We see someone who isn't Christian, at least not publicly, screw up and we feel like it is okay to hold the grudge, judge, and basically shut it down because they didn't live up to our standards. I would call this the "Michael Vick" level. The guy isn't a Christian icon, but he pretty much screwed up. Now that he is signed by the Eagles, you have everyone jumping on the "let's never let this guy into humanity again" bandwagon.
I don't really understand that. He lost the two best athletic years of his life, went to prison, lost his entire financial well-being that he had built up and went from starter and star to backup and social outcast. Yet these same fans ignore the HGH using, prostitute and womanizing, essentially creepy unrepentant behavior from the athletic stars that are in the games they cheer for or even in themselves.
We see someone who we don't really know, but who claims to be a Christian who then falls. You saw this with Britney Spears. There was a time when she claimed she was saving herself for marriage. There was a time when Mel Gibson was working on his marriage, his use of alcohol.
When they fall, they fall hard.
We see that in our parishes and churches when our pastor loses his temper. Isn't "pastoral" at the perfect moment. When the youth minister shows up in shorts to the golf outing. When the music minister plays a song we think is inappropriate. When the local leader of the rosary society gossips.
The problem is not all these other people.
The problem is our concept of the idea that sports stars, movie stars, music stars, local leaders and celebrities, ministers, priests and pastors, are somehow sinless like Jesus. It's shocking to us when they fail because in our minds they were beyond reproach.
Or at least we don't think they suffered from that particular sin. We didn't think that their struggles were worse than ours.
What if for today, and just for today, we detached ourselves from our preconceptions of others and actually allowed others to struggle and not judge them for it. What if we were honest about ourselves.
We live in a world that is poisoned by sin. That is the fact.
That is the reality.
The reality is also that we are redeemed by a Savior who paid the ultimate price when we didn't have to.
We are neither the Savior, nor are we the Judge.
The next time we are confronted with the failures of those around us, pray for the ability to see a mirror to your own struggles, your own failures. "Lead us not into temptation..." because we don't know that we would do any better.
We would be a lot better off if we could just forgive and move on. That goes for quarterbacks, movie stars, music stars, priests and pastors, friends, neighbors, family, and even ourselves.
We are all broken. We don't need to crush the pieces, we help put them together.
