When you have spent the better part of your life teaching and learning in an Episcopal school, as I have, you witness more than your share of the good side and the bad side of people. After 30 years, I have come to the conclusion that the most important thing I can teach, or ask of myself and others, is accountability.
Accountability, accountability, accountability.
I cannot think of another word that is so closely associated with schools than Accountability.
At the heart of the lessons read in our chapel today, from Zephaniah to Matthew, is accountability.
“I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the people who rest complacently on their dregs, those who say in their hearts, "The LORD will not do good, nor will he do harm. Their wealth shall be plundered, and their houses laid waste.”
This is a stern warning to all of us that there will be a reckoning one day, because our God is a God who searches our hearts, and knows what motivates us.
In today’s lessons we are warned that complacency is an attitude that disappoints God.
That is why Jesus focuses attention on the one person who has the least. Jesus wants us to understand that God mourns when any one of us becomes paralyzed by fear so that we choose complacency over right action.
Fear changes us. Pride blinds us. Anxiety cripples us. Lack of faith makes us hesitate.
Fear makes us do the things we know are wrong. Pride blinds us so that we do not see that what we are doing is wrong. Anxiety directs us to act in ways that are contrary to our faith and reason. Lack of faith turns our heads away from the salvation that would liberate us, and points us toward the greed and power that would enslave us.
Thus, we must hold ourselves, and each other, accountable for every thought we have and every action we do. When we see something that is wrong, we must be proactive, and we must do something about it.
It is not enough to note a wrong in our minds, or pass along the information to another. We must follow through, persevere to the end, finish the job.
The headmaster of the school where I serve wrote an important piece on the recent situation facing Penn State University. In it, he proclaimed that human beings have a sacred trust to honor and protect each other, and that we have a responsibility to confront others when they violate that trust. We are responsible forever.
In contrast to this responsibility, one born when the school established its mission of faith and learning, students are being raised in a secular culture that teaches just the opposite. We are counseled to lay low, make no waves, bury the truth. We are counseled to misrepresent ourselves on job applications, cheat a little here and there on tests, hold back information about ourselves, in order to present a favorable portfolio.
The worst thing is that some of advice is given to us by people who are supposed to be role models— parents, mentors and team leaders.
Some of these folks, in turn, have gotten by on the clever tactics they have learned along the way: reporting abuse to the next higher level, passing the buck, doing just enough to stay afloat.
And so I ask, where is the moral base? If we do not see one, then isn't it our sacred responsibility establish one?
The man who hid his talent was doing just enough to stay afloat. As far as I know, there were no radar devices back then, but if he were here today, we would say that he was flying under the radar. Too bad for him because God’s radar is better than ours. God saw through his clever ploy.
A small dodge of responsibility, like the one he made, if you made it today, might get you a reprimand. A big dodge, however, will cost you your career. Just ask Joe Paterno. Mr. Paterno was a teacher and a coach for over 40 years at one university. Some say that he was Penn State University. With a record 409 wins as coach of a first-rate college football team, and in his fifth decade as a career college professional, there can be no doubt that Coach Paterno knew the importance of accountability, and I am sure that he held hundreds if not thousands of others accountable to him and to themselves for their actions and deeds during his five decades of service.
But one thing brought this legendary coach down, tarnishing his reputation: He failed to hold himself accountable for something he knew was wrong. He passed the buck. He did not follow what his faith should have told him was right. The suffering of the victims, we must assume, was somehow not worth his energy.
As students and teachers at a top school, we are the folks with the 5 and 10 talents. Therefore, a lot is expected of us. We have to be trusted even more than those who have less. If we have five talents, then we are accountable for all five talents. If we have ten talents, then we are accountable for all ten—not nine, or eight, but all ten! If we have only one talent, or as some have confessed to me personally, “Mr. D, there is nothing I am best at or even good at.” I say this: We are accountable for what we do have, and to the full measure, all the way.
Accountability is what it says it is, an accounting. When you hold a person accountable, it makes sense to both of you, and when the reckoning occurs, neither side goes away mad. We just shake hands and go away justified. If you call me out for a mis-deed, I must fix it. If I call you out because you did not do your job to the best of your ability, you should correct the flaw and do it right from then on. Holding ourselves and others accountable is a good thing and it breeds respect.
As students and teachers at a fine school, we are called to more accountability than others, and we should be proud of that higher standard. We know more, have more, and continue to acquire more every day. The world is counting on us.
What do you think? Can you be counted on to be an example for others, to live the kind of life that makes this world better? Then do it, for God’s sake! Speak out. Address issues with faith and learning and always with truth, justice, love and faithfulness.
May God bless us in fulfilling this sacred mission.
