Juggling Our Faith
theophilus November 12th, 2008
My daughter just finished her season cheerleading for an Upward Bound flag football league. Upward Bound is a Christian-based athletic program for grade school kids.
Last night was the end of the season awards banquet. Anthony Munoz came out to speak. He is the only Cincinnati Bengal in the Hall of Fame and played on the second to last winning Bengals football team (that would be 1991’s team). What surprised me was that the kids were jumping up and down for him. I guess when you are a great man in the community (and Anthony is one of the best we have to offer in Cincinnati), it doesn’t matter if the kids have ever seen you play; they will still admire you.
The highlight of the evening for me though was David Cain. He describes himself as a “Christian Juggler” or “Juggler for Jesus.” He is a world-class juggler who interweaves his juggling with talking about Jesus and sharing his Christian faith. His juggling turns into a metaphor for his faith in Christ.
The particular part of his act that got me was when he started throwing two balls from hand to hand. He talked about how people are always joking with him by throwing two balls in the air or from hand to hand and claiming that they are “juggling.” And then he pointed out that juggling is technically throwing more objects than you have hands; the point being that throwing two balls is not juggling.
He then launched into a poignant metaphor. He said that throwing two balls in the air is like the faith of many. Ball #1 represents a person’s belief that God exists. Ball #2 represents a person going to church. But, it’s Ball #3 that is important. Ball #3 represents a person who has accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior.
In other words, you can believe that God exists (Ball #1) and go to church (Ball #2), but you are not actually juggling unless you have accepted Christ as your personal Lord and Savior (Ball #3).
And this metaphorical part of his act got me thinking. I always have to stop myself from rolling my eyes when I hear someone talking about the ”day” they ”accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior.” It just sounds so half-hazard; so easy. “Bam, I’ve been transformed. This is the day I’ve accepted Christ.” As a Catholic, I believe true conversion necessitates so much more from us.
But in dismissing these transformational moments, I think I dismiss something that could help so many in the Catholic Church.
There are many Catholics who are stuck throwing one ball in the air. There are others who have two balls going. But how many of us are working all three balls? How many of us have a personal relationship with Christ? We believe in the faith; we go to Mass; but do we have that intimacy that allows us to walk with Christ?
And that is what is meant by one who has accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior. We as Catholics are taught that we belong to Jesus through the Sacraments. We don’t think in terms of that first moment when we first believed. Most of us have always just believed and haven’t thought too much more about it.
So, maybe we need to take a cue from our Protestant brethren. Maybe we need to think in terms of accepting Christ as our Lord and Savior; renewing our commitment to him and strengthening our relationship with him. It need not be a sudden, transformational moment. But, there does need to be a point when we recommit to following Christ; to truly living our Catholic faith; to truly serving others and taking seriously our inheritance as children of God.
It’s not enough for us to just have the two balls in the air. We need that third ball; we need to be walking wih Christ. We need to be a “Juggler for Jesus.”
