Can you remember your best summer ever? Scott Smalls can. It was the summer of 1962.

It didn’t start out well. He just moved to a new neighborhood with his mom and stepdad. He is a self-admitted egghead who’s not good at anything. Scott is an awkward but very smart kid. Save for that one time he got a B, well it was an A minus but it should have been a B.

This is the main character and the narrator of the 1993 movie The Sandlot. Even his name is meek. Smalls.

He follows a group of kids to a sandlot where they play baseball all day long. One problem: Smalls can’t throw. He can’t play baseball. Doesn’t even know who The Great Bambino is. If you don’t, that’s okay, you will. The other kids on the team thinks he’s a square. They immediately don’t like Smalls but a boy named Benny takes him under his wings. Benny is the best player on the team. Heck, he’s the best player in town!

Benny teaches Smalls how to throw. He tells him how to catch: “Just put your glove up, I’ll take care of the rest.” Benny then hits a ball right into Small’s upraised glove. Benny is like that. Hits the amazing shot. Gets out of the hardest pickle. Smalls’ confidence grows, and he’s accepted by the rest of the group.

This movie is fun. Just a lot of boys in the early ’60s romping around until the streetlights came on. It’s about growing up and coming of age. It’s about friendship. It’s about baseball and more so, it’s about America. It’s also about the Beast.

The Beast is the dog that is rumored to be the most vicious killer junkyard dog of all time. Whenever the gang hits a homerun in the Sandlot, it becomes property of The Beast. No one has ever gone over the fence. Save for that one kid, and he got eaten. That’s the story Smalls hears. It’s the story he believes.

We all have stories like that. Legends. The oral history of our communities and nation. Things that might be true, might not. But they’re perceived as fact. Like Washington’s Wooden Teeth, Honest Abe and the cherry tree, and that guy who dreamed a Medina with tree-lined streets.

Jesus dealt with a lot of this in his day. People just KNEW Samaritans were bad. People just KNEW all Romans were aggressive brutes. People just KNEW the poor were getting what they deserved and God put them there. People just KNEW that God favors the bold, the rich and powerful, the rulers. So Jesus says to his community today, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

This is counter to the celebrity culture of then and now. God does not side with Hollywood. God is in the hovels. Born in a barn, placed in a manger. God is with the normal, everyday people.

Jesus is like Benny. He can do amazing things. And who does he take under his wings? The Scott Smalls of the world. Most rabbis would boast how hard it was to follow them. “Only the best of the best follow ME.” Education in the first century was very personal. Every male in a Jewish community would get a basic education. They would have to memorize the first book of the bible. Those who didn’t would drop out and learn their father’s trade. The next step is to memorize the Torah, the first 5 books of the bible. MEMORIZED. Those who couldn’t would learn their father’s trade. Once that was memorized, then reading, writing, and learning the Talmud, the teachings of the Rabbis, would be the last step. If the student was good enough, then maybe the Rabbi would make him a rabbi too, but only after rigorous study.

But Jesus goes against all of this. In Matthew 11:28-30, he says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Jesus believes that everyone can get his message. It’s why it’s such a scandal that he’s teaching fishermen, tax collectors, zealots and even worse… women! When Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and listens to Jesus, Martha comes out of the kitchen, where women are supposed to be, and tries to reinforce the cultural standard. Mary can’t learn. But Jesus disagrees. No, Mary can learn. She has chosen the right path and it won’t be taken away from her.

It’s a scandal. It’s counter cultural. It makes no sense. But we know about this rabbi. We know because the meek carried his story. Just like Scott Smalls carries the tale that has become legend at the Sandlot.

It all started when Benny busts the guts out of a baseball. He hits it so hard, the insides come out. The group takes it as an omen. But they don’t have another ball. Until Smalls pipes up and says that he has a ball back at home. He grabs it from his stepfather’s trophy room. It’s Smalls himself that hits this ball over the fence. Just one problem… that ball wasn’t his. He explains to the group that, “My dad’s going to kill me. The ball was given to him by his dad. It was signed by some lady… Baby… Baby Ruth.”

“BABE RUTH?!” the group shouts.

“Yeah, yeah… who is she?”

The group can’t believe it. “The sultan of swat. The king of crash… THE GREAT BAMBINO!”

Babe Ruth was considered by many to be the greatest baseball player of all time and was among “the first five” of the Baseball Hall Of Fame to be inducted. The Sultan of Swat held the home run record for 40 years until Hank Aaron took the title. Smalls didn’t know this. He wasn’t up on baseball royalty. He just liked hanging with the guys. Finding friends. He was meek. He wasn’t concerned with anyone who wasn’t on the Sandlot with him. Which is what it says in the letter of James 2:1, “My brothers and sisters, practice your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ by not favoring one person over another.”

