Jesus told them a parable. "No one tears a piece from a new cloak to patch an old one. Otherwise, he will tear the new and the piece from it will not match the old cloak. Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be ruined. Rather, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins. And no one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, 'The old is good.'"

Ken Carter was a sports star at Richmond California high school in the early 70's. Then he went on to have some success in the military and as a small businessman. When he was asked to take over as basketball coach at his old high school, he not only turned around the basketball team, but for the first time in the young people's lives, Coach Carter showed them the importance of secondary education. During this first session of the movie, we see him walk into a gymnasium ruled by loud, arrogant, disrespectful student jocks, and begin an attitude-change of the young people. His instrument for doing it was discipline, a training that included moral, physical and mental development which Coach Carter introduced with his basketball training.   

The dictionary defines discipline to be any training intended to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior, especially training that produces development in a particular direction. For Coach Ken Carter in the movie "Coach Carter," the definition was placed into the context of teaching young people the art of playing basketball. For Jesus, the definition of discipline included an understanding that his new doctrine involved a whole different way of life.

Jesus had numerous arguments with the leaders of his time. He was advocating something totally new, totally different from what the leaders thought important. Using the images of cloth and wine, he told the religious leaders that people usually have a difficult time accepting something new when they are convinced of the old. Jesus’ doctrine contained a different stress for some older laws, and even introduced laws that the leaders had never heard before. When speaking of his doctrine, he often encountered opposition, not because of the doctrine itself, but because it was new and different. It was a discipline that was to change the outlook of the millions of people who would call themselves "Christian."

Jesus and Coach Carter were interested ultimately in the same thing--they wanted to initiate change into the lives of people so that people's lives would be better. For both of them, it involved discipline that translated into a life-changing attitude for a better life.                   

THOUGHT
PRAYER

Good and gracious God, your Son teaches us a way of life that is not easy, but it will lead us toward the ultimate goal of heaven. At the same time, his teaching has taught us to live well here on this earth. Give us the grace to accept totally the discipline of his teaching. Be with us, we pray. 

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©2007 Capuchin Province of Mid-America
Fr. Mike Scully is a member of the Capuchin Province of Mid-America