Twenty-nine years ago, the Atlanta Braves were playing the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League Championship Series. You have to understand that at the time—at least from my childhood perspective—it seemed like the entire southeastern region of the United States lived and died with the fortunes of the ball club from Atlanta. They were a garbage team for much of the 1980s, but suddenly with the rise of an incredible pitching staff they began to catch fire. And the South plus anyone who had the channel TBS on cable began to get swept up in the excitement. Braves hats were everywhere. P.A. systems at high school football games would break in with updates of playoff scores.

Once a year, our church would take buses on the three hour trek to Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and it felt like a trip to Disney World. By all metrics, baseball has been passed in popularity by football and maybe even basketball. So those first few years of the 1990s are in my memory, baseball’s last true run at being the National Pastime. My brother Taylor and I were locked into all of it.

All of which brings us back to 29 years ago this past Thursday: Atlanta and Pittsburgh were playing a winner-take-all Game 7. The Braves were seeking their second consecutive trip to the World Series, while the Pirates were seeking to avenge falling short against Atlanta the year before. Pittsburgh pitcher Doug Drabek pitched a masterful game and the Pirates were winning 2-0 going into Atlanta’s final at-bat in the Bottom of the 9th; three outs from celebrating on the field of their nemesis. Then October magic began to stir. Terry Pendleton led off with a double then advanced to third when David Justice reached base on an error. Next, Sid Bream walked to load the bases. Ron Gant hit a long fly ball for the first out that allowed Pendleton to score and make it a one run ballgame. Catcher Damon Berryhill walked to load the bases again and then Brian Hunter popped up to the second baseman.

One evening this past week, our family was about to arrive home when I remembered that we didn’t have what one of our sons needed in order to bring his lunch to school the next day. I offered to run back out. This is one of the things that I do: I go to the grocery store and I pick up dinner from restaurants. The men of yore would go out into the field, hunt, and bring their bounty back home. So in that spirit, I too venture out into the wild to track down the elusive prey that are chicken nuggets and tacos.

I dropped E.A. and the boys off at our front door and headed off to the nearest grocery store certain that this would be a quick trip. I knew what I was looking for and I even had multiple options. As long as they had microwaveable bacon or a Chicken Dunks Lunchable, I was golden. I would bring home the bounty. My kid would have his lunch for school the next day.

Yet there was a snag: our grocery store did not have either item. So I texted E.A.: “Swing and a miss on both items. Do you want me to look elsewhere or come home?” She said to try another place; again, we would like for our kid to be able to eat lunch. I drove about 15 minutes to another grocery store. A bigger grocery store. One that has not failed to have the items that are sometimes missing from the smaller store close to our house. In confidence, I strode to the refrigerated section in the back that is home to breakfast meats and pre-packaged meals for school-aged children and lazy college students.

And it was barren. There was no bacon. There were no Chicken Dunks Lunchables. It was as if there was a breaking news story in which a scientist had warned the nation that we don’t know how many pigs or chickens we have left and a panicked populace rushed the grocery stores in hopes of one last moment with pork and poultry.

Today is Birthday Sunday at Woodmont. This church is celebrating 78 years, but from where I stand it looks no older than 7 or 8 months. In all seriousness, a group of individuals came together with the dream of forming a church and they laid out this covenant:

We do hereby solemnly covenant with God and one another to bond ourselves together to establish a Christian Church in this community for ourselves and posterity.

We pledge our time, substance, talents and prayers to the end that His Church shall be a house of prayer for all people, a fellowship of those who believe in Christ and strive to follow his teachings, and a part of the Church Universal.

We aim to erect a suitable edifice for divine worship, for Christian education, for stewardship, for world missions, and to minister to the spiritual needs of the community.

All this we covenant to be and do under the guidance of God and the leadership of Jesus Christ our Lord.

That is legitimately something to celebrate and those words are a good summation of what we at Woodmont Christian Church ought to be about. It is a day to celebrate.

So with it being our birthday, it is time to make a wish and blow out the proverbial candles. Let me ask you: What is your wish for Woodmont going into the future? What do you hope and pray that the church looks like tomorrow? And really we would do well to expand that question; not just what we hope Woodmont looks like tomorrow but, as the covenant puts it, the Church Universal. Because it’s bigger than us. To tweak a quote from the cinematic masterpiece Thor: Ragnarok, the church is not a place, it’s a people. Woodmont is not this building but the people of this community and our community exists within the larger body of Christ.

My family had pets growing up. We had two Eskimo Spitz named Al and Buffy. We later had a German shepherd named Bear. My responsibilities with these pets did not go beyond occasionally filling up the dog dish. And this was in the days before dogs were treated like people. Now you need to tend to a dog’s every need, pamper it, make its bed, make sure it learns Spanish or has some other marketable skill. Pets in the 80s and 90s were far more low maintenance.

The first time that I was solely responsible for tending to a living thing it did not go well. When I was in 3rd or 4th grade someone thought it would be a great idea to give a bunch of schoolchildren goldfish to keep. Because what better way to teach nine and ten year olds about the fragility of life. So I brought my goldfish home from West View Elementary School and was very proud. I had lots of big dreams and hopes for my young ward. He was in a two liter bottle that had the top cut off but I knew it was only a matter of time before we had a luxurious aquarium with coral, a sunken pirate ship, and a fellowship of fish friends. I fed him the fish food that the school provided and took care of him. Three mornings later I came into the kitchen and found my fish friend belly up. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if it was foul play. Regardless my stewardship of this fish had been a flop.

Today we are talking about taking care of others, why it is so important for people who follow Jesus, and how to hopefully do a better job of it than school-aged Christopher did of taking care of a goldfish. We are still in Easter season and so our story is a post-resurrection appearance by Jesus. The disciples were kind of in this weird in-between place. Jesus had come back from the dead, but his followers were drifting and uncertain of what to do next.