Once I was a thief… for about 6 times each week onstage.
A few years ago, I played Jean Valjean in a production of the musical Les Miserables. It was a life-changing experience, and a story that continues to teach me.
As a newly-released convict, Valjean robs a Bishop who had shown him kindness. When Valjean is apprehended and thrown at the Bishop’s feet holding the loot, the Bishop tells police the stolen items were gifts. Then the Bishop even adds more expensive items of silver to Valjean’s cache. He tells the officers Valjean must have forgotten these when he left.
That was my cue. As I held the bag, I stared up from the ground in curiosity mixed with fear. Valjean can’t help but think something this good must be a setup.
As the Bishop pulls me up from the floor, he implores me to use the goods to start a new life that glorifies God. Each night the scene closed with him singing these words to my face, “I have bought your soul for God.”
And Valjean does just that in the show, living out of life of selfless sacrifice even as the merciless policeman Javert chases him across France. So when Valjean gets the chance to kill Javert, the officer who has been chasing him mercilessly for years, he shows him mercy instead.
The mercy Valjean received from the Bishop was passed on to Javert. But the Javerts of this world never learn. By the end of the show, Javert’s resistance to mercy leads him to suicide.
I believe it’s that same “joy of judging” and resistance to mercy that is killing many self-appointed “officers” of the church right now.
I confess that each time I read of a religious leader’s public failure, I find myself brimming with righteous outrage just like Javert. I get angry when pastor’s sins are published across the news. I pontificate about what that pastor should have done differently. I find others talking about it on social media and put in my own two cents worth. I want everyone to know that I never would have done any of the horrible things those pastors did…
…or in 1st Century terms, I find a few scattered stones laying on the ground nearby and begin warming up the old pitching arm. The “church of Javert” has such a pleasing liturgy for the self-righteous. And it has always had eager adherents, even in Jesus’ day.
They say that story of the adulterous woman in John, chapter 8 is missing from some ancient manuscripts. Honestly, I’m not surprised. It’s a story some religious people probably wish wasn’t in the Bible. A night out with the boys just isn’t complete without a little mob violence, but they found Jesus to be quite the party-pooper. He always knew how to take the “fun” out of “fundamentalism”.
When the Pharisees call for Jesus to judge her, He said famously. “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”. Notice He wasn’t saying that what the woman did was right or acceptable. He simply pointed out that everyone of them was in exactly the same boat as her!
Thought the Pharisees dropped their rocks and departed, I believe they did so with a palpable sense of disappointment. Why? Because shaming others is fun. It makes us feel better about our own inadequacies. It’s like a spiritual seesaw: as long as I keep you down on the ground, I’m sure to look higher up than you!
Shaming is so easy for most church people because we so quickly forget the view from the ground. Many of us grew up in church and probably have never been publicly shamed. Few of us really know the taste of dust in our mouths, kicked up by the righteous mob.
Acting in Les Mis helped me a bit to identify with the ground-dwellers. But I really earned my doctorate for it in my job as a jail chaplain. Each week, I was teaching the Bible to men who had failed miserably in life. I counseled men who were even child molesters, and some who had brutally killed their own families. Over time, I couldn’t help but put myself in their place.
What if I was the one wearing the orange jumpsuit? What if I had made the same choices they had? How would I convince myself to keep living everyday?
I knew one lady at church who loved to flip through the mugshots featured in our local newspaper. She especially loved finding someone she knew. I always wanted to confront her that she was entertained by the very lives I was trying to redeem each day at the jail.
Seeing life from the grown-up has changed my perspective. Every time now I’m tempted to judge someone, a little voice inside my soul starts speaking…
“Hey, what do you think it would be like if some of your secret sins were exposed on social media?”
“What if people could see the selfish motives behind good things you’ve done?”
“What if you were exposed for the sinner you truly are and people delighted in shaming you?
Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner.
How soon we good church folk forget what it is like to feel forsaken. Though we preen with false humility, we stopped believing we were wretched a long time ago.
If we knew how deserving we all are of public disgrace, we’d seek to “cover over” the sins of others (1 Peter 4:8), not expose them. Not “cover” to keep the person from facing justice, but out of mercy for the shame he and his family must feel. To cover it the way a mother would protect her child, even when the child is wrong.
Simply put, when we truly love someone as we’re called to love all people, we aren’t eager to announce their sins to others. When we love we seek to heal, not shame.
As the world around us delights in “cancelling” others with shame, healing, restitution, and restoration should be our focus. We were never meant to be spiritual voyeurs – “Peeping Toms” into the failures of fellow believers.
When I realize I deserve to be looking up at handfuls of rocks, I’ll probably keep my mouth shut about everyone else. Instead of shaming others, I’ll be reminded to repent of my OWN sins and leave judging the world to Someone who’s worthy.
There’s only One who’ll ever be worthy to judge. And so far, He hasn’t asked for my help.
Thanks to thieves and prisoners I’ve known, I’ve learned a lot about being on the ground looking up. I’ve learned to drop my own stones and use my hands to pull up the other beggars from the dirt instead. Because that’s just what Someone did for me.
Never forget that the stones we gather for another’s execution can be just as easily used in turn for our own.
