The NCAA's Silent Sermon

Early Sunday morning, July 22, the church of college football preached a sermon without words. At Penn State University a work crew fenced off, covered, and  then removed a life-sized statue of the winningest coach in the history of college football. Next day, we learned that the removal of this icon of Joe Paterno's achievements foretold the removal of the achievements themselves. In an unprecedented step, the NCAA expunged  fourteen years of his coaching career from the record books. 111 wins are no longer wins. They are, rather, failures. Failure to defend children too weak to defend themselves.

What did Paterno do to deserve such a draconian punishment? Not enough. That's the problem.

Paterno is not a sexual predator by any account. No doubt he would be utterly appalled to learn the results of his inactivity. But that matters nothing to Sandusky's victims. The Louis Freeh Report is unequivocal.

The most saddening finding by the Special Investigative Counsel is the total and consistent disregard by the most senior leaders at Penn State for the safety and welfare of Sandusky's child victims... Four of the most powerful people at the Pennsylvania State University -- President Graham B. Spanier, Senior Vice President-Finance and Business Gary C. Schultz, Athletic Director Timothy M. Curley and Head Football Coach Joseph V. Paterno -- failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade. (p. 14)

As a result, their lives were damaged in irrevocable ways.

By the removal of an icon, the message was articulate and clear. You ARE your brother's keeper. And this silent sermon resonates in every human heart. The details of the punishment may be debated. But the outrage itself is beyond debate. The right thing was left undone. It should have been done. There is no excuse.

All of us are truly saddened. All of us truly hope and pray that the sanctions of the NCAA might help these victims heal a little bit. Finally their screams have been heard. Finally someone stood  up to acknowledge their existence and the pain they have endured in silence. Finally someone has  publicly said: You needed our protection. You deserved our care. We could have protected you. But we  did not. I pray God's peace and blessings on their recovery.

All of us are also looking toward Penn State University. We want them, and college football generally, to learn an important lesson. No entity, no program, no way of life is so important as to absolve  you of your responsibilities to even the smallest person. Mark Emmert, President of the NCAA, made  this plain: “Our goal is to not be just punitive, but to make sure that the university establishes an athletic culture and daily mindset in which football will never again be placed ahead of educating, nurturing, and protecting young people” (Press Conference, July 23).

All of us should also be looking to ourselves. This lesson is not only for programs and institutions. It is a lesson for each and every one of us. You are your brother’s keeper. When your brother needs protection, no social program, no political loyalty, no peer pressure is a legitimate reason to fail him. Whatever the cost, whatever the inconvenience, whatever the sacrifice to success, reputation, friendship or social standing, every human being, no matter how small, is your brother; and you are your brother's keeper.

So, who exactly needs your protecting? Every reader of this column will be able to name certain people smaller, younger, more vulnerable than you. Their cries for help move you to action. There are also the nameless and voiceless. Every day 3500 new victims - people - are killed without being able to scream for help. Ignorance of their names and inability to hear their screams does not lessen our responsibilities. Nor do your personal feelings about abortion matter to the victims. Powerless victims are not helped by your affirmations. They need your voice. They need your care. They need your protection.

When a decade of coaching achievements are counted as nothing, it is a sermon we all must take to heart. To paraphrase Mark Emmert: "Our goal is not to be just punitive, but to make sure that our society establishes a culture and daily mindset in which partisan politics, personal ambition, or peer pressure will never again be placed ahead of defending, caring for, and protecting even the weakest of people."

For Sandusky’s victims, it is too late. Opportunities lost can never be regained. But, by God’s grace, this tragedy can open our eyes to the countless opportunities still before us. It is not too late for these people. We have our voice, we have Jesus’ compassion and, now, we have this lesson to spur us on. Today we see with the clarity of hindsight: Those unable to defend themselves must be defended by those who can. The right thing can be done. It should be done. We have no excuse.

Violence is out of Place in the Sanctuary

Sunday morning in Wichita, Kansas, death intruded into a sacred space and violently took the life of Dr. George Tiller. This is the most recent in a growing line of Church-related shootings. In recent years this scene has become all too familiar to us. After the March attack in Marysville, Illinois, this is now the 21st such shooting in the past decade.

Bewildered, we wonder aloud: is there no place sacred? Is no place safe? But unlike the spate of shootings over the previous decade, this one already is being reported differently. For Dr. George Tiller was a well-known late-term abortion provider.

As I write, no one has been charged with the crime. Nor is any motive, ideology, religion or politics known. But assumptions are already being made and conclusions being drawn. By the time this is printed much more will be known. If the assailant proves to be attached in any way to the pro-life movement, his behavior will paint all who speak in defense of life in the womb.

Although pro-life organizations across the nation immediately denounced the killing and distanced themselves from the perpetrator, leaders of these same organizations are publicly worried that efforts to defend life in the womb will be set back by an unwilling association with one who shares their name.

A movement dedicated to saving life will be tarred as anti-life. Those moved by love to protect the innocent will be called dangerous and hateful. To the extent that these efforts succeed, another sacred place will continue to be invaded by the instruments of death that take the smallest and most defenseless lives.

Nevermind that Reformation Lutheran Church of Wichita is not a member of the Lutheran church body of which I am a pastor. It is still called Lutheran and still called Christian and with that nomenclature, everyone who calls themselves by either of these names will inevitably be painted by association with Dr. Tiller.

While pro-life organizations across the nation distance themselves from the ideology and behavior of the assailant, how will Christians distinguish themselves from the ideology and behavior of the assailed? Does the evil perpetrated against Dr. Tiller now canonize his cause? Are Christians now forbidden to exclude his ideology and behavior from their midst? Or shall we temporarily quiet our objections to abortion and tacitly accept Dr. Tiller as one of our own until this tragedy passes from the headlines?

This I cannot do. For it is especially now in the face of these events that we must speak up against the invasion of all sacred spaces and the taking of any life given by Christ.

This ought not to be a partisan matter nor a denominational affair. For the issues of life and death which concern us today have been addressed by the Scriptures and confessed by the whole Christian Church from the moment of its inception.

One of the very earliest Church documents preserved to us is called the Didache (circa. 50-120). The second chapter of that document treats the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" (Exodus 20) and its words are uncannily appropriate to address this confluence of events.

Here the murder of Dr. Tiller is obviously forbidden to Christians and it goes on to state, "thou shalt not murder a child by abortion nor kill them when born." Then, a few lines later and still on the same subject, we read, "Thou shalt not hate any man, but some thou shalt reprove, and for others thou shalt pray, and others thou shalt love more than thy life."

There is no better time than now and no better place than here to say aloud that Christians still believe in and abide by these words. Children are not to be aborted either by the primitive means of the ancient Romans or by the "sophisticated" means of modern physicians.

We are not to hate either Dr. Tiller or his assailant. But they should be reproved by all Christians. We reprove to invite repentance from the way of death that Christ's forgiveness unto life might follow.

We should mourn Dr. Tiller and pray for the assailant and both families. All people—famous or infamous, adult or fetus, right or wrong—should be loved more than your own life. For this is how Christ loves you, giving His own life to rescue you from the way of death.

Let all Christians take up these words as our own. And then, having taken them on our lips, let us remember what the Didache says in the same place: "Thy word shall not be false or empty, but fulfilled by action." This is the way of life—the life which Christ came to give.