Armstrong and the Power of Penance

Lance Armstrong came (kinda sorta) clean during an interview with Oprah Winfrey Thursday night—telling the world that he used performance-enhancing drugs to help him win seven Tour de France titles.

"I made my decisions," he said. "They are my mistakes."

He said he bullied people and lost himself in the midst of his competitive desire. "It's a major flaw, and it's a guy who expected to get whatever he wanted and to control every outcome," Armstrong said. "And it's inexcusable. And when I say there are people who will hear this and never forgive me, I understand that. I do."

Oprah's interview allowed Armstrong to apologize. But—perhaps befitting a man who, shortly after his Tour de France titles were stripped from him, tweeted out a picture of him lounging underneath the framed yellow jerseys he won—his apology didn't actually sound or feel that apologetic.

He did not cry. He did not sound particularly contrite. He insists that he did not dope during his 2009 comeback (the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency would beg to differ) and denied numerous allegations that he bullied other teammates into doping. And while I don't feel really comfortable in measuring tears to weigh a person's level of contrition, many believe that Armstrong's admission are more strategic than heartfelt: He wants to rehabilitate his image. He hopes that the powers-that-be will shrink his lifetime ban from the sport of cycling to, perhaps, eight years.

And while there's lots of different angles with which to discuss Armstrong's Oprah mea culpa—a great faith-based take can be found at RelevantMagazine—the saga triggers, at least in me, a more basic question: Just what does a real apology look like, anyway?

This is a pretty important question for me and my faith, given the centrality of forgiveness in Christianity. One of its central tenants is that all of us, like Armstrong, are dirty and guilty. All of us are in desperate need of mercy. And we're deeply grateful that our God is an infinitely merciful and forgiving one—whether we confess our sins on Oprah or not.

So when I hear people bark at Armstrong for his insincerity—he's not sorry he doped; he's sorry he was caught—it makes me wonder about my own level of sincerity when it comes to grappling with my own sins and stuff. I mean, don't a lot of Christians fall into the same camp? Most of us remember being told in Sunday School that, if we didn't confess our sins, we were gonna wind up in hell. In some churches, that's the primary reason giving for falling in line with Christianity at all: If you don't, you'll pay for it.

What if we judge own confessions as we do Armstrong's? And, if we find that we're a little Armstrongish in our confessions, does God forgive even our insincerity?

Maybe this is all simple stuff that I should know, but it's something that I struggle with at times. It reminds me a little of Claudius, the dastardly uncle in Shakespeare's Hamlet, as he wails about how awful he feels that he murdered his own brother to grab his kingdom and bed his wife. For him, asking for forgiveness means not just confessing his sin (which is hard enough), but completely repenting of it, too—pretty tricky, when he's surrounded by the perks of his murderous sin.

My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer

Can serve my turn? "Forgive me my foul murder"?

 That cannot be; since I am still possess'd

 Of those effects for which I did the murder,

 My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.

 May one be pardon'd and retain th' offence?

Claudius, had he lived through Act V, might've considered performing some serious penance for his nasty deed. Public relations officials believe that, if Armstrong is ever to be rehabilitated in the culture's eyes, he'll also have to repent and do a form of penance, Help Anti-Doping officials clean up the sport that had been so good to Armstrong when he, himself, was dirty. The culture might forgive, but it almost always demands some sort of recompense.

But we evangelicals—always wary of trying to work ourselves into heaven—don't really have a great tradition of penance. We confess to God; He forgives us. It's a nice system.

But if God doesn't need us to perform penance, perhaps we mortals do for ourselves. Make what recompense we can for what bad we've done. Maybe this can slip into unneeded and perhaps spiritually unhealthy self-flagellation at times. But at others, it seems appropriate. At least we should not, as Claudius says, "retain th' offence."

The same day I was reading about Armstrong's expected confession, I was also came across the story of Margot Riphagen. Seems she received an unexpected letter recently—one containing four rings and a handwritten confession note. The letter writer admits that he or she had taken the rings from the Riphagen house 15 years ago.

"I am truly sorry for any pain, heartache that my actions may have caused your family," the letter reads. "I hope that you can find it in your hearts to forgive me. As an adult I realize how sentimental items like this can be.”

It was signed, simply, “a dumb kid who wants to right a wrong.”

The rings, it turns out, were indeed very sentimental: Wedding bands and anniversary presents. “We never thought we would get any of the stuff back,” Margot admitted.

Apologies can be tricky things. We doubt the sincerity of others. We may even question our own. But this, is in my mind, is the way a real apology should look. And maybe Armstrong could think about that a bit before he asks for an early reinstatement into the world of cycling.  

Character Counts. Really.

Jon Embree, who had been head coach for the University of Colorado football team, was officially let go after two terrible, horrible, no-good very-bad years. In two seasons, the Colorado Buffaloes won four games, and their 1-11 campaign last year was the worst in the school’s 123-year history.