Benny sets things right. He hops over the fence and gets the ball from The Beast. The Beast is just a mastiff named Hercules. He becomes the mascot of the Sandlot and lives to 199 years old, in dog years. They meet Mr. Mertle, the blind owner of Hercules, thought to be the meanest old man in town. He’s not. He’s a former baseball player himself who played with “George?!”

“You knew Babe Ruth?”

“Yes,” says Mr Mertle. “And he knew me. Would have beaten his record until a fastball hit me in the head and the lights went out.”

Mr Mertle has a better ball for Smalls. If he and Benny agree to stop by and talk baseball with him, then he’ll give him a ball signed by the entire 1923 Yankees team.

This whole thing was set off because Smalls didn’t have the same prejudice as everyone else. He didn’t know. He just wanted to be a good son and a good friend. He was. Throughout the film, Smalls is the moral conscious of the group. Everyone teaches him something. From how to throw and catch to how to eat a s’more. Smalls is teachable. Smalls is meek.

Meekness, according to scholar M. Eugene Boring, “characterizes those who are aware of their identity as the oppressed people of God in the world, those who have renounced the violent methods of this-worldly power.”[1]

Jesus is saying today, “Blessed are the nobodies. Blessed are the ones who can still be taught. Blessed are the ones who aren’t set in their ways. Woe to the proud and unwavering. Woe to those set in their ways, for BEHOLD! God is doing a new thing!” The Word of God put on Flesh and moved into the neighborhood in Jesus. Not many believed this in Jesus’ day and for the first few centuries of the Christian faith. Yet it was the nobodies who carried the story of Jesus into our day. Kept it going. Eventually these communities of nobodies wrote it down, and the message spread everywhere in the Gospels. Eventually, it was all over the earth.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Why will they inherit the earth? Because the proud will have all killed themselves in their mad wars and blood-thirsty schemes for power. This is not what God has in mind for us. There is another way, a better way.

I recently saw an exchange on the writer Connie Shultz’s Facebook page. She wrote about how workers are finding less stressful positions at insurance agencies, banks, and government instead of heading back to retail jobs. One man lamented how entitled people are these days. He had it harder, and he seemed proud in pointing that out. Connie responded, “There are two ways to respond from those of us who had it harder. We can insist life should be better for future generations, or we can cling to our resentments and believe that no one should have it better than we did.”[2]

One way is the way of pride. The other way is the way of meekness.

Let us look to the Scott Smalls among us. Those who have no agenda. Those who just want to be a good friend. They don’t name drop. They don’t really care about celebrity culture.

They dearly care about doing justice and loving kindness and walking humbly. Blessed are the meek who turn all their anxiety over to God. They don’t roar like a lion on the prowl for someone to devour. Instead, they serve people with humility because God opposes the arrogant but favors the humble.

This is good news for nobodies everywhere! The church is at it’s best when it humbly serves with no strings attached. Thanks to the work of the church, many good things happened. Our own church has fought for the 5 day work week, the end of child labor, voting rights, and public education. It is a good tradition that has made life better for the generations that followed. It doesn’t get enough press, in my opinion, but I take heart that it doesn’t need to boast or seek any more power.

Blessed are those who don’t do it for the headlines. No one expects paparazzi outside of the church, snapping photos of you on the red carpet coming in here. You do the work because there is a need. You share music. You write letters. You visit. You mow. You build homes in Costa Rica. You lead Sunday School. You plan VBS. You sit on a committee to make the world a better place.

God is already working in and through God’s church. The body of Christ is alive and well. Sure, not as many people are going to church these days and attendance might be falling. I think I’m fine with that for the proud days when we could boast 60% membership in the culture is the same time we had some unjust wars, abuse scandals, and a lot of guilt and anxiety driving membership… Now the people who gather are those who want to be here. Those who aren’t guilted into being here. Those who want to make a difference and learn about God and their neighbor. To serve without strings.

This is the right path. We might be thinking that this time of decline is a scary thing. That some great evil is just over the fence, but I think it’s just going to be a big, drooly dog. And we’re going to make some really cool friends who can tell us some really great stories.

Like the time in 1962, when they hit their stepfather’s baseball signed by Babe Ruth over the fence… and had quite the adventure. Thanks be to God.

Works Cited

^[1][1] Page 179, New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII.

[2] Posted at 6:33 a.m. on June 22, 2021 on Connie’s Facebook page