Basketball coaches have to be creative, have great vision, and they must know how to motivate their players. They must know how to get the players up for each and every game, no matter the triumph of victory or the slump in defeat. Each game is a new reality, a new ball game with a different outcome waiting to be had.
Coaches often try new antics in order to motivate their players. Sometimes they need to get them angry so that they would see differently. Many times, in high school, the coach would pull the star and put in the scrub just to get the star worked up, to get his head back in the game. He always played better after the reality check that he was expendable.
In today's gospel we encounter Jesus rousing up the crowd. The Israelites have grown complacent. They had grown presumptuous in their place in salvation history. They were the star athletes; they were given the promise of the covenant and they became to self assure. They needed to be re awaken; they needed to be motivated, they needed a reality check in hopes that they might get their heads in the game.
Jesus, like the good coach, simply lets history smack them in the face, a little reality check, and boy it gets them fired up. He reminded them how God could use the scrubs for his glory just as well as the star. A little ire makes people rise to the challenge, a little ire helped them realize that God's glory was more than words of a promise, but it needed to be engaged and lived fully. The only one who has a monopoly on God's plan of action is God alone.
He wanted them to be awaken to finally begin to see that God's plan was bigger than them. bigger than their point of view. Only then when they recognized how God acted in history could they be able to begin to see what God was doing in the present in Christ.
With their anger roused and their presumption shacked, their pride checked, then they were ready to play ball, follow the coaches game play, then their heads were truly in the game.
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