But during a tearful news conference, Embree indicated that his teams had a lot to be proud of.

"You had the highest GPA the last three semesters that this school has ever had in the football program,” he told them. “You stayed out of trouble. You guys represented yourselves well. You set a legacy and a standard, and as I told you guys when we're going through tough times, you're not judged by the scoreboard at the end of the day.

"I was,” he concluded. “But you won't be."

And so on his way out the door, Embree pointed to one of the prickly dichotomies of our time—perhaps of most times: The tension between the ends and the means, between “just do your best” and “just win, baby.”

I’ve raised two athletic kids, and from the very beginning, I told them that sports were about friendships and teamwork and dedication. I don’t know if I ever explicitly ladled on the old, “It doesn’t matter whether you win or lose” cliché: I hope not. I have standards, after all. But I always hoped that the meat of that message got through.

Except it never really got through to me.

See, while my kids were pretty sportsy, I never was. The only game I liked in gym was dodgeball, because I was sure to get pegged in the game’s first 30 seconds and be able to sit down for the rest of the period. But even though I never could do sports, I’ve always loved them, and I loved watching my kids play.

Correction: I loved watching my kids win.

My son played on a competitive soccer team that won a lot. My daughter was in a park-and-rec league where most of the girls rarely knew the score—and a few didn’t know their goal.

My son was a defensive dervish, flying through the air to thwack soccer balls with his noggin … and if he sometimes crashed into an opposing player hard enough to rattle the guy’s teeth a little, well, that’s all part of the game.

My daughter was both an offensive and defensive force, jitterbugging through the opposition like—well, a jitterbug, I suppose—earning oohs and ahhs from the parents on the sideline and making her father smile with a sort of geekish intensity … until about the third game in the season (each season), when my daughter always mysteriously throttled back. My mid-season, she talked as much as she kicked, sometimes (gasp) complimenting members of the opposition.

I love both of my children with equal fervor.

Alas, I couldn’t say the same about their soccer games.

We like to win. We like our winners. Let’s face it: Much of our American culture, from our economy to our politics, from our GPA-obsessed educational system to our winner-take-all sporting competitions—reflect a preoccupation with winning.

And yet, you don’t see a lot of winners in the Bible. Oh, sure, many of our favorite characters wound up on top (and we would concentrate on those stories, wouldn’t we?), but often not before they had some devastating setbacks and heartbreaking losses. God, I believe, is a little like a diehard Cubs fan: He has a soft spot for loveable losers.

See, losing doesn’t just reveal our character: It builds it. Winning can be pretty distracting when you think about it: Knowledgeable jocks say all the time that “winning covers a multitude of sins:” And while they may mean that teams don’t bicker as much if they’re seeing success on the field and don’t necessarily notice that their punter’s horrible, I think the cliché has a deeper meaning: When we’re on top of the world, we can lose touch with our real priorities—what we’re really supposed to be doing and how we should be living. Who knows? If Joseph hadn’t been thrown into that well and just spent his whole life relishing his father’s special coat, he might’ve been a big jerk. If King David hadn’t needed to deal with Saul in his early days and his wayward son Absolom in his old age, he might not have gone down in biblical history quite so favorably.

When I first published my book, I think I got a little too caught up in the “win” of the moment: I imagined that it’d sell well and I’d earn royalties and, instead of thinking about what the book might do in people’s lives, I started thinking about all the remodeling products my book might help me buy.

Well, God on the Streets of Gotham has, to this point, not helped me do any hefty remodeling projects. It’s not sold well enough. But maybe that’s a blessing—if not for my fantastic publishers at Tyndale, at least for me. It helped me see the book better not as a tool for my own enrichment—a tool to help me “win” in the publishing world (whatever winning there looks like)—but as maybe something that’ll help a few people who read it, whoever and however many they may be.

My son’s team won a couple of championships, and those were great: But looking back, seeing him hoist a trophy isn’t that memorable. No, what I remember is the afternoon when Colin got thwacked in the face with someone else’s head. He got up, blood streaming from his nose and mouth, and never flinched—ready to defend the goal as he always had. And Emily, I don’t remember her soccer career as much as a cross-country meet held on a 40-degree night and in a heavy, freezing drizzle. She was never the fastest runner on the team; it wasn’t really a priority for her. But that evening, she ran for three miles, her glasses covered in ice and rain so she could barely see. She slipped twice, fell, and still crossed the finish line. She walked to the stands, water dripping from her hair and nose and chin, her teeth chattering.

A few other runners bailed that night, but not her. Not my daughter. She didn’t win, but she finished. She finished strong. And when I saw her in all her bedraggled misery, I was so proud I almost cried.

Embree’s right: At the end of the day, we’re not judged by what the scoreboard says. Winning, in real life, is much different.