Monday, January 23, 2012

Joe Pa and Legacies

Working with children changes your perspective on just about everything. I am not a parent, so I am just now discovering this. For you who already are, I know you are nodding your head in agreement.

Late last week, Joe Paterno, the legendary head football coach of Penn State passed away after a long battle with lung cancer.  To be honest, if you had asked me in early 2011 who Joe Paterno was, I would've had to Google it.  I am a sports enthusiast, but I do not memorize facts or keep up with who is coaching at which school at any given time. However, his name and legacy was brought to even my attention late in 2011 with the firing of several members of his staff and the resignation of himself once everything had come to light.  I remember hearing how the Penn State students on campus were picketing, protesting, and even rioting.  I recall how disappointed I was that the protesting didn't start at the news of what the staff had done, but rather of the firing and resignation of  the people who were responsible for it. 

Today, many are posting on Facebook and Twitter what a legend Joe Pa was. How, no matter what happened recently, he'll always be remembered for his leadership and football coaching.

I'm not so sure.

Stories like this hit me closer than they ever have before.  Joe Pa wasn't the one who committed the abuse of young boys, but he knew about it. He told school authorities but he never told police. So the abuse continued.  I didn't know Joe Pa personally.  I had never met him.  I cannot judge his personhood. But I can tell you how his actions affect me.  They make my job really hard. And it's not that I am lazy and do not like hard work. I don't. By hard I mean, harder to win trust. Harder to love people whose hearts have become stone cold at the hands of men like Joe Paterno and his staff.  Harder to convince people that there is God that is bigger than anything that could have ever happened to them in their past who loves them immensely. 

Unfortunately for Joe Paterno, his legacy is now forever etched as the man who didn't do enough to help children he knew were in danger.  Who for whatever reason, chose to believe that he had done the right thing to clear his conscious by only taking one step.  He may have had coaching skills. He may have been ethical on the field.  But I do not believe that life can be compartamentalized and that you can be a good person at your job but a lousy person out in the world.  To make this example, let's use a pastor and trade him for Joe Paterno.  Let's allow this pastor to have the largest church in the U.S.  He has great skill in the pulpit and in the staff meetings.  He speaks with conviction and constantly has people coming through the doors of his church to come to know the Lord.  And then, a member on his staff is found guilty of child abuse.  And the Pastor knew about it, but he only told another pastor friend he had.  I doubt he would be heralded as a great pastor at his death.

You are one whole person.  Who you are, the decisions you make, the things you speak, everything you do, EVERYTHING is a reflection of the relationship you have with Christ and who He has transformed you to be. 

I am a children's pastor. I work with children and their families day in and day out. You cannot help but get all tied up in people's lives when you're a minister. One of my greatest fears is not that something bad might happen to one of the families at my church, or that they may do something stupid that would change their whole life forever, or even that one of them may pass away leaving a great hole in our hearts and lives.  No, it is that I might do something that would turn them away from Jesus.  Because that is my life's work, making Jesus look good and making Him famous. It would be the worst thing that could happen. Everything else bad that I could think of, I know that with God's help, a family could overcome. But there is no overcoming the finality of a life ending without Jesus.  I pray my legacy remains always to be about the love of Jesus.

No comments:

Post a Comment