Cubs vs. Indians: Long World Series Drought Soon to End for One

The Wired Word for the Week of October 30, 2016

In the News

This week saw the launch of the 2016 edition of Major League Baseball's championship contest, the World Series, a best-of-seven playoff between the American League champion Cleveland Indians and the National League champion Chicago Cubs.

While every World Series is an exciting event for baseball fans, this year's matchup is all the more remarkable because neither of the combatants have won the MLB's ultimate series for a very long time. The Indians have gone 68 years without a championship and the Cubs have been without one for 108 years.

Or, to say it differently, the Indians last won a World Series in 1948 during the Truman administration, while the Cubs last won in 1908 while Teddy Roosevelt was president.

In the intervening time, the Indians have at least gotten to compete in a World Series three times -- in 1954, 1995 and 1997 -- meaning they won the pennant in the American League those years. However, the Cubs have not won a pennant in their league since 1945, a 71-year drought.

That said, the Cubs are the favorite for this series because they won 103 games in the regular season, nine more than the Indians did in their season, and many observers think the Cubs have looked more imposing lately. All of this has renewed great hope in Chicago fans.

Nonetheless, underdogs have come out on top often enough in sporting events of all flavors to keep hope alive for Cleveland devotees as well.

One additional angle that some observers have mentioned is that the elevation of the Cubs to the World Series, whether they win or lose, marks the end of the so-called Billy Goat curse on the team.

According to the legend, in October 1945, when the Chicago Cubs last made it to the series, local tavern owner Bill "Billy Goat" Sianis went to Wrigley Field to cheer on the team in game four as they faced off against the Detroit Tigers. Sianis purchased a ticket for himself and one for his pet goat Murphy, thinking it would bring the Cubs luck.

When ushers stopped Sianis from entering with Murphy. Sianis appealed directly to the club owner P.K. Wrigley, asking him why he couldn't take his personal mascot to the game.

"Because the goat stinks," Wrigley reportedly replied.

So Sianis threw his arms up and cursed the team, declaring, "The Cubs ain't gonna win no more!"

When the Cubs lost the series to the Tigers, Sianis sent Wrigley a telegram asking, "Who stinks now?"

And thus began the Cubs' 71-year dry spell regarding the World Series.

At first, no one took the curse seriously, but as the years of struggling seasons piled up, some fans began to believe it.

But hope continued. For the last several decades, "Wait until next year" was a common slogan for Cubs fans at the end of every baseball season.

By the way, TWW editorial team member Timothy Merrill commented, "I think the Cubs in the Series is an act of God ... some pleasant, feel-good relief from the political mire we've been stuck with ... a respite, an oasis ... you can almost hear a collective sigh of relief across the land ....”

(Before your class meets, check the media for the latest in the World Series.)

More on this story can be found at these links:

World Series Preview: For Cubs or Indians, Decades of Waiting Are Nearly Over. New York TimesCubs, Indians World Series Droughts Raise Stakes. USA Today
Cubs-Indians World Series Things to Know: Start Times, Schedule, Live Stream Info. CBS Sports
The Billy Goat Curse. The Billy Goat Tavern

Applying the News Story

It's clear from the New Testament that many people in the early church expected the return of Christ to happen soon, perhaps within their lifetime. One of the adjustments that first-century believers had to make eventually was to see their faith as way of living for the long haul, accepting that the Lord's return might not happen quickly after all. And now, as a couple of millennia have passed, the Lord's return is not a hot topic in many places within the church.

Whenever we go on for a long time, constantly expecting something "any day now," we eventually get so used to the expecting that it becomes commonplace, and loses its meaning for us. After all, it's hard for us as a body of believers to stand on the tiptoes of expectancy for 2,000 years. Like Cubs fans we might say "Wait until next year," but without any real sense of likelihood. And so what can happen is that we settle into a kind of routine of our faith and don't look for a return of Christ in any kind of timeframe that matters to us.

Likewise, in the Lord's Prayer, we petition "Thy kingdom come," which many Christians hear as a petition for Christ's return in judgment at the Last Day. But for many of us, that sounds like something we can't comprehend that's in a future so far away as to have no immediate impact on us. (Other Christians hear the petition asking for God's kingdom to come to us personally when we receive Christ.)

Even in the shorter term, the mood in which we live our daily existence can be hopeful -- or something far short of that.

Given all of that, it's important for us to hear what the Bible says about hope.

The Big Questions

1. What are some things for which you are hoping fervently, but for which you've been waiting a long time? How does the delay affect your outlook on that particular matter? Why? How does the delay affect your outlook on life in general? Why?

2. Do disappointments or dashed hopes ever make you feel like you are living under some kind of "curse"? How does your faith address the matter of being "cursed"?

3. What does the idea of Christ's return mean in terms of your faith? How does the kingdom of God figure into your outlook on life?

