Be careful about getting on board...

I have lived long enough to know that putting heroes on a pedastal is a prescription for disappointment. Sports figures, political figures, religious people all take big falls from grace -- just like the biblical characters. Although, since most of the Bible stories I learned as a child, I learned the Sunday school, child-appropriate version. So, as a young adult, I was completely aghast to hear Mary Cosby say that it is a mistake to teach our children to be like biblical characters. That threw me for a loop. Slowly, I realized how right she is. Although there are a few (but very few) exceptions, good people in the Bible stories turn out to be terrible disappointments and the Bible characters who make terrible mistakes turn out to be heroes. When you follow the whole lives of the biblical characters, you see she is right.

But, still, our hearts love to have heroes -- spokespersons for the values and principles that we hold dear. And when the disappointment comes -- as it almost inevitably does--the disillusionment hurts. And there have been a lot of prominent people who have let us down in recent months. They are on both sides of the political aisle (Mark Sanford and John Edwards) so don't even think about appealing to partisan carping. And the things we have learned make us wonder all over again: how can such smart people do such terrible destructive things?
Every new revelation about the life of John Edwards makes me want to say,"All Aboard" to the train of laments about how dishonorable his actions have been. He failed his family, he failed his causes, he failed his best self and he failed people who believed in him. I'm disappointed in him in every way possible. This week, I went over the top when, at the announcement of his separation from his wife, Elizabeth, he said, "I want my children to know that I love them more than anything in the world..." And I wanted to scream: "You can't do the things you did and then, in the wreckage you have made of your family, come along and proclaim your love for your children. No sale. It doesn't work that way. If you love your family more than anything, you put them first. Your love for them changes the way you act. You don't love someone and then going around doing destructive things like that. Love isn't just a word you can throw around. Love is something that shows in what you DO with your life." Oh I was steaming!
Especially while all these tawdry revelations are fresh, it is easy to jump on the criticize-John-Edwards train. But as I think about it, John Edwards isn't the only one who thinks that he can say one thing and do another. The church is full of people who SAY they love God more than anything. But their actions tell a different story. A very different story. The beautiful few chapters of I John are very poignant in describing this great chasm--plainly stating that if you say you love God and hate your brother or sister, you are a liar. Ouch.
As one expose after another has come to light, I have found myself thinking over and over, "How in the world did he think he was going to get away with that? Did he not realize that big transgressions like this were bound to be exposed?" And, while I don't have the answer to that question for John Edwards, I think the same question applies to the life of a Christian. Do people really think that they can be hateful to their brothers and sisters--an explicit violation of Jesus' command to love one another as He loved us--and get away with it? The tragic history of race relations in this nation tells me that too many people have the same disconnect between their behavior and God's command to love. Do people who violate Jesus' explicit teaching to love actually think that they can violate God's law that seriously and spout off some Sunday morning affirmation of John 3:16 and expect everything will be ok? Love is something that shows--or doesn't show--in actions.
In my uncharitable opinion right now, John Edwards deserves every word of criticism directed at him. So does Mark Sanford. So does Tiger Woods -- and the list goes on and on. And they are, especially right now, easy targets. But every time we point a finger at someone else, four fingers point back to us. Do our actions stand up to our professed loves? Do we think that we can blatantly ignore the main teachings of Jesus and get away with it? Although our situations may not have reached the headlines or television news flashes, the disconnect between professed love and life actions puts us in the same boat with the disgraced public figures. Our actions will measure the truth of what we say. And we dare not think we can have a big disconnect between our proclamations and our actions and think we will not get caught.