by Josh Pease
“I don’t even care about sports right now, because this picture of good – of what I thought was good – has exploded.” -Jon Ritche, ESPN analyst & acquaintance of Jerry Sandusky
Jerry Sandusky: former Penn State coach and architect of one of the most dominant football defenses of all time.
Jerry Sandusky: father to 6 adopted children, and founder of one of the greatest programs for at-risk kids in the country.
Jerry Sandusky: man recently charged with 40 counts of sexual abuse of a minor.
The story has dominated news outlets over the past few days, and it’s understandable why. Penn State, and the world around it, was one of the final bastions of an old-school wholesomeness that had otherwise died out. Joe Paterno was respected as the coach who, while other schools committed NCAA violations and overlooked failing grades, did things the right way. His players were recruited fairly. And they almost all graduated.
And then there’s Sandusky himself – a man who, in his community, was a bastion of goodness and selflessness. A man who was included as one of George H. W. Bush’s “thousand points of light.” And now … well, it’s like Jon Ritche said, our picture of good has exploded.
It’s a story that’s sickening. It’s an evil that’s reprehensible. And yet …
… and yet something about the moral outrage of the news anchors covering it that bothers me. There’s a tone – not just toward Sandusky, but toward everyone who could have suspected what was going on – that’s morally indignant. There’s a sense from the commentators of “how could anyone ever do this?” And there’s a more dangerous, unspoken assumption underneath that: “I never would.”
***
Most of us in ministry know the story all too well: it was a friend, or a friend-of-a-friend, or the pastor you knew just down the street. He slept with a student. He had a moral failure. He ruined his life and devastated his church.
I recently found out a pastor-friend of mine cheated on his wife with a female co-worker. I knew this friend. I knew his heart. His integrity. I knew his walk with God. He was sincere, passionate, and humble. I don’t believe any of that was fake. I don’t think what I knew of him wasn’t real.
I do, however, think that the brokenness of the fall runs deep, and that sin grows in secret, dark places, and that there is no one, not you, or me, or anyone else, who isn’t capable of evil. My friend included.
Now my friend’s story and Sandusky’s story aren’t comparable. At all. I mention him only because I’ve seen that same tone – that same self-righteousness – directed at pastors who fail. An arrogance. An “I can’t believe he did that.”
And I say this not because I want to protect them. I’m mentioning it because I want to protect me.
I know far too well what lurks in my heart. I know the thoughts I think. I know the temptations that I occasionally let dance around the corner of mind, treating them like fun diversions rather than the first step on path leading to the inevitable destruction of my life.
There is no one – not one of us – that is too holy NOT to take steps down that path. And there is none of us too wise not to justify that we are doing it. The moment we start thinking we’re above this behavior, we’ve already committed it.
The Pharisees once, in righteous zeal, set up a woman to be caught in adultery, prepared to stone her to death, and were motivated to do it by a political cat and mouse game they’d set up between themselves and the Messiah sent by God. And they did it, believing they had the moral high ground. That’s what pride does to us. It blinds us to our own hypocrisy. It makes us defensive. It makes us the first to pick up a stone to throw at those displaying outwardly, our moral rot that’s festering inwardly.
My friend who had an affair said this: “it all started when I hugged her one second longer than I should have.”
How many of us are capable of that? How many of us have already done it?
We are right to call Sandusky’s actions unspeakably evil. And we are right to punish him. We’re right to be deeply disappointed and angry at our friends have morally failed in ministry. But immediately falling all of this should come a deep humility that causes us to drop our stones, fall to our knees, and pray to God for these people.
And while we’re down there, cry out that God would give us humble hearts that know this cliché is true:
There, but for the grace of God, go I.
