In all of the rather distasteful blanket wall-to-wall coverage over the Phillip Scholfield and ‘This Morning’ TV saga I was struck by the number of people trying to understand it, although they may not have realised it, through the lens of Christian thought and belief. For example, Scholfield’s ‘This Morning’ colleague Alison Hammond upset by the revelations, broke down saying:
“..my mum always said ‘use your Bible as the Sat Nav for your life’, and in the Bible it says ‘he without sin cast the first stone’…”
Elsewhere in the forensic interview that the BBC’s Amol Rajan held with Scholfield he asked him:
“..they say ‘the truth sets you free,’ so for all the stress you’ve been living with, do you feel slightly liberated by speaking out?…”
Now both of these sayings come from the same part of the gospels, namely John 8, and start (surprise, surprise) regarding the matter of adultery. It is worth exploring them for the light they bring on the situation and the very nature of sin, forgiveness and freedom.
In John 8:7, the background is that Jesus was teaching people in the temple courts when Pharisees brough to him a woman who had been caught in adultery, they point out that the Law of Moses requires them to stone her as a punishment, and they tried to set a trap for Jesus by asking him what he thinks they should do.
Jesus is said to have “..bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger…” before saying to the group “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her”. We don’t know what it was Jesus wrote on the ground, but the effect of his statement was absolute- they were convicted by their conscience and left the scene. Talking to the adulterous woman, Jesus said simply “Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?...Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more”.
The point Jesus was making is who are we to judge? We are all sinners and have we the right to condemn? As Christians we are called to be kind, compassionate and offer graceful love to each and every one, forgiving those just as Christ God has forgiven us. It was something He referred to in Matthew 7:1-3 when he said “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”. In other words, we should practice what we preach before criticising others.
Later in John 8:31-38, after the incident with the adulterous woman, people questioned who Jesus actually was. Jesus explained he was not of this world but was carrying out the wishes of the Father-God. People did not understand Him but to those who did, Jesus said “ if you continue in my word then you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”.
That statement ‘The truth shall make you free’ is of course one of the most famous ever spoken and not surprisingly a considerable number of organisations have it as their motto from the CIA to numerous universities. Although Jesus was talking about the truth in the sense that by believing in Him you will be free from the slavery of sin, it has another practical meaning that by living a lie- presenting yourself as someone who you are not – is a sin to the spirit, and you pay a heavy price for that.
Shakespeare got it right when in ‘Hamlet’, Polonius gives advice to his son: “…this above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man…”.
A lesson from this tragic affair may be to honour your pledges to people, to turn away from the sin of temptation, and above all live a life of freedom from sin- the one Truth can give you that....
One of the things that you experience when you read the New Testament, are the numerous occasions when Jesus’ disciples show their doubt about His mission, teaching and actions. It isn’t just Thomas (John 20:24-29) who is sceptical and needed physical proof to believe, even though they saw Jesus’ amazing powers to heal and other great works, they fairly regularly doubted that he was indeed the Son of God.
In fact, how people reacted to Jesus’ mission tend to fall into three broad categories. There were those who accepted him wholeheartedly- people for example like the demon possessed man who was healed and the Centurion whose faith was such that just the word of Jesus was sufficient to bring back to health his sick servant. Then there were those who opposed him – some Pharisees, King Herod, the Romans and other teachers/experts of the Law because of the threat Jesus posed to them, and of course ultimately it led to them conspiring to kill him. The third group of people are those who neither accepted Jesus wholeheartedly or rejected him but who were unsure or doubted him and who he was- in essence they had a rather agnostic viewpoint.
There are numerous examples of where the disciples fell short in their faith- think of how they responded to Jesus’ teaching of the parable of the Sower, the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus’ repeated statements where he predicted his death, or where Jesus calmed the storm or walked on water. At these times, the disciples’ response, rather than seeing these events as signs and evidence to confirm who He was, was to ask “Who is this?” (Mark 4:41).
They were not alone in their doubts- even John the Baptist was unsure as in Matthew 11:3 he asked of Jesus: “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” Now this is John who personally baptised Jesus and witnessed the descent of the Holy Spirit upon him and declared him the Lamb of God-tey even he doubted!
So how do we deal with doubt? For wisdom I look to the late and great Selwyn Hughes who amongst other achievements set up the Crusade for World Revival (CWR). He once said “Many Christians are afflicted with doubt. Doubt is not the problem; it is how we respond to it that determines whether it will be an obstacle or an opportunity. Don’t repress your doubts but acknowledge them and bring them to Jesus. Face them in the confidence that they can be used as stepping stones to a deeper awareness of God”.
