Hank Greenberg played first base and outfield for the Detroit Tigers in the 1930s and 1940s, before finishing his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1937. He was one of the first Jewish superstars in professional sports.
I was away on vacation for a couple weeks; this was the last sermon I preached before I left for my vacation to Germany. The sermon includes a story about Hank Greenberg that I heard on the radio on my way home from a presbytery meeting. If you have some time, please listen to that story, too. The link is in the text of my sermon.
Good morning. I heard a really interesting story on the
radio as I was driving home from the presbytery meeting yesterday. The story
was about Hank Greenberg, a baseball player who played most of his career withthe Detroit Tigers. I should add that this past Friday was Rosh Hashanah, the
beginning of the new year on the Jewish calendar. This is one of the holiest
days of the year in Judaism. The other high holy day is Yom Kippur, the Day of
Atonement, which will be celebrated on September 30th this year.
These holidays always pose a problem for Jewish athletes.
In 1934, Greenberg’s second full season in the major
leagues, the Tigers were in the hunt for the pennant, and Greenberg was their
star player. In fact, Greenberg was the first Jewish superstar in all of
sports. There were other Jews in professional sports, but many of them changed
their names so that their religion wasn’t front and center.
Hank Greenberg as a Pittsburgh Pirate, 1947
In 2017, this all sounds so strange—it’s hard for us to
fathom how much public anti-Semitism there was in this country. It really was a
powerful force in our society before World War II. From 1919 through 1927,
Henry Ford published a newspaper called The
Dearborn Independent. Ford used this paper to distribute his anti-Semitic
views. Ford believed that Jews controlled international finance and were
responsible for starting wars so that they might profit from those wars:
International financiers
are behind all war. They are what is called the international Jew: German Jews,
French Jews, English Jews, American Jews. I believe that in all those countries
except our own the Jewish financier is supreme ... here the Jew is a threat.[1]
Anti-Semitism was everywhere in the 1930s. A Catholic
priest named Father Coughlin had a very popular radio program that was
syndicated across the country. It’s estimated that his broadcasts might have
reached as many as 30 million listeners a week.[2] Coughlin used that program
to attack communism and to attack Jews. Later he would support fascism in
Europe. His show was finally canceled in 1939, after the outbreak of World War
II. All that time, Coughlin served as a parish priest in Royal Oak, Michigan,
just outside of Detroit. So, Hank Greenberg was quite the unlikely hero in
Detroit.
Greenberg taking his oath of service in the U.S. Army, 1941
On September 10, 1934, the Tigers were in first place, four
games ahead of the New York Yankees. There were 20 games left in the regular
season. That’s a decent lead, but remember, this was the Yankees with Babe Ruth
and Lou Gehrig, in their prime. No lead seemed safe. Greenberg was faced with a
difficult decision:
Jewish holidays aren’t
just family gatherings or celebrations — instead, they come with a long list of
ritual prohibitions. Traditionally, these include driving, writing, using
electricity, but most importantly, working. And as much as baseball is a game,
for Hank, it’s his job…. It’s not an easy decision for Hank. He isn’t
personally very religious, but still, his tradition is important to him.[3]
Greenberg was afraid
that if he sat out that game, if he didn’t play, that he would face a backlash
of anti-Semitism; the fans of Detroit might turn on him.[4]
I can’t imagine how difficult that was. I grew up at a time
when anti-Semitism was not part of the public conversation. I can’t relate to
the pressures that Greenberg faced. A couple weeks ago, I was having talking
with Bill Welsh, and he asked me about the roots of anti-Semitism. It’s too
long of a story for a single sermon, but the history of anti-Semitism, as
practiced by Christians, has its roots in some poor interpretations of Gospel
stories.
This morning’s lesson from the Gospel of Matthew is a story
that has a history of being narrowly interpreted. It’s often read as an
allegory, with the landowner representing God: “In this reading, God is the
gracious master who rewards all the workers equally (= salvation), thereby
upsetting the workers who toiled all day (the Jews) by giving the latecomers
(Gentiles) the same rewards.”[5]
This is reading is too simplistic, and that leads us to
some serious problems of interpretation. We should always be deeply suspicious
of allegorical readings that turn out to favor Christians at the expense of
Israel:
We are tempted to see
the landowner in God-like terms because he is powerful, he hires workers all
day long and pays them all equally, and he declares his own goodness and
justice. We should remember, however, that at the end of the day the workers
are all as vulnerable and powerless as they were at the beginning of the day,
except that, we will see, they have lost their dignity, and probably their
unity.[6]
When we see the
landowner as God, we see only goodness. We fail to see the landowner’s negative
qualities.
Yes, the landowner was absolutely within his rights to pay
the workers all the same amount. The landowner was also within his rights to
pay the workers in whatever order he wanted. He could have paid the first
workers first, and the last workers last. If he had done so, the first workers
would not have known what the other laborers were paid.
Instead, the first group of laborers were forced to watch
the other laborers get the same amount of pay for less work. And when they
question the landowner about this, the landowner throws it back in their faces:
“Am
I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious
because I am generous?” He’s saying, don’t question me! This is my right! This is my privilege. If you read it that way, the landowner comes off as
arrogant, even cruel.
