Don’t Bring Jesus Into This

Tony has finished his basketball season. I’m really proud of his hard work. He has shown a great deal of improvement – the whole team has. It has been a great season.

On the day I began drafting this post, he was in the tournament. For their first game, they played a team that they have beaten during the regular season.

As with any game, there were some questionable calls going against both teams. Officials are imperfect people – they make mistakes just like anyone else, and their decisions are subject to interpretation.

On this particular day, some parents decided to take the responsibility of rebuking the refs upon themselves.

A couple of guys representing the other team were very, um, vocal in their disagreement with said officials. So much so that one was confronted by the official, asked to leave, and subsequently got in the ref’s face and school staff had to intervene. Another guy yelled his agreement with the views of the first ejectee, and was ejected himself.

My wife and I were in agreement with the ejectors. Their behavior was without excuse and a bad influence on the numerous kids present. In the course of the events as they transpired, my wife mentioned the name of Jesus, because, well, SOMEONE NEEDED TO.

The female companion of the first ejectee snarked at my wife, and said something that still amazes me…

Don’t bring Jesus into this.

Ah. Right.

Because, of course, our Savior shouldn’t be mentioned, you know, at a CHRISTIAN SCHOOL TOURNAMENT.

In all honesty, there were probably a couple other folks that could have been asked to leave if the refs really wanted to go there. Those refs showed grace in a contentious situation. Unfortunately, our boys had to witness the reality of faith in Christ – that no one has a complete handle on their behavior 24/7. I have to commend their assistant coach in that regard – he told our boys not to pay attention to what was going on and to focus on the task at hand.

I think this whole ordeal was a lack of focus. Focusing on what didn’t matter (the way the game was called) and ignoring what did (Christian testimony, getting to watch your child play ball). Just goes to show that when our focus wains, bad things can happen.

And Jesus didn’t have to be brought into it. He was there first.