So far during our summer sermon series on the life of David from the Old Testament, we have learned a lot about this man after God's own heart. As we prepare for the home stretch of this sermon series, David is a great example of what it means to be a faithful follower and leader for God.
David has taught us to not allow outward appearances to get in the way of serving God, to know that there is no giant in our lives that is too big for God and for us to handle, that when we experience a loss we can grieve with hope, to do whatever we can to seek unity among God's people, to express our appreciation of God's grace through dance and celebration, and to know that anything we give to God is in response to what God has already given to us and will continue to give us.
This Sunday, will be the first time that David will teach us what NOT to do because of his adulterous affair with Bathesheba and the killing of Uriah. Since David did so much good but also sinned greatly, how do we reconcile these two sides of who David was?
It's interesting that the news about iconic football coach, Joe Paterno's concealment of Jerry Sandusky's crimes has surfaced almost exactly when this sermon series begins to focus on David's very poor decisions. I will do my best to not highlight more than what is needed between these two prominent figures but there is an interesting comparison to be made.
Timothy McGettigan, a professor of sociology at Colorado State-Pueblo helps makes sense of the rise and fall of iconic figures by stating, "What we do in a lot of cases - and mass media helps with this - is if people do noteworthy things, they tend to get a great deal of media attention, and that builds on itself and creates what is known as a cult of personality. What we do in a lot of ways with the mass media is take people who have done exceptional things and make them a larger than life character, and then we do things like naming things after them that sort of enshrine their uniqueness."
The problem is that when they don't live up to this image and we have statues made in their honor during their lifetime, the more outrage we will feel at the events that have transpired. Statues that were meant for eternity will be abruptly torn down.
Even with David's many sins as we will begin to see in our sermon series, King David's statue still proudly stands in a museum in Florence, Italy. I wonder if the casual observer of that statue is aware of David's terrible sins when they gaze upon it. The statue stands because David also did a lot of good for God and for God's people. But it also stands because it was built centuries after he died!
This is why professor McGettigan offers this advice: "The best rule for naming any physical thing is to make sure that they are dead and gone, and some universities have rules that you have to wait five years after a person passes away before you name anything after them. I think that's a good idea."
I am one to agree that Paterno's statue needed to come down immediately. It would be a mistake to take it down only to satisfy our own feelings of hypocrisy due to how we have fed into the cult of the Joe Paterno personality. I hope the statue was taken down to help in the healing process, but also as a sobering reminder that every human being is flawed and we all need to be accountable for our actions.
And the good news is that God's grace is available for all who have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
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