The Useful Sinner is about a man who had a long sexual relationship with a woman who is not his wife and the aftermath of the whole thing. The first thing his wife did when he confessed to her was grab his hand and make him kneel at the bed with her and to pray. In the midst of her hurt, in the midst of her anguish, she gave her traitor husband grace. The book goes on to detail how just because they both wanted to work it out did not make it easy. They had to deal with the other woman and her husband, how their marriage ended because of it, and the public perceptions caused by the affair. The man's image was tarnished, and even worse his own wife now had a tarnished image for being attached to such a creep. Yet in the end through much prayer and counseling they worked it out.
I bring this up because of the findings of the last week of this weird Tiger Woods story. Today the world's #1 golfer, and richest athlete admitted to letting his family down and "transgressions." I hope and pray for Tiger's sake that his wife Elin is as gracious as the woman in the story. And that they would seek out the God of reconciliation in hopes of repairing their badly damaged marriage.
I think the problem with lifting up celebrities is we expect them to be better than ourselves. We want celebrities to be what we cannot be, gods on earth. This does not excuse Tiger's behavior whatsoever, but I think it is a common result of what happens when we push pride ahead of what we really are--dirty, rotten sinners. Tiger is fully responsible for what happened to his family and nobody else. But the idolizing of him that so many have done, myself being chief, does not help. Celebrities begin to believe their invincibility and seek out hidden lives to suppress something they never could handle. And many times this comes in the form of sexual sin and as a result despair.
Tiger seems to be in despair, and I hope he is. What he did is inexcusable and he needs to be forthright in that and feel the sting of that. But I also hope Tiger and his family find reconciliation in the Gospel of Hope that extends further beyond any possible despair or sin. Tiger Woods is a sinner, no kidding, he is a human being. This above any injury or "loss" on the golf course proves this. The question of whether or not Tiger Woods was really human stops with this story. He is human, the same fallen human the rest of us are. I think it would do everyone, myself included, a lot to just admit we're sinners and combat temptation that way instead of pretending we're above temptation or falling. Any one of us could fall like Tiger has, and that is the lesson we should take away from this.
In The Useful Sinner, the adulterous husband comes across St. Paul's words in Romans 7, "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me." --Romans 7:15-20
This is the cry of every human. We always do things we hate. Tiger Woods is no exception. Our hope is found in Jesus Christ who, in the flesh, overcame every temptation that we cannot withstand. I hope in this Advent Season Tiger and his wife Elin and their whole family can find the restoration, hope, and reconciliation that is only found in the God who took up residence in human flesh to beat back sin, death, and every evil.
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