Baseball Is Still Baseball
Buck O’Neill has become one of my favorite people of all time. He was a legendary Negro League baseball player who died in 2006 at the age of 94. If you get a chance to watch a video of him or read anything about him, you won’t be disappointed. In a book titled The Soul of Baseball, the author Joe Posnanski tells this story:
“A television reporter asked Buck about the way things used to be. Only she did not exactly ask. No, more like: She told him how things used to be. The players cared more. The game had more heart. People had more passion. The reporter was no older than thirty-five, but she seemed quite certain that everything was better once, long ago, and especially baseball… ‘That was when baseball was still baseball,’ she said. ‘I don’t mean to interrupt,’ Buck O’Neil responded, ‘but baseball is still baseball.’”
I am not sure what kind of false illusion we have fallen into about how the world was better once, long ago, but life is still life—and sin is still sin. So as David recounts what life was like for him thousands of years ago in Psalms 11 and 12, we are actually getting a glimpse into our own world.
Eroded Foundations
“…for behold, the wicked bend the bow; they have fitted their arrow to the string to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart; if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” – Psalm 11:2-3
All cultures are built upon certain assumptions. There are foundational truths and values that set the standards for society—certain moral and ethical boundaries that are prized. When the foundations are destroyed, it means that whatever a culture prized or valued in relation to God’s law has been abandoned. Neither God nor His commands are any longer undergirding the justice and morality of society.
Does it surprise you to know that David lived in a time when people were alarmed? We are not the first nation or generation to feel like we are living on eroded moral and ethical foundations. David lived in a day when there was alarm over the fact that the foundations were destroyed.
Falsehood, Flattery, and Arrogance
“Save, O Lord, for the godly one is gone; for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man. Everyone utters lies to his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak. May the Lord cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that makes great boasts, those who say, ‘With our tongue we will prevail, our lips are with us; who is master over us?‘” – Psalm 12:1-4
One of the most important things for maintaining peace and justice in culture is the value of speech. However, David cries out to God about what he sees in his day with regard to the people’s words. Three things characterize the way that people in his generation spoke: falsehood, flattery, and arrogance.
People were addicted to lying, and they had no concept of letting their yes be yes and their no be no. They could not be counted on. Their promises were empty and their deception was real.
They were also addicted to puffing people up to get their way. They used words as a game to get people to do what they wanted them to do. This was a different kind of dishonesty that accentuated false praise to manipulate situations. People couldn’t help but tell others what they wanted to hear—anything that would give them an advantage.
Finally, knowing the power of speech, people boasted in their ability to rule their own lives. They needed no help from a god or anyone else because they could make it on their own. They were cunning, smooth, slick, and brimmed with self-confidence founded on their ability to talk their way out of anything and talk others into anything.
Does it surprise you that in David’s day, a person’s word was worthless? We are not the first nation or generation to feel like the faithful are disappearing and that falsehood, flattery, and arrogance reign through our words.
Vileness Exalted
“On every side the wicked prowl, as vileness is exalted among the children of man.” – Psalm 12:8
The culmination of David’s assessment of the cultural chaos of his day comes in the last phrase of Psalm 12 when he says that vileness is exalted. Every culture honors something. Every culture glories and delights in something. And for David, as he looked around, what he saw people honoring and delighting in was foul, nasty, horrid, dreadful, unsavory, repulsive, disgusting, vulgar, shameful, reprehensible, gut-churning, sickening, rotten, vomitous, and egregious. How else can we describe the reality in which we find ourselves?
But the question we must ask is, why is it that David, 3,000 years ago, finds himself in the same exact cultural conditions as we do? How can we pick up Psalms 11 and 12 and feel like we are reading the newspaper? The answer is quite simple—something is not right.
While culture itself is a good thing, made by God—after all, He painted the first canvas, sang the first song, wrote the first book, crafted the first menu, established the first government, and performed the first marriage—sin entered the world through our parents Adam and Eve, and all of us have joined together to corrupt what God made good. The cultures that we live in are simply a collective mix of our idols, our shame, and our sin. Thanks to God’s common grace, not everything is as bad as it possibly could be, but everything is tainted. At best, our world is a mere shadow of God’s original design. There is nothing that will not need redemption and renewal from sin’s curse. The same idolatry and sin that cursed David’s culture is the same idolatry and sin that curses ours.
Conclusion
The reason Psalms 11 and 12 feel like we are reading the newspaper is because, in all times and in all places, there have been sinners rebelling against God. In all times and in all places, the only hope for us has been God’s salvation. In all times and in all places, life has been life, sin has been sin. And more importantly, the Psalms, like Buck O’Neil, are here to interrupt our delusion by reminding us that God is still God.
What is in question is not whether or not there is reason for alarm. What is in question is who God is. And what does our vision of Him and the promises we have from Him say to us about how we respond to those alarms? So we turn now to a vision of God.
To read When My Culture Collapses (Pt. 1), CLICK HERE
