Do Your Part

In the front of the auditorium where our church family gathers on Sunday mornings, a sign hangs high and bold summarizing Ephesians 4:11-16. It says very simply, “Do Your Part.” The flag flies at the top of the baptistery marking the symmetrical center between two ginormous screens, but I have to think it hangs there for reasons beyond balance.  The message that is clearly being sent is “get involved.”  Get involved with the activities the leaders of the congregation have planned, but probably—maybe even more so—get involved with leading others to Jesus Christ, via the baptistery below.  “Do Your Part” it says, echoing the gist of the Bible.

I wondered, “What’s my part?” And, “Whose job is it to decide?”

We simultaneously love and hate parameters.  A hard line gives us a place to run toward while also supplying us with a reason to stop. It hands us both a target and an out, while a job with no description gives us neither. “Do Your Part” comes with all sorts of existential haze. 

Currently, we’re in the throes of March Madness. Most of us have, no doubt, filled out a bracket (or two or twelve or twenty—though that seems at least in my mind, to deftly miss the point) and are saddled up in front of the TV bouncing between the channels carrying the most compelling games. Games filled with expectations that come laced with clearly defined roles. The goal is clear: survive and advance. But who does what to make that happen cannot be preeminently defined. 

Every moment of these gritty tussles comes with an offering for those who are involved. For a handful of players, the ball will find its way to them in the waning minutes with the result of the contest hinging on what they do with it when they get it. Some will be asked to make a pedestrian free throw in a moment that’s anything but a walk in the park. Some will need to grab a rebound. Some will need to keep the guy they’re guarding from catching the ball. Others will surround the guys without a dry spot on their jerseys with towels, water and a series of throaty “You got this! You GOT this! YOU GOT THIS!” as they gather in a circle for a final late-game time-out. 

“Do Your Part” will look a little different for everyone involved and it would be hard for anybody to define its shape or borders.

In the second half of our National Championship Semi-Final game vs. Duke in 2002, we inserted Shannon Selmon into the game with around six minutes to play. Shannon was our first “big” off the bench, a solid player who we could always count on to rebound and dive on the floor after an errant ball. When we sent her in to guard Duke’s big, we did so with a charge to “front the post.” She gave up about five inches to Duke’s post kid who they were bound and determined to go to at the block. If their athlete caught it with a foot in the lane, we couldn’t do a thing about the good-for-them-bad-for-us deed that would happen next.

So we had to get in front of her to keep her from catching the ball. It was our only hope.

On the first possession after the substitution, Shannon fought with her feet to get between the post player and the ball-- Duke tried to lob it over her head. The ball landed out of bounds. The next time down, from a full butt-in-the-gut position, as Duke tried to lob again, Shannon jumped up and tipped the ball back toward the perimeter where her teammate ran it down. We scored off both miscues. 

Two minutes later, we re-inserted our starting center and Shannon Selmon jogged her way toward the bench.

The stat sheet showed three minutes and forty-seven seconds next to her name under “minutes played.” She wasn’t in for long but did she ever “Do Her Part.”

None of us knew going in what the game might offer. Outside of what is ordinarily the price of admission, we had no way of knowing –neither did our players --what it would be that we might need.

In Hogwarts Castle, behind a door that you’re not aware is a door is a “Room of Requirement.” In this room lies whatever might be vital to a particular person at a particular moment in time. But it doesn’t appear until you know you need it. Lots of people miss it because they’re unaware.

“Your Part” . . . “My Part” . . . “Our Part” is a kaleidoscope.  The madness only makes sense to those who stay attuned. 

P.S. Chariots of Fire