Growing up as a boy north of Chicago I was, of course, a Cub fan. I still have an autographed baseball from the 1963 Cubbies when they were only winning half their games on my bookshelf. I never played baseball competitively but to me, as a boy, baseball and summer were synonymous. There was a game almost everyday in the neighborhood and I can still almost hear the call of the games over the radio and Harry Cary signing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” during the seventh inning stretch of the White Sox games. But the Cubbies haven’t made it to the big dance in a long, long time. Longer than I am. Before I was their draught was.
But you don’t have to be a Cub fan to know that tonight’s World Series game at Wrigley Field is historic. It’s the first such game to be played in that unique, beautiful stadium since the “Curse of the Billy Goat” began. WHAT CURSE? Well let me tell you, the rest of the story:
The Cubs were playing the Detroit Tigers in the 1945 World Series. Billy Goat Tavern owner, Billy Sianis, brought his pet goat to the game, but its odor offended nearby fans. When stadium officials asked Billy and his goat to leave, he famously declared, “Them Cubs, they ain’t gonna win no more.” And they haven’t.
For the next seventy-one years, the Cubs were the poster child for sports futility. No team in any sport has gone so long without playing for a championship. And the Cubs last won the World Series in 1908; that year, there were only forty-six states in the United States. It’s been longer since the Cubs won the World Series than it was between their last championship and the presidency of John Adams.
All sorts of efforts have been made to break the Curse. A severed goat’s head was delivered to the team in 2013. A Greek Orthodox priest sprayed holy water around the Cubs dugout in 2008. A goat’s butchered head was hung from the statue of legendary Cubs broadcaster Harry Caray in 2009. All to no avail until Father Burke Masters.
Father Masters dreamed of playing major league baseball. He had a .315 career batting average in college, but he was not drafted by the pros. He began working as an administrator for a minor league team when God called him into the priesthood. He was ordained in 2002 and appointed to the Diocese of Joliet (a suburb of Chicago) in 2006. He also serves as Catholic chaplain for the Chicago Cubs. Father Masters celebrates Mass at Wrigley Field before each Cubs home game. He offers confessions and spiritual guidance to anyone who asks. Cubs manager Joe Maddon also lets him get in uniform and practice with the team.
During this year’s spring training, Father Masters said, “I was out on the field and there were tears in my eyes. It was as if God was telling me, ‘This was your dream,’ but then he said, ‘You’re living my dream.’ Now I can do both. I can be a priest and be here in the Major Leagues at the same time. I’m humbled to my toes to be able to do this and give back what God has given me.”
Your dream is no match for God’s dream for you. Your greatest aspirations cannot begin to compare to your Father’s perfect will for your life (Romans 12:2). As a matter of fact, your dream may be the most accurate measure of the size of your God. Is He bigger than than your worst failure and your most impossible problem? Remember – at the end of you comes the beginning of God. The impossible is only temporary.
I don’t know the dream God has placed within you but I do know it is within His dreams of Creation and Redemption whose storylines stretch from eternity past to eternity yet to come. I know our God is a dreamer and I know that He has placed that within you. You and I are a dream, within a dream, within a dream.
I don’t know what will bring you to death’s door one day but I do know your greatest regrets at the end of your life will not be the things you’ve done. They will be the lions you didn’t chase. You will longingly look back on risks not taken, opportunities not seized and God-sized dreams not pursued. Stop running away from what scares you and start chasing the God ordained opportunities that he brings to your life. Stop living as if the purpose of life is to simply arrive safely at death. Your dreams should scare you. They should be “God Sized.” They should be so beyond you that without God you’re going to fail!
While tonight’s game and series itself will soon just become an entry in Baseball’s almanac, your next act of courage and faith will resound in eternity. Chase the Lion #chasethelion
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