It’s pretty shocking, really, the ugly stories coming out of
Penn State this week.
Well, not, actually.
How many times must we bear witness to the incredibly horrific
things that people do to each other til we come to understand that it is not so
much that these stories are new and unusual as it is that they are far too old
and normal. It’s not that we’re animals –
we should be so lucky. It’s that we
humans. Sinful humans. Originally and naturally sinful humans. Prisoners to sin humans.
Of course, we don’t want to hear that. If offends our carefully constructed fantasies
about free will and natural virtue. We
are merely good people to whom bad things happen. We occasionally stumble, misstep, show bad
judgment, err. But we hold on, however ineffectually,
to this constant myth, that we are in our very core good, just lacking the rare
métier to forestall the temptations of our lesser nature.
For who would want to face the truth of the abyss that is
the darkness of his soul?
Perhaps that is how the secondary tragedy of the Penn
State story came to be. That any human
being could perpetrate such acts upon a helpless child is unimaginable, that
others could witness it and turn their back is another thing entirely. The denial intrinsic to the crimes of the
other coaches and administrators is more than self-serving at an institutional,
academic or programmatic level. They
were protecting more than the Penn State athletic program. They were protecting themselves from facing
the truth about all of us and what we are capable of doing.
And this perfidy with our falsely superior
self-understanding is costly.
If we dared an honest assessment of our brokenness then we
might accomplish the construction of a safer world, a more diligent community,
a heightened awareness of the dangers we pose to each other and a greater
effort at protecting those most vulnerable around us. If we stopped pretending to be surprised at
what people might do we could possibly take some steps to stop them from doing
it. Who wouldn’t trade in a little of
our fabricated freedom for one fewer molested child?
But maybe that would be too shocking to do.
Which brings me to Herman Cain, who is also shocked,
shocked I tell you, that anyone would dare to accuse a fine, upstanding person
such as himself of any kind of inappropriate behavior. He is, after all, a good person, a successful
church-going man of good intent and purpose, and by definition above such
ugliness. Which is the more comical, but
still equivalent, experience of our misguided concept of human freedom. Even if we accept that it can happen, we are
most assuredly certain that it cannot happen to me.
Until it does.
Which brings me to the true cost of our falsely superior
self-understanding. Not that I deny the
sinfulness of others, but that I deny my own complete and total corruption and
in turn, deny the price paid for that sin by my Lord and Savior. To suggest that he died on the cross for
anything less that the total depravity of human nature is the height of
faithlessness. The price of my free
will fantasy is the constant crucifixion of Christ. If I proclaim my freedom, he dies for
nothing.
But when I confess my bondage, when I admit my loss, then
the full power of his gracious love overwhelms, then his ransom pays my debt in
full, then I become His prisoner and His alone.
As a free agent, I am alone. As a
confessed sinner, I am His, and in grace, never alone.
