Welcome again to Broken Saints and Healing Sinners…
One of the great dangers in life is being declared a saint by everyone around you. The greatest danger is that you will begin to believe in your own press. When that happens you can become entrapped, worrying more about protecting the image than, well, whatever. Image becomes transcendent; it becomes everything.
Here in the central valleys of Pennsylvania we are struggling with what to make of the legacy of Joseph Vincent Paterno or JoePA as we lovingly refer to him. Yes, despite all that has been laid at his feet many of us still love Joe. The problem is that, many or most of us were captive to the image we had of JoePA and forgot that he was a real man, flesh and blood, and feet of clay.
We were probably more captive to the image than Joe was. He was, after all, a guy, if a legendary guy, but none the less a guy who still had his phone number in the local phone book. He walked to his campus office everyday encountering students and members of the community. Sometimes he was deep in thought but often he was greeting and saying, “Hi,” to those who crossed his path. He is said to have frequently talked to students encouraging them in their studies. To those who lived in State College he was truly an average Joe. He was, also, however, JoePA and that image was bigger than life and it was built to benefit the sports media, the marketing of the athletic department and the bottom line of the financial statement of the university. Just an image of rolled up chinos dangling over black coaching shoes or a pair thick black rimmed glasses was enough to evoke JoePA.
It must be dreadful to be so enshrouded and enshrined; I am blessed to know that it will never happen to me. I always have folks willing to point out my faults but I like it that way even if sometimes it ticks me off for a bit. I, usually, can see their point and admit it to myself, although rarely do I admit it to my wife. Hmm, I wonder if Joe took out the garbage. I bet he did.
The problem with casting human beings as saints, even human beings like JoePA, is that they are all "cracked pots," saint and sinner. BTW, that’s crack”ed” pots, although my friends might slightly shorten that description for me. Still when we see the flaws in saints in real life we can become enraged and outraged. We get "pissed off" because somehow someone has let us down. We rant and we rage, on and on, because we expected better, after all, they were our saint. Our hope.
Truth is there is only one real hope and it is in the person of Jesus Christ. If I may spin a little heresy I have a vision right now of God and JoePA talking a little football and wondering how to bring real healing to the sport and community that Joe loved so deeply and where his wife, Sue, and family still live.
The image most of us carry about JoePA is about as lifelike and real as the stand up cardboard figures that people used to buy of JoePA or stand next to for a photograph. They are clay pot images all and those pots have flaws and are fragile and get broken and have cracks and get frayed around the edges. Sadly, when they do we are often quick to toss them aside.
Healing saints, however, are dynamic. They are filled with life. They make errors and hurt others often with the best of intentions. Sometimes they have great sins and sometimes those sins are magnified by us in the same way "we made" those folks into saints in the first place. Yet all at once those same sinners are so filled with God’s grace and a life and Spirit that they cannot stop and so they keep moving forward carrying that God given grace with them.
And so the real question becomes then who is the real crack”ed” pot, JoePA or us. I’m pretty darn sure the guy who lived in the same house for 40+ years, had one of the lowest salaries in a major university football program and who walked to work every day didn’t ask for that pedestal we put him on. So we must turn our vision inward to where we know intimately all of the flaws of broken saints far, far too well. In doing that we recognize why we looked for heroes elsewhere, even if we needed to build those golden calves ourselves.
The good news is that just as I am sure that JoePA rests secure in Christ so, too, do broken saints like you and me. In truth, it is Jesus Christ himself who shatters our rigidity as saints and the hard cast images of others and instead animates us forward as sinners. He is freeing us to do the good thing and even sometimes the wrong thing hoping and trusting in his grace.
One of the great dangers in life is being declared a saint by everyone around you. The greatest danger is that you will begin to believe in your own press. When that happens you can become entrapped, worrying more about protecting the image than, well, whatever. Image becomes transcendent; it becomes everything.
Here in the central valleys of Pennsylvania we are struggling with what to make of the legacy of Joseph Vincent Paterno or JoePA as we lovingly refer to him. Yes, despite all that has been laid at his feet many of us still love Joe. The problem is that, many or most of us were captive to the image we had of JoePA and forgot that he was a real man, flesh and blood, and feet of clay.
We were probably more captive to the image than Joe was. He was, after all, a guy, if a legendary guy, but none the less a guy who still had his phone number in the local phone book. He walked to his campus office everyday encountering students and members of the community. Sometimes he was deep in thought but often he was greeting and saying, “Hi,” to those who crossed his path. He is said to have frequently talked to students encouraging them in their studies. To those who lived in State College he was truly an average Joe. He was, also, however, JoePA and that image was bigger than life and it was built to benefit the sports media, the marketing of the athletic department and the bottom line of the financial statement of the university. Just an image of rolled up chinos dangling over black coaching shoes or a pair thick black rimmed glasses was enough to evoke JoePA.
It must be dreadful to be so enshrouded and enshrined; I am blessed to know that it will never happen to me. I always have folks willing to point out my faults but I like it that way even if sometimes it ticks me off for a bit. I, usually, can see their point and admit it to myself, although rarely do I admit it to my wife. Hmm, I wonder if Joe took out the garbage. I bet he did.
The problem with casting human beings as saints, even human beings like JoePA, is that they are all "cracked pots," saint and sinner. BTW, that’s crack”ed” pots, although my friends might slightly shorten that description for me. Still when we see the flaws in saints in real life we can become enraged and outraged. We get "pissed off" because somehow someone has let us down. We rant and we rage, on and on, because we expected better, after all, they were our saint. Our hope.
Truth is there is only one real hope and it is in the person of Jesus Christ. If I may spin a little heresy I have a vision right now of God and JoePA talking a little football and wondering how to bring real healing to the sport and community that Joe loved so deeply and where his wife, Sue, and family still live.
The image most of us carry about JoePA is about as lifelike and real as the stand up cardboard figures that people used to buy of JoePA or stand next to for a photograph. They are clay pot images all and those pots have flaws and are fragile and get broken and have cracks and get frayed around the edges. Sadly, when they do we are often quick to toss them aside.
Healing saints, however, are dynamic. They are filled with life. They make errors and hurt others often with the best of intentions. Sometimes they have great sins and sometimes those sins are magnified by us in the same way "we made" those folks into saints in the first place. Yet all at once those same sinners are so filled with God’s grace and a life and Spirit that they cannot stop and so they keep moving forward carrying that God given grace with them.
And so the real question becomes then who is the real crack”ed” pot, JoePA or us. I’m pretty darn sure the guy who lived in the same house for 40+ years, had one of the lowest salaries in a major university football program and who walked to work every day didn’t ask for that pedestal we put him on. So we must turn our vision inward to where we know intimately all of the flaws of broken saints far, far too well. In doing that we recognize why we looked for heroes elsewhere, even if we needed to build those golden calves ourselves.
The good news is that just as I am sure that JoePA rests secure in Christ so, too, do broken saints like you and me. In truth, it is Jesus Christ himself who shatters our rigidity as saints and the hard cast images of others and instead animates us forward as sinners. He is freeing us to do the good thing and even sometimes the wrong thing hoping and trusting in his grace.
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