In that light, he landowner’s decision
can spark jealousy among the community of laborers. In the morning, before any
of them were hired, they were all equal in standing, equal in dignity. By
asserting his privilege, the landowner is telling all the laborers that their
dignity doesn’t matter, they’re all disposable. “The injustices are
intensified, not overturned.”[7] So what are we to do with
this parable?
We mustn’t draw a straight line from a
poor interpretation of this parable to Hitler and the gas chambers—or even to
Father Coughlin or Henry Ford. “Jesus’ parables are meant to get us to think
critically about the world we have constructed, free us from our cultural
shackles and self-deceptions, and enable us to discern more clearly how God
works in the world.”[8] Jesus invites us to see
ourselves in this parable in all of the roles: as one of the laborers who was
hired first, as one of the laborers who was hired last, and even as the
landowner. To do this, we can’t vilify any of the laborers:
They
might indeed have accepted their pay and gone home happy that everyone got what
they needed to make it another day. But few of us would be happy in a system of
this kind of so-called justice. We shape our identities and our sense of worth
by constantly comparing and contrasting ourselves with others. We want fairness
and equality, when it serves our interest, but not if it means that we all get
the same prize in the end. Where is the reward in that? Regardless of what they
were paid, all the workers went home seeing more clearly the vast gulf that
exists between the landowner and themselves.[9]
Throughout the Gospels,
Jesus calls us to follow him; He calls us to discipleship; He calls us to
participate in the work of building the kingdom of God; He calls to the work of
reconciliation. To do this, we have to think critically about scripture and
about our world.
In 1934, most Americans saw Hank Greenberg as the other, an
outsider, someone suspicious. If he sat out that baseball game on September 10th,
many people would have seen it as a betrayal—a player walking away from a job
that everyone wished they could do. That’s confirmation bias. If Greenberg
refused to play, he would have confirmed what many Americans believed to be
true about Jews. Few people would have seen it as an honest expression of
faith.
On September 9th, the day before Rosh Hashanah, The Detroit Free Press ran a very
interesting headline: L’shana Tova
Tikatevu. That’s Hebrew for “Happy New Year!” It was printed in Hebrew, in
huge letters. Nobody would have recognized those letters—except for Hank
Greenberg and the Jewish community of Detroit. “And immediately below the
Hebrew headline, there was a huge picture of Hank mid-swing. It was almost as
if the paper was saying, ‘Please, Hank. We need you.’”[10]
The Detroit Free Press, September 9, 1934
Greenberg decided to play. The Tigers beat the Boston Red
Sox, 2-1. Greenberg hit solo home runs in the seventh and ninth innings. He.
Won. The game. But the story doesn’t end on Rosh Hashana. Remember, Yom Kippur
was right around the corner—the holiest of holy days on the Jewish calendar.
In the days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, Greenberg
got mail and telegrams from rabbis and Orthodox Jews all over the United
States, taking him to task for his decision to play.[11]
That week the Free Press
published stories on how difficult the decision had been for Greenberg. Hitler
was on the rise in Germany, Mussolini was firmly in control of Italy, fascism
was on the rise in Europe, and Father Coughlin was cheering them on and
spouting anti-Semitism here at home. And the Detroit Free Press chose to stand in solidarity with Hank
Greenberg, who decided not to play on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.[12] He suffered no backlash
for sitting out.
The editors of the newspaper saw beyond their own biases.
They saw a story that was more complicated than most people knew. They chose to
identify with a stranger, an outsider, and by doing so, they said, in effect,
“Hank Greenberg is one of us.” As we go about being disciples, as we go about
the work of reconciliation, let us remember the example that was set by The Detroit Free Press some 83 years
ago. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Benediction
Now, beloved, as you depart from this place, remember that
we are called to be the Church, the body of Christ in the world, the world
today. We are called to go forth and be instruments of God’s love and peace and
love and reconciliation. Do not return evil for evil to any person, but know
that we are all loved by God, and that we are called to reflect that love to
everyone we meet. Go forth and be the salt of the earth and the light of the
world. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, let all God’s children say, Amen!
[1]
Howard Morley Sachar. A History of the
Jews in America. New York: Vintage (1993), p. 311.
[2]
Sheldon Marcus. Father Coughlin: The
Tumultuous Life of the Little Flower. Boston: Little, Brown (1973), p. 4.
[3]
Noam Hassenfeld, “Hank Greenberg: Caught Between Baseball and His Religion,” Only a Game, September 22, 2017,
retrieved from: http://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2017/09/22/hank-greenberg-rosh-hashana-tigers
[4]
Hassenfeld.
[5]
Stanley Saunders, “Commentary on Matthew 20:1-16,” retrieved from: http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3395
[6]
Saunders.
[7]
Saunders.
[8]
Saunders.
[9]
Saunders.
[10]
Hassenfeld.
[11]
Hassenfeld.
[12]
Hassenfeld.
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