That has to be right – we should not feel guilty if we have doubts, in many senses they are natural, but as Selwyn said, it is more about how we deal with that doubt, that we should shine a light on them and take them to God in prayer.
On Monday we said a sorrowful farewell to our amazing Queen Elizabeth II and it will have been an experience like none other. So many people, especially those in Commonwealth countries, have spoken in losing her they feel they have lost their mother as she has been the one constant throughout their lives, and I think in our hearts and minds we all kind of thought she would go on forever. Psalm 90:10 says ‘ the days of our years are threescore years and ten’- in other words 70 which ironically was exactly how long the Queen reigned over us-how about that for symmetry?
One of the most heartfelt notes left for the Queen was from the new Prince of Wales, William, who wrote “Grief is the price we pay for love”. William would have now that his grandmother penned those very words after the ‘9/11’ attacks in 2001 when over 3,000 people were killed, and it is a life lesson for us all.
The harsh reality of life is that if you love then you will grieve – that is quite literally the price we pay to love someone in that in time we will really hurt, but it is a necessary part of our lives. One person who really brought this to the fore was another great Christian like the Queen – CS Lewis the writer of the Narnia books and one of the greatest defenders of our faith.
In 1960 under a pseudonym, he published ‘A Grief Observed’ in which he wrote about the great pain (and doubts about his faith) he suffered with the death of his wife Joy Gresham-just 4 years after they were married. In it he talks bravely of the stages of grieving he went through but in end he was left with a feeling of gratitude to have experienced the gift of a true love.
He also spoke about the need to leave the ‘Shadowlands’ of our lives and to take that chance to love people. It was something that his wife had apparently observed in him, in that he spent his life living in a kind of safe ‘bubble’ being a scholar at Oxford for almost 30 years surrounded by other literary friends and students who all looked up to him. When he took her encouragement to step out of that ‘shadowland’ where the sun did not shine he experienced genuine joy -but a few years later he was hit badly by his grief and experienced his ’Slough of Despond’.
As we reflect on our Queen’s life, who truly lived out of the shadowlands, I think we can learn the importance of not hiding away in what is comforting but to take chances in our life, to experience joy and true love, so that at the end of our lives we can say of ourself that, like the Queen’s time on earth, it has been ‘a life well lived’.
Amongst the incredibly distressing scenes we have witnessed on the news of late about the war in Ukraine, I was particularly and strangely moved by the women in the city of Dnipro who were spending their time making home-made ‘Molotov Cocktails’ (petrol bombs) in order to protect their families from Putin’s ruthless troops. These were wives, mothers, daughters and sisters who were saying “We have to do something”, as the West is not coming to their aid.
As Christians we don’t like to see scenes like this no matter what the circumstances are as Jesus has taught us that we should love our enemies, we should return good for evil, that vengeance is God’s alone and that the peacemakers are blessed. But these women and their family are currently in Hell- we just can’t imagine what they are going through as hundreds and almost certainly thousands of them are being shelled and crushed into submission, and our hearts go out to them.
Now the idea of people using force and violence even in self-defence has always been a difficult concept for us as Christians down the ages. Some Christians (especially Quakers) are pacifists and feel there are no situations where they can justify the use of force but many others (me included I have to say) feel that ‘righteous anger’ or ‘limited aggression’ is justified in order to bring about justice and to protect the weak. It is something that early Christians such as Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas argued for where a) force is needed for a just cause because of some wrong that has occurred and b) that those using force have the right intent-that of promoting good and to prevent evil.
Jesus also teaches us about righteous anger in the story of the moneychangers in the temple (in all four gospels) where he uses his anger to expel them from the Temple using not just his words but by actual physical force -by overturning their tables, using a whip out of cords and throwing away their money in order to make his point that people were using God’s house as a ‘den of thieves’ and making it difficult for people to praise his Father there. The idea of God’s people justifiably using force is there in the Bible for example in the accounts of Abraham fighting the four kings (Genesis) and David using force to slay Goliath (Samuel). So in extremis it is justified.
Like so many other Christians we at St Mary’s have had Ukraine very much in our thoughts and prayers and we know how effective they can be. However, for many Ukrainians that support no matter how well appreciated may not be enough as they are in mortal terror now and they need active support (and force) from the West but that is not coming because of the fear of a nuclear war. That means people like the women of Dnipro are having to try and save their families themselves in the only way they feel they can – through what I think can be truly said is an example of ‘righteous anger’.
