Tony's Take

It seems as though every day someone famous is getting arrested. Having been through the experience myself, I don’t wish the publicity – or the accompanying booking and being placed in a cell – on anyone. I never paid much attention to it “b.a.” – “before arrest” – but now I can’t escape the fact that we are a nation of “gotchas.” We love when our celebrities, sports figures, and politicians have feet of clay. Somehow, we feel better about ourselves when we see what a mess “that guy” made of his life.

            

And it’s easy to pass judgment really. We aren’t like “them.” We’re smarter, more law-abiding, more ethical. There’s a great line in the Richard Gere movie “Primal Fear.” A reporter asks Gere’s client how he - a well-known criminal defense attorney – can defend obviously guilty people. Gere’s character matter-of-factly replies, “I believe good people can do bad things. There’s a difference between ‘good’ and perfect.”

            

The other day, former football coach and now NFL commentator Tony Dungy was asked about Aaron Hernandez. Hernandez, as most people know, is being held without bond in Massachusetts for the murder of an acquaintance. The storyline is typical of so many athletes-gone-wrong tales heard before. Hernandez was a great high school athlete from Connecticut with a full scholarship to the University of Miami. The New England Patriots drafted him even though there were a number of off field incidents during his college days. Signed in the off season to a $45 million contract extension, he now awaits trial on a murder charge that could send him to prison for life.

            

If Hernandez needed him, Dungy told the interviewer, he would go see him. No matter how badly we screw up, how low we fall, God doesn’t give up on us, Dungy said. Just as he has with Michael Vick and countless other men, Dungy would offer Hernandez prayer, support, and counseling. Dungy, you see, lives his faith. He is a man who has suffered in his own life, burying his oldest son who committed suicide. But Dungy believes in the power of grace. And, as I read Tony Dungy’s words, I wished I had his faith.

            

I’ve had a difficult past few weeks. Perhaps it’s deserved; perhaps not. Either way, it doesn’t make living day to day in these environs any easier. Someone told me last week, as they watched me go through the motions, “You know, God so loved the world means just that.” I gave him an odd look and he smiled and said “He didn’t qualify it. He didn’t say, He loved the folks who are good, or who didn’t screw up. He loves all of us. Quit being so hard on yourself. God hasn’t given up on you. Don’t give up on yourself.”

            

Ironic, isn’t it. My whole life going to church almost thirty years in a relationship, and I learn the meaning of unconditional love from a guy while I’m in prison. And I realized, that was what Tony Dungy was saying.

            

Dungy is not an apologist for a murderer. Neither did he say Michael Vick got a raw deal. What he is is a living, breathing example of what those of us who profess to believe in the Prince of Peace are called to do. That is, to love, and to then urge that you “go and sin no more.”

            

I’m not suggesting there aren’t consequences to our missteps. There are. Society has an absolute right to enforce laws; and punishment should be meted out. Too often, we revel in the missteps of others. We smugly profess “we” aren’t like those people. And, in our rush to condemn, our rush to distinguish ourselves from “them” (“I would never do that; I’m a good person.”) We set parameters that God Himself doesn’t.

As a little boy, my younger son loved the Bible story about Zacchaeus. He was a short man and very unpopular in his community because he served the oppressive Roman authorities as a tax collector. Tax collectors, in polite law-abiding Israelite society, were on par with murderers and thieves.

            

So Zacchaeus hears about an itinerant preacher who has been roaming the countryside healing people. The preacher is headed his way. Problem is Zacchaeus is too short to see him and too unpopular to be let through the crowd. Zacchaeus does the only thing he can think of to see the preacher; he climbs a sycamore tree.

            

The preacher passes by and sees Zacchaeus way up in the tree. There’s a great children’s Bible song about the “little man Zacchaeus.” Anyway, the preacher calls out to him and says, “Zacchaeus, come out of that tree. I want to go home with you and eat in your house.”

           

I think about that often. The preacher chose to call out and eat with the “bad” guy. Did he say, “give up being a tax collector, lead an honorable life and then I’ll come eat at house?” No. And Zacchaeus was overwhelmed; no one it seems had ever treated him with such love, respect, and compassion. The story concludes with Zacchaeus transformed. “Whatever I have wrongly taken I will pay back fourfold.”

            

Too often we sit in judgment. Too often we condemn and set requirements: “admit to this,” or “do this,” and then we will befriend you, or hate you. But as I thought about Tony Dungy’s words, I thought how opposite we are from God. He loves, He bestows grace, over and over sometimes it seems, until we finally have our Zacchaeus moment and live our lives His way.

            

The strange thing is, I’ve had to learn that on both sides while I’ve been in here. It was way too easy to set myself apart. “I’m not like that guy,” I’d tell myself. And, I missed the humanity of another man trying to undo the mistakes he made. And, I’ve been wracked with guilt over my failures, pleading almost daily for “just another chance.” Tony Dungy reminded me I don’t have to continue to sit in the sycamore tree. It’s time to come down.