The Problem of 'Schadenfreude'

As most of you know, the NFL season is about to begin.  Praise God! Lots of people are excited about the upcoming season as always.  Some familiar teams like New England and Green Bay will be in the mix as favorites to win the Super Bowl.  Some new contenders include the Los Angeles Rams and the Jacksonville Jaguars.  And of course, little is expected from the perennially pathetic Cleveland Browns, Chicago Bears and NY Jets.  In Las Vegas you can bet on anything.  The saddest story I read gave odds on the first head football coach to be fired.  The favorite to be the first coach fired is Tampa Bay’s head coach, followed by Cleveland and Denver’s head coach.

As I thought about that, I thought about our apparent fascination in America with watching people fail and fall.  I can’t think of any kind of story that receives more press coverage than the stories of failure, or stories of a fall from grace.  Who can ever forget OJ Simpson in the white Bronco, the Matt Lauer or Harvey Weinstein scandals, or the very public moral failures of Jim Baker or Jimmy Swaggert?  I don’t know why these stories are so popular.  Maybe it’s what psychologists call “Schadenfreude”, the emotion of taking pleasure in others misfortune.  The explanation is that these stories make us feel better about ourselves.  We look for qualities in that person that caused their failure, evaluate ourselves to be sure we don’t have that same quality, and then sleep contentedly.  I think we have all probably experienced this emotion ourselves once or twice in our lives. 

Of course, if we do this, we are only betraying our own insecurities.  We don’t know OJ Simpson or Matt Lauer or what makes them tick. We only know that we are not murderers, serial cheaters, or sexual abusers.  This makes us feel safe that the same things that happened to them can’t happen to us.  What this emotion ignores is that we are all sinners in one way or another.  James says whoever is guilty of breaking the law at any point is guilty of breaking the whole law.  Jesus said if a man looks lustfully at another woman he has already committed adultery.   We all know that we are lawbreakers and we are thankful that we are not public figures whose failures will be exposed to the whole world on Facebook and Twitter. But God knows our failures even though the world may not.  

Paul warned us in Romans 12 to not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, but to think so as to have sound judgment.  If we do that, we will not rejoice in anyone else’s failure.  We will say, “There but for the grace of God go I.”  When a brother falls, Galatians 6 tells is to “restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, each one looking to yourself so you will not be tempted.”  We must always be on guard or failure will come quickly.  Jesus said, “Broad is the gate that leads to destruction and many find it.  Narrow is the gate that leads to life and few find it.”   We know that it is only by God’s grace that we stay on the path toward the narrow gate.  

As Christians, we don’t bet on which coach will be fired first and then root against him.  We don’t watch Matt Lauer’s moral failures and rejoice that someone who seemed to have it all crashed and burned. Schadenfreude is not Biblical. It’s the opposite of the compassion that believers are to have for others, even if their bad decisions led to their failures.  Consider these examples:  David committed reprehensible sin with Bathsheba and yet God spared him.  Paul was a murderer who became the greatest evangelist the world has ever known.  John Mark deserted Paul in Perga, but was later was deemed useful in ministry. Peter denied Christ three times and still the Lord restored him.  God was not be done with any of these men. Failure is one of the tools that God uses to draw people to Himself.  I don’t know what the future holds for public figures like OJ Simpson, Matt Lauer or Harvey Weinstein. OJ Simpson served time, and Harvey Weinstein may as well.  But God still may not be done with them.  When someone in our circle of influence fails, let’s never be part of the problem by rejoicing in it.  Let’s be part of the solution by restoring one where we can Biblically, and helping him walk with Christ again.  

And when we fail, even if no one knows it, know that our story is not yet complete.  God loves us, and the reason that we still have breath in our lungs is that God has a purpose for our lives.  We repent and turn back to Him.  There is grace at the cross for all who will come!