Study 17 - July 2nd - 8th 2007

Being Put Under The Spotlight

“Whichever one of you has committed no sin may throw the first stone at her. --- When they heard this they all left one by one, the older one first. John Chapter 8: verse7 (CEV).

I must confess that it really annoys me how much the media chase after the stories of professional sports people, particularly team codes when they mess their life up with alcohol, driving or sex related problems. The media and their constant attention had a part to play in Craig Gower recently leaving the NRL and Penrith to play Rugby Union in France. John Daley is golf’s version of one who has found constant media attention for bad behaviour.

I hope you don’t get the wrong impression that I think the mistakes Craig and others make are not serious or should escape punishment, but what does annoy me is how much the media enjoy exposing these stories and the public reading them. We are all role models to young people, not just the athlete. The point is we all make mistakes in life and do things we regret, but our sins do not get splashed across the newspapers.

What interests me in our reading today is how the religious authorities wanted to make a public spectacle of a woman caught in adultery and to find a way to discredit Jesus. The law says she should be stoned to death. The Old Testament had what we would call today a harsh law about adultery, but we must understand that for that time there where good reasons. The leaders did not like Jesus and they wanted to find some way to trap him into doing something against their law.

However with Jesus a new era has arrived, one described in Chapter 1 verse 17 as one of grace (underserved kindness) and truth. Those two words summarise so much of what Jesus stands for; truth (no half measures are adequate) and grace; that means being willing to forgive.
Jesus didn’t ignore the law in responding to their question; he just made the point that whoever had not sinned could throw the first stone. Jesus has a habit of seeing through us. He could see that the last thing they were concerned about was justice, but rather revenge towards him and little interest in the woman.

What I have found about people is that we all have different problems weaknesses and sins. Some are more obvious than others and we tend to think some sins are worse than others. For example in sport we like to highlight the excesses of alcohol, drugs and antisocial behaviour.
But for God, the powerful abusing the weak, lying, pride, drunkenness, adultery, love of money, injustice, stealing, selfishness, wanting something that belongs to someone else and ignoring the poor are sins as well.

It is unlikely in a materialistic society such as ours that you will hear many sermons or discussions on the theme that “the love of money is the root of all evil”(1 Timothy Chapter 6:verse 10) or “love your enemy” (Matthew Ch 5: verse 43) when it comes to the place of money in our lives or on looking for peace in our world. It is a shame when we have these habits of highlighting the sins in others while ignoring others that are our own.
I have just finished reading a book entitled “God is Not Great, How Religion Poisons Everything” by Christopher Hitchens a passionate atheist. One of his objections is that when the church has power in society, it has used this for excessive indulgence, licence to kill, abuse and restrict freedom. You cannot but agree that this is true.

My wish is that we would be known as followers of Christ or Christian societies who are concerned for truth and grace.

Prayer
Lord, help me to show the same kind of understanding and compassion towards others as Jesus shows. Help me to avoid being a hypocrite, of seeing the faults of others, while ignoring mine. Amen.