22nd Sunday 2021
Deut 4:1-2,6-8; James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Does the name Graham Poll mean anything to you? I can think of a few people who will immediately recognise it, but I suspect that, for the majority, it will be a mystery. Did he perhaps invent the Poll Tax, or the polling booth, or a particularly short hair style?
None of these: in fact, he was an English football referee, who, in a relatively recent World Cup, ruined any chance he might have had of refereeing the Final when he committed a shocking blunder in a group game, showing the yellow card three times to a player before sending him off, the sort of howler you would not expect from the most junior referee on a park pitch, let alone a senior official in the world’s most famous competition.
A few years ago, someone lent me Graham Poll’s autobiography. What struck me, in reading it, was not his account of this incident, but a remark which he made, commenting along the lines: “Sometimes you know that, strictly, by the Laws of the Game, you should award a penalty, but morally it would be the wrong decision, and you don’t give it.”
I don’t recall whether I yelled with delight upon reading this, but I suspect that I did. In the autumn of 2014, I had spent my holidays, as I did for a number of years, refereeing in a schools’ competition in Canada. For one match, a final, I was assistant referee (linesman in old money) along with Dave, my host, an expatriate Lancastrian, whilst the whistle was taken by Joe, an expat Glaswegian.
One team, whom I shall call the Blues, dominated the match, outclassing their opponents, whom we shall name the Whites, but failing to add to the single goal which they had scored early in the game. As the match moved into stoppage time, Whites launched one last desperate attack. Their left wing back brought the ball down the wing, being pulled back, as he came, by a Blues’ defender. As he continued to make progress, Joe decided to apply the Advantage clause, until the attacker, still being unfairly harassed, reached the penalty area, whereupon Joe blew, and pointed to the spot.
All hell broke loose. The Blues went berserk. One of their players pushed Joe, and was sent off, whilst the occupants of the Blues’ substitutes’ bench, immediately behind me, were within a gnat’s breath of invading the pitch.
Eventually, order was restored, the penalty was taken, and converted, and the final whistle blew, facing us with extra time in a febrile atmosphere with one side down to ten men and nursing a huge sense of grievance.
During extra time, Whites, with their one man advantage, mounted an attack. One of their players made his way into the penalty area, twisting and turning, and eventually being caught by a defender’s foot, and going down. It was a clear penalty, right under my nose.
What did I do? I kept my flag firmly down by my side. It would have been dreadfully unjust, in the context of the game, for Whites to win by virtue of a second penalty. That I had no wish to be lynched by the Blues’ management and subs, who were breathing down my neck, was, of course, irrelevant.
Whether Joe had a clear view of the incident, I do not know. Perhaps he too saw the potential injustice of a strict application of the Law. In any case, his whistle remained silent, there were no further goals, and justice was achieved morally, if not by the letter of the Law, when Blues won the penalty shoot-out.
It seems to me that similar issue lies at the heart of Our Lord’s dispute with the Pharisees. Are laws, and in particular the Jewish Law, an end in themselves, or a means to an end? Moses had no doubt: the Law was intended to display the closeness of God to His people; to draw them ever closer to Him. To an extent, the Pharisees had forgotten this: for them, the Law and the laws had become ends in themselves, to be maintained at all costs, for their own sake. God had practically fallen out of the equation.
It is easy for us to become smug; to say “Silly old Pharisees. We would never behave like that.” OR WOULD WE?
