hard time
finding the hole (maybe if there was sand or water in it, I would one putt
every green). I am a bad golfer.
Nevertheless, I
keep on golfing. I golf, not for the
sport of it, but for the exercise. As
many of you know, I am spending this summer trying to refocus and rejuvenate. One of the prescriptions given to me to do so
is to get some daily exercise. That is
where golf comes in. There’s a course
about 5 minutes from my house that if I get there before 8:00 a.m., it is wide
open for me to play at my own pace. So,
with my clubs on my shoulders and my golf shoes on my feet, I walk and carry
nine holes several times a week. For the
exercise.
I have to keep on
reminding myself that it is for the exercise and not for sport, because when I
forget to maintain focus, I can find myself getting very frustrated and even
upset, which defeats the purpose of doing things that help me clear my head. After all, it is only golf. So when I duff my tee shot, chunk my
approach, blade my chip shot, and king kong my putt, I tell myself as I put my
club back in my bag and put the straps over my shoulder, “It is only golf.”
I find that an
easier thing to say when I am playing by myself, because when I am playing with
others whose skills exceed mine, embarrassment, failure, and despair creep
their way into my psyche. The score card
that compares me to another lets me know how bad I am. The time I spend looking for wayward balls
while those who I am playing with are patiently waiting for me lets me know how
bad I am. The shots out of the sand that
go sailing over the green and almost hit my playing partners let me know how
bad I am. Like I said, I am a bad
golfer, and when I am playing with someone else, I find myself not humbled, but
humiliated.
Fact is, this is
the way that, as Martin Luther would say, “the Devil, the world and my sinful
self” are at work seeking to corrode my life with sadness and shame. We never play life alone. They take things and twist them around, often
times making things that are of no great importance weigh heavy in our
lives. Things like the size of the house
we live in, the status our job holds, the physique of our bodies, the style of
the clothes that we wear, and the score on our golf card and make of them
measures of our worth, and in doing so they always keep peace, hope, and joy at
bay.
But Jesus would
remind us that it is only golf. When it
comes to worth and value, Jesus says, “I died and rose for you. What could make you of any more or less value
or worth.” That is why Jesus gathers us
together every week so that having heard the chorus of “the Devil, the world
and my sinful self” throughout the week, he might speak with a solitary clarity
of our worth and value. Weekly worship
doesn’t make us more valuable or worthy, it makes our value and worth clear in
our lives….showing us that we do have something to offer our neighbor in need,
that we do have something to stand upon when faced with the reflection in our
mirrors, and that we do have something to count on in the presence of the
divine. Jesus died and rose for you and
me. What could make us more or less
valuable than that.
I am a bad golfer….but
it is only golf.
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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