Yesterday I umpired a baseball game in which one coach led his team to humiliate the other team. The first team won the game 14 to 0 and the winning coach told his players to steal bases and hit the ball as hard as they could, even when the score was 10 to zero.
I was incredulous toward this coach, as parents of the losing team were as well. When my son Steven, who was umpiring behind home plate, called a fairly wild pitch from the losing team a strike the coach of the victorious team asked if that was a "mercy call." Odd expression really!
I wonder if that winning coach has ever experienced genuine MERCY. I sort of doubt it.
Sports such as baseball are a reflection of life in general. "Art imitates life," as they say. So do sports. The game of life is often about "to the victor the spoils."
For example, the 100-person little church continues to lose people because a huge "gorilla" church just opened a video campus location just up the street.
Leaders of a ministry I know have to keep "ahead of the competition" in creating new outreach tools and training seminars. The competition? Other Christian ministries.
Thankfully there are churches and ministries that are thoroughly self-sacrificial, caring for the poor and powerless, and frequently asking, "how can we serve others" rather than looking out for themselves.
Nonetheless, watching the winning coach at the third base line telling his runners to steal third base and score more runs was a vague reflection of some people of faith.
We would do well to employ the "mercy rule" a lot more liberally.
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