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“We are,…..PENN STATE!” This is the mantra used over and over again at Penn State football games, pep rallies, alumni events, and, occasionally, spontaneously on campus. It once meant something quite different than it does today. It was spoken to express the bond one felt with the school, fellow students, alumni, and, yes, the football program, especially its coach, Joe Paterno. As you may know I am an alumnus of Penn State. I once proudly spoke those four words with a broad smile and happy heart. Now the heart is disheartened and the smile gone. Like many (most?) alumni I too have my own personal story of encounter with the famed coach who always seemed to have time for any student that crossed his path. He was gracious, interested, and real. It is always especially difficult when someone admired so much disappoints so deeply.

One can only wonder about the terrible scandal at Penn State. It was a football program known for academic excellence, sportsmanship, clean recruiting and fair play. The critics were many for their refusal to run up the score to advance in the ranking. Today’s focus on the scandal and the program have not revealed it to be anything other than it appeared in these areas. However it failed tragically in a much deeper level. Overall it was still about winning. It was still about the institution. How can someone like Joe Paterno, so grand and ethical almost to the point of obsession in some areas be so corrupt in yet another?

Welcome to the world! We live in a place and are part of a species where contradiction seems the rule. One of the world’s great cultures produces the holocaust. A nation known for liberty and freedom spends nearly its first one hundred years enslaving one race while subduing and working to control and possibly exterminate yet another. We live in a world where evil happens. We are a people who are all subject to evil’s taunts and temptations. This is not to excuse anyone. It is to describe the situation in which we live. It is to describe you and me. We are a part of this world and fallen humanity. Headlines scream daily about some evil somewhere. And you and I sometimes unwittingly, sometimes knowingly participate in some of the world’s ills. We are very much a part of fallen humanity. And there is no way out.

We need someone. We need someone to come. Advent is here. it reminds us there is someone who comes and does more than simply enter this world. This one comes to be a part of it. This one comes to be a part of its joy and its misery. This one comes to embrace us. Our sin does not keep this one away. In fact, it would seem to make him more eager to come and be with us. This one comes above all to redeem and bring new life to places of death.

My note today is from the dedication of our current Campus Center about fifty years ago.  The words were written and spoken by Pastor John Arthur, Director of Campus Ministry from our predecessor body, the Lutheran Church in America. Ruth Wootten found this in her personal archives and shared it with me. I thought it worth repeating. I quoted this in my September 11 sermon.    

If anyone is capable of writing/printing this in an attractive manner suitable for framing, let me know. I think it would be nice to post in a prominent place in the Campus Center.  Let me know if you are able and willing to do this. Thank you!  Perhaps, following Pastor Arthur’s words we should rename the Campus Center ” The Well”? 

Pastor John Arthur:”I wish to affirm today that the center we have built together would be something like that well in Samaria…Prostitutes, thieves, and atheists were effectively excluded from the public places of worship, but they could come to the well…Let it be neutral ground.  Let it be where students share a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine and speak to each other of their deepest concerns–or simply enjoy each other as members of God’s universal family.  This may take some forbearance on the part of the church people. But let us stand fast against those religionists who want to separate Christ from mankind,–who want to separate Christians from the rest of the people–who think that God is only in temples and all those guys on Calvary must be thieves. 

There was something about Jesus which made it possible for him to have dinner with the irreligious without killing the conversation. And when Jesus was thirsty, he didn’t look around for a religious person to draw some water from the well….It is often said that Jesus spent so much time with the sinners because it was good missionary strategy.  Perhaps this was not the case, but rather that he simply felt more at home with them than with the scribes and pharisees….I believe this campus center should reflect the kinds of things that Jesus did–which, only in retrospect, and rather tardily did people recognize as being a real MINISTRY. 

May God grant that this will be a place of ferment and excitement!  Let the music and singing ring out and be heard from the street! Let study groups challenge students and stretch their imagination and understanding!  Let the pastors’ offices or studies be sanctuaries for those who have burdens to heavy to bear alone, and for those who simply want to talk with another human being.  Let it be a place where forgiveness is not pronounced ceremonial in a worship service, but where it is daily lived. Let the patio be an open forum where any idea can be openly expounded.  Let the love of God so abound that, by His grace, people may no longer look upon this center as a religious building but rather, in the best sense, as a public place, a well.”