Grace For All People

After news broke last week of Josh Hamilton "relapsing" with alcohol, I did not have much grace for him. I have not been a big Josh Hamilton fan for the last year or so. I have grown tired of the way he wears his religion on his sleeve, particularly since it is a brand of the Christian faith that I do not exactly identify with. Then, last season, when he injured himself, he blamed it on the third base coach. That did not seem to be the stand-up, Christian characteristic that I would have hoped for in him.

Then, I heard some details about his relapse with alcohol on local sports radio in the DFW area a few days ago. These details were, well, raunchy, to say the least. It showed me why I thought there was more to this relapse when he sort of apologized in his press conference. That's because there was more to it than alcohol. I let Hamilton have it pretty hard, even if it was only in my own head.

But that doesn't really matter. It took another radio program, on that same sports radio station, this morning to show me that I was the one, in fact, who was being hypocritical. The guy on the radio program, who is admittedly not enamored with the Christian faith (or at least the version of it he sees in popular culture), talked about how impressed he has been by the Christians who surround Hamilton that continue to stick by him throughout all of his ups and downs. The radio personality said that these people should be commended for continuing to encourage Hamilton, even when the details of his relapses are as scandalous as they are.

I was wrong. I might disagree with Hamilton, on a whole host of issues. But it is not my job to judge him. I root for the Texas Rangers; so I should root for Hamilton, both on and off the field. I preached a sermon a while back about judging others. In it, I used the illustration of Heathcliff Huxtable (Bill Cosby's character in The Cosby Show) trying to be a professional plumber in an episode of the show by attempting to fix a leak in the bathroom, when he should have let the professionals come in and do the job. It's the same with those who follow Christ. It's tempting, sure, but it's not our job to judge. We have no idea what it's like to be in the other person's shoes. The sad reality is that we often do much worse than Cliff, who jacked his bathroom up pretty good. We can easily demonize others and do both harm to them and to us . . . even if it's someone we don't even personally know, like Josh Hamilton.