The Player Who Refused to Retaliate

In 1947, when Jackie Robinson stepped onto Ebbets Field as the first Black player in Major League Baseball, the abuse was relentless. Opposing players spiked him at first base. Pitchers threw at his head. Fans hurled slurs so vile his teammates could hear them from the dugout. The Philadelphia Phillies' manager, Ben Chapman, led his entire bench in a stream of racial taunts so ugly that even some of Robinson's skeptical teammates rallied to his defense.

But before that season ever began, Branch Rickey — the Dodgers' general manager and a devout Methodist — had sat Robinson down in his office and asked him a piercing question. Robinson fired back, "Are you looking for a Negro who is afraid to fight back?" Rickey's answer has echoed through history: "I'm looking for a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back."

What Rickey was asking Robinson to do was something no athlete had ever been asked to carry. He was asking him to forgive in real time — not after the wound had healed, but while the blows were still landing.

That is the kind of forgiveness the Apostle Paul describes when he writes, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Robinson understood what many of us resist: forgiveness is not weakness. It takes far more strength to absorb a blow than to throw one.

This week, who is testing your ability to forgive — not after the fact, but right now, while it still stings?