4. When something you'd once hoped for but eventually given up on actually happens, is that a miracle? If so, why? If not, how would you characterize it?

5. Judging from your experience of life and your understanding of the Christian faith, is Christianity optimistic, pessimistic or realistic? Explain why you answered as you did.

Confronting the News With Scripture and HopeHere are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:

Proverbs 13:12
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life. (No context needed.)
Romans 12:12
Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. (For context, read 12:9-21.)

The proverb quoted above is a general observation about the effect of hope that goes unfulfilled for an extended time: It makes the heart sick. But we should not be too quick to apply this observation to the Christian hope, which is the subject of the Romans verse and which can make the heart well.

Note that this proverb says nothing about the type or moral quality of the hope in question. It's possible to hope for things that are immoral, hurtful of others or outrightly evil. The deferral of any of those hopes might make the heart of the one hoping sick, but it would be for the best if those particular things hoped for never became realities.

In contrast, the Romans verse talks about the Christian hope -- a confident expectation, not mere wishful thinking -- which is so life-giving that it's worth waiting for with patience and perseverance.

Questions: Thinking about the things that surface often in your hopes, are there any that, in your best moments, you know would be better not to be fulfilled? If so, how might those hopes be dealt with in ways that bring you peace? How does the Christian hope help you specifically when your heart is sick with waiting?

Luke 19:13He summoned ten of his slaves, and gave them ten pounds, and said to them, "Do business with these until I come back." (For context, read 19:11-26.)

In this parable from Jesus, a nobleman who was going out of town gave 10 of his slaves a pound each and instructed them to "Do business with these until I come back." One invested his pound and earned 10 more. A second invested and earned five more. A third simply returned the pound, unused, and the nobleman was angry at him.

The anger was justified because the third slave had ignored his master's direct instruction to do business with the money.

Jesus told this parable, Luke says, "because he was near Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately" (v. 11). Thus, the point of the parable is about how to behave between his ascension and his return. And the way to behave, the parable suggests, is to be about the business of God, living faithfully day after day, loving God and neighbor.

In other words, living not focused on Jesus' return but on doing his will.  

Questions: If we are to be focused on doing Christ's will, how does hope energize that? Which of the three slaves do you most identify with? Where have you avoided engaging in the business of God? How might you best "invest" your discipleship while waiting for our Christian hope to be fulfilled?

Galatians 6:9
So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. (For context, read 6:7-10.)
James 5:7
Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. (For context read 5:7-11.)

The meaning of these two verses -- one from Paul and one from James -- is essentially the same, and is perhaps illustrated by this event from U.S. history:

Some 235 years ago, the Connecticut House of Representatives was in session on a bright day in May, and the delegates were working by natural light. But then, right in the middle of a debate, there was an eclipse of the sun, and everything turned to darkness. Some legislators thought it was the Second Coming, and so a clamor arose. Many wanted to adjourn. Others wanted to pray. People wanted to prepare for the coming of the Lord.
But the Speaker of the House had a different idea. He was a Christian, and he rose to the occasion with good logic and good faith. We are all upset by the darkness, he said, and some of us are afraid. But "the day of the Lord is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. And if it is, I for one, choose to be found doing my duty. I therefore request that candles be brought." The men went back to their tasks.

That's a pretty good model for us who live in the hope of Christ today.

C.S. Lewis, in his book The World's Last Night, talks about the importance of being at your post when Jesus returns. Even if this means the thing you were hoping to accomplish in this world would then no longer matter, it is best to be about the doing of God's will. Lewis uses the image of the "Second Servant" in King Lear. This unnamed character speaks only a line or two. He comes on stage, sees an evil person preparing to blind someone, rushes forward to stop it and is killed. But though he fails to prevent an evil, he becomes a great character by doing the right thing.

Questions: What post would you like to be occupying when Jesus returns? How might these verses apply to your shorter-term, more earthbound hopes? What will the "harvest" look like?

Romans 4:18
Hoping against hope, [Abraham] believed that he would become "the father of many nations," according to what was said, "So numerous shall your descendants be." (For context, read 4:13-25.)

"Hoping against hope." Now there's a phrase for us. It means hope in spite of apparent impossibility, hope when there is little reason to expect things to come out as we want them to, hanging on when some might accuse us of mere wishful thinking.

Think about the many situations in life to which that could be applied: relationships that are going sour, health that is failing, dreams and goals that run into blind alleys, family members in self-destructive behavior, diagnoses that leave no room for long-range plans, and more.

There are times in life when we say, "What's the use? It's over." And sometimes we are right. But then something happens and there's an unexpected but beneficial turn of events and we are forced to admit that hope can be given up too soon. It's difficult to know when is too soon, but there it is.

In the case of Abraham, God had made a specific promise to him, so the issue was somewhat different from some of our hoped-for resolutions. The message from Abraham's story is not "just keep hoping no matter what," but "trust what God tells you." That's often hard to do when circumstances seem to render a desired outcome improbable. But if it were easy, Paul would not have described it as "hoping against hope."

