The Noble Profession

There is an American story told by many people. It goes like this.

There was a man who was a very good baseball player back in the mid-twentieth century. He was so good that major league scouts wanted to sign him to a pro contract. He declined to become a schoolteacher.

Years later a man who played with this gentleman asked his son why his father declined to play pro baseball. The young man said that at the time his father received the offer teaching was such a noble profession that he looked at it more highly than being a baseball player.

The noble profession.

Though every profession that helps others is noble, some that once held high esteem no longer are.

Teaching is one of them. There was a time when teachers were so high in our communities that they led organizations, were on committees and created programs that would help them improve. The teacher was a second parent to many of their students.

The pastor is another profession that is still noble but not looked at as it once was. There was a time when we trusted our pastor’s guidance and judgement in things involving the community. We felt that they were the one trusted person who would not lie to us. Now, for many reasons, there is some skepticism in pastors.

The job of police officer was in the noble class as well. Anyone who gave their lives to serving and protecting their community was an upstanding citizen. Police officers were heroes to many young boys. Knowing this our law officers worked with kids and created organizations that helped them grow and walk the straight and narrow. The programs themselves were enough to recruit youngsters to become policemen.

Farming was a noble profession. People appreciated the work that farmers did. They also appreciated the work ethic. If anyone needed work done in the community, they counted on farmers to step in and help. Without asking for anything in return. Farmers also led organizations and committees.

There were other professions. But these are four that immediately come to mind.

It is highly unlikely in today’s America that a young man would turn down the opportunity to play a professional sport for any of these professions. There is too much potential money in sports that was not there in the mid-twentieth century.

But that is not the reason these jobs do not carry the same nobility as they once did. The reason that they do not may be the priority we no longer put on education, church, farming, and the rule of law.

It is highly unlikely that we will hear the story of our baseball player told by his son in the twenty-first century.

It is likely the father will never know or have even heard of a noble profession.