Putting People on Pedestals That Don’t Belong There

People on pedestals have a
disturbing habit of falling.

Hero worship. It’s a national pastime. Fan magazines are filled with supposed “heroes.” We even like them super-sized – these days you can’t go to a movie theater that doesn’t offer some new “superhero” film. We idolize people – real or fictional – placing them on pedestals so they can more easily bask in our adoration. The problem is, they don’t belong there. 

That’s because all of us – even the rich, famous and powerful – are broken, flawed and fallible, anything but perfect. And we have the disconcerting tendency of proving it. When heroes fall, they leave scores of disillusioned admirers in their wake.

 

It’s not hard to find stories on TV, magazines or the Internet about how an A-list celebrity has gotten caught up in some kind of scandal. You can probably think of several examples right now. The media seem to revel in reports of Christian leaders who fall, as if to say, “See, he/she isn’t the godly person they claim to be!” Even if the disgraced persons never actually made that claim.

 

It does hurt to hear about these failures. These folks – whether pastors, entertainers, authors or conference speakers – are supposed to be setting the example for the rest of us, right?

 

We also provide pedestals for people whose names aren’t in the “Who’s Who” of society. It might be a parent, sibling, uncle or aunt, a mentor, Sunday school teacher, co-worker or boss. We give them places of honor in our minds, holding them to the loftiest standards. If and when they fall, their crash seems of seismic proportions.

 

A number of folks have toppled from my own imagined pedestals. That was largely my fault, however, since they never asked to be put up there. Hearkening back to my student journalism days at Ohio State, I covered the football team and had the opportunity to interact face-to-face with the legendary Woody Hayes. Sadly, for many people his name evokes the image of an aging coach, in frustration, throwing a punch at a Clemson football player who sealed the Buckeyes’ defeat in a bowl game. Understandably, that was his last day as a football coach. Talk about dropping from a pedestal!

 

Years ago, soon after accepting a job to work in vocational ministry as a magazine editor, I talked with a pastor friend about his experiences in parachurch ministry. Harry offered some valuable advice. He said not to expect to find any perfect people, walking around in flowing robes and hands always folded in piety. “They’ll be normal human beings, filled with flaws just as we are.” How true those words proved to be. 

 

In the Bible, God minces no words about this reality. Romans 3:23, for example, tells us, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Earlier in the chapter the writer, the apostle Paul, declares, “There is no one righteous, not even one…” (Romans 3:10). 

 

Years after his dramatic conversion from persecutor of Christians to fervent ambassador for Jesus Christ, Paul still confessed, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me” (7:15-21). Wow! If this was the case for one of Jesus’ foremost apostles, what hope do we have?

 

But that’s the point – apart from the power of Jesus Christ through His indwelling Spirit, we’ll never measure up. As devotional writer Oswald Chambers said, “All of God’s people are ordinary people who have been made extraordinary for the purpose He has given them.”

 

If we’re honest, we won’t want anyone placing us on a pedestal. Even though we may put up a good front, we all struggle inwardly, alternately succeeding and failing to live as we know God wants us to live. The adage, “Do as I say, not as I do,” is a terrible philosophy. It’s better not to point to ourselves at all, but always to Jesus.

 

The apostle might have been addressing this pedestal problem when he rebuked believers in the ancient city of Corinth: “…One of you says, ‘I follow Paul’; another, ‘I follow Apollos’; another, ‘I follow Cephas’; still another, ‘I follow Christ.’ Is Christ divided?” (1 Corinthians 1:11-13).

 

Even today, we find it tempting to become disciples of one compelling preacher or another, accepting their particular theological slant as holy writ. There again, that’s placing them on pedestals extremely unstable at best.

 

Instead, we’d be wise to do as Paul humbly declared, “For I resolved to nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified…. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power” (1 Corinthians 2:2-5). We need only one pedestal, one that’s reserved for the Lord alone. 

How Are You Coming Along With Your Resolutions?

Well, we’re already two months into the new year. The virus is still with us, but now we have vaccines. We have a new President, but some politicians and factions in our country are still aggressively hating the former President. We’re still wearing masks, social distancing and washing our hands – at least most of us are. So 2021 is still looking suspiciously like 2020.

 

Which brings us to the question at hand: How are you doing on your New Year’s resolutions? Have you made the changes you intended to make? Are you making progress on losing those pounds you added over the holidays? Have you succeeded in breaking that bothersome habit? How about that hobby you promised yourself you would finally take up – have you done that yet?

 If all or most of your answers to these questions are in the negative, take heart. We’re in good company, millions of fellow humans whose best intentions have yet to reach fruition. Resolutions – and even goals – seemingly are meant to be broken or disregarded. They make us feel good while making them, but lead to frustration when we fail to keep them.

 

When I said we’re in good company, I can cite none other than the apostle Paul, who admitted struggling with similar challenges. He said, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Romans 7:15). We’ve all been there, right? ‘Why do I do what I don’t want to do, but find myself unable to do the things I want to do?’

 

Right after this, however, Paul wrote something that at first glance seems like passing the buck, refusing to accept responsibility for his failures: 

“And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing.” 

 

Then he concludes with the declaration, “Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it” (Romans 7:16-20).

 

When I read this years ago for the first time (and a few times after that), I thought, “What in the world is Paul talking about?” It reminded me of the excuse often employed by the late comedian Flip Wilson’s character, Geraldine: “The devil made me do it!” Later I came to realize that comparison wasn’t far off. 

 

The apostle wasn’t writing about shedding a few pounds, or not keeping a personal commitment to start building bird houses. He was referring to insidious, inescapable sin. The Bible speaks about our having a sin nature, one we’re born with and remains with us until we die. However, when we’re “born again,” as Jesus told Nicodemus (John 3:3,7), we receive a new nature. 

 

For whatever reason, even though we’re made “new creations” in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), God chooses not to eliminate our sin natures. As a result, throughout our lives we wrestle with internal conflict, sometimes doing things we don’t really want to do and not doing things we sincerely desire to do. But there’s good news.

 

In another of his letters, Paul wrote, “I can do everything through [Christ] who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). Speaking to His disciples, Jesus declared the importance of their dependence upon Him if they are to accomplish anything of eternal value: “apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). 

 

Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can overcome our old nature – which some translations of the Bible term, “the flesh.” So, unlike the disclaimer of the comic character Geraldine, the devil can’t make us do anything – if we are reborn in Christ. (But the enemy can make some enticing suggestions.)

 

Whether we’re striving to overcome besetting sins, or simply seeking to follow through on worthwhile resolutions or goals we embraced on Jan. 1, we have the Lord’s strength to persevere them until we’ve fulfilled them. ‘I can do all things – through Christ!’