The Game Plan

"We dug deep. We stuck to the game plan." Those of us who watch the football will hear a lot of such comments in the coming months. This summer there's been a lot of sporting thrills - the cricket and tennis invited the couch potato status. Attention is often given to the coaches who have an important job: developing skills, building confidence in individuals, creating teamwork, organising strategies etc - a job that has limited security these days it seems.

The modern internet I believe even offers Life Coaches. Too late for me now. And yet haven't we had a "Life Coach" to beat all life coaches since the day we were baptised - welcomed and enrolled into team Jesus, with guidance from the Holy Spirit and patronage by a whole community of saints. Now there's a support team to be grateful for!! However, to rank Jesus as a coach, or even one of our modern day 'super coaches', is to vastly undersell the God-man.

Today's gospel scene, follows on from last week: Jesus is surrounded by people from near and far, and included "a large gathering of his disciples" (not just his apostles).

Luke tells us it was these disciples he addressed in his sermon on the plain. We are these disciples. He's fixing his eyes on us, he's speaking to us. Jesus gives us a number of rules for living. We may feel comfortable with the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have others do to you." OK, fair enough Lord. But the other stuff: Love your enemies...Do good to those who hate you...Pray for those who persecute you...Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who robs you, do not ask for your property back...Be compassionate as God is compassionate...Do not judge and you will not be judged... Forgive and you will be forgiven.........Whoa Lord, whoa!

After what he did to me, I have to love him, do good to him? And I can't judge that person who lied about me? But she's so awful. In the sport analogy it's the player telling the coach, "You gotta be joking." And the coach: "It's up to you." And in the survival of the fittest world of current society - impossible.

Today's first reading tells of David sparing his enemy Saul, pre-empting what Jesus meant, showing love for his enemy. Paul to the Corinthians speaks of modelling on the "heavenly man" (Christ). So maybe not so impossible when we have the Lord with us. And Jesus is with us more than any coach can be - not just in word, but in sacraments, the Eucharist, the Spirit, and the other. We can respond to Pope Francis' Jubilee year call to be Pilgrims of Hope because Jesus is "God-with-Us", not just a coach overseeing us with a stats sheet. Close enough to have a yarn with about the game plan (and our struggles with it) that he presented to us disciples in today's liturgy.

John Mackay