And let us not forget that Abraham believed in a promise that would not be fulfilled until after his lifetime. The only portion of the promised land he ever owned is the tomb where he buried Sarah (Genesis 23:1-20.).

Actually, in this chapter from Romans, Paul talks of several things that would seem highly unlikely. He characterizes God as one who "justified the ungodly" (v. 5), who "gives life to the dead" (v. 17) and "calls into existence the things that do not exist" (v. 17). All of these divine works are things that are impossible by human standards, but their reality is fundamental to Christian faith. The basis for our "hope against hope" is trust in the God who created the world.

From the biblical point of view, holding stubbornly to hope, even in the face of growing hopelessness, may not be denial so much as leaving room for God to act.

Questions: Where does the phrase "hoping against hope" resonate with your experience? Who are some people today who you see as models of hopefulness? From where, do you suppose, do they draw their strength? Are you willing to pour your energies into something that may not be completed in your lifetime but is nonetheless worth doing in the name of Jesus?

For Further Discussion

1. Respond to this, from a sermon by Cornelius Plantinga Jr. titled "In the Interim": "It's the climax of the human drama. Christ coming to finish what he started. Christ coming to gather his saints and vindicate his martyrs. In this event -- we Christians confess -- in this climactic event all the hopes and fears of all the years come together one last time.
            "So why does the Second Coming make some of us squirm? What is it about this topic that makes us uneasy?
            "One problem is that we don't know how to read the literature, and, in particular, we don't know how literally to read it.
            "Another problem is that the church has been expecting Jesus to return for a long time, and he hasn't done it yet. ... and so after a while people settle down. People settle into a kind of 'everydayness in their faith,' and they quit scanning the horizon.
            "The way this plays out for [many Christians] is in a kind of interim faith, a common-sense Christianity that stays fairly close to the ground. We don't deny the big, booming events such as the Second Coming, but we don't think about them very much either. We've still got church and sacraments, after all; we've got scripture and prayer; we've still got the golden rule and the Ten Commandments. We've got Christian pop music to make us feel right at home in the world. And every week we faithfully spend some of our money and time on kingdom causes. That's ground-level Christianity, and it's just enough religion to keep us going.
            "Why does the Second Coming make us restless? We have trouble with the literature, as I said. Also, we can't figure out God's schedule. I'll propose a third reason. A lot of us have been secularized enough by now that our view of the world has flattened out, and the Second Advent of Jesus Christ doesn't fit into a flattened-out world very well. It's too fantastic, we think. …"

2. Discuss this, from TWW editorial team member Stan Purdum's sermon "The Case for Faithful Delay": "Hope's evil twin, of course, is despair, and, says preacher and writer Frederick Buechner, it 'has been called the unforgivable sin -- not presumably because God refuses to forgive it but because it despairs of the possibility of being forgiven.'
            "John Claypool, long-time rector of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Birmingham, Alabama, has said, 'Given our limited knowledge, despair is always presumptuous.' In other words, we really do not know whether or not a situation is hopeless until it is resolved. For that reason, hope is always a proper response to difficulty. To give in to despair before the outcome is known presumes we know what only God can know.
            "Obviously, there is always the danger of false hope. It is possible, especially when strong emotions and terrible loss are involved, to grasp illusions and call them real. But when matters are still unresolved, if our choices are between hoping too much or too little, the story of Abraham suggests that we would do well to err on the side of excessive hope.
            "When a good outcome we really did not expect, even though we were hoping, suddenly appears, it forces us to re-evaluate our view of what is real. We are compelled, however briefly, to step back from our skepticism and entertain the belief that good news is a possibility.
            "To hope for a peaceful outcome of any conflict -- well, that's hoping against hope. But for Christians, that isn't an unreasonable thing to do."

3. Talk together about this: The one thing in common with all four gospels is that most or all of Jesus' male disciples fled with the arrest of Jesus (with the exception of the Beloved Disciple in John). In contrast, while the women who witnessed his death and went to the tomb on the third day may have given up hope, but did not fail in faithfulness. The act of going to the tomb because of their faithfulness led to their being present when hope was restored with the resurrection of Jesus.

4. Consider together this, from Isaiah 40:31: "... but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint."

5. For fun, share Steve Goodman's piece, "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request."

Responding to the News

This is a good time to review your denomination's understanding of the kingdom of God and the implications of that for how we should live in the present.

This is also an appropriate time to review what spiritual disciplines you practice to keep your hope in God vibrant. If you've become lax about any of them, consider whether the practices should be refreshed and given a higher priority in your schedule.

Prayer

O God, we thank you for the promise of your kingdom to come. Help us to live as citizens of that kingdom in the present age, enabled to do so through the hope that you give us. In Jesus' name. Amen.