When I was fourteen my parents took our family on a trip to Europe – primarily to visit where my father was stationed in Germany while he was in Army years

before but also to see other parts of the continent including the beautiful city of London. And while we were in London we were able to get tickets for Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap. Perhaps some of you have seen it – the longest running play in the history of London theatre – since 1952. It’s a murder mystery with a plot too complicated to get into and an ending about which every audience is sworn to secrecy. Suffice it to say that it is a classic whodunit with a handful of characters stranded inside an inn – each of them carrying enough suspicion in their character and story to be a prime suspect in an earlier murder. It is the forerunner of the murder mystery dinners that folks host in their homes these days. It was a play with which as a 14-year-old I was transfixed because as the story developed each of the characters appeared more and more guilty. You really weren’t sure whodunit. Which, of course, was Agatha Christie’s gift. Leave enough suspicion lingering over each person in the story so as to make it a page turner and a nail biter.

There’s nothing like reading or watching a good mystery. I know some of you are mystery readers. I’ve enjoyed some P.D. James, and Dorothy Sayers and Dennis Lehane and especially our local and most famous mystery writer – the late John D. McDonald. Throw in a little Carl Hiaasen and what you get are stories that employ our faculties to search for the dark and hidden side of each of the story’s characters. Who could possibly have the motive, the ambition, the secret to hide, the questionable character, the chink in the armor – to have possibly done the heinous deed? And the longer the story goes the more guilty everybody seems to be.

Which, I wonder, if that isn’t a little bit about what life is? The longer the story goes the more guilty everybody seems to be. Which is to say, that life,

your life and mine, has this way of throwing at us challenges and twists in the road and hurdles to climb, difficult choices, painful circumstances to overcome, relationships we’ve forged and abandoned, temptations we’ve resisted and not resisted, and through it all none of us gets it perfectly right. (I know that may come as a surprise to some of you.) Our resume is mixed at best – a list of accomplishments over which we are justly proud – and a list of unfortunate decisions and actions that have revealed things about us about which we are less than proud. The longer the story goes the more guilty everybody seems to be.

And the world has its way of looking pretty harshly at the uneven resume each of us presents. As much as we’ve tried to get it right, the world seems to focus in on what we’ve gotten wrong. Yeah, he’s a good enough guy, but did you hear he lost his job last year? Yeah, she seems like a sweet person, but I think she’s got a drinking problem. Yeah, she’s a good student, but did you see what she was wearing yesterday? Yeah, he’s pretty popular, but I think he’s having some money problems. The world has its way of running the scanner across our souls and across our stories and shining that blue light on all the blemishes, all the wounds, all the chinks in the armor.

To a baseball fan you cannot mention the name Bill Buckner without an instant conjuring in the mind of the infamous extra-inning World Series Game 6 losing error when Bill Buckner let a slow ground ball skirt between his legs, allowing the New York Mets win the game and then go on to win the World Series. Buckner was vilified for the error and received regular death threats from crazy Red Sox fans. That’s the first thing you think of when you think of Bill Buckner. What is slow to come to mind is his National League Batting title, his career 2,715 hits (more than Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams), 498 doubles and a batting average over .300 seven

different seasons. Not to mention his faithfulness to his marriage and his being a good father to his three children. No, the scanner of world opinion scans his life and soul and the light shines on the blemish.

Which may be the reality that Jesus is trying to address when he comes across the tribunal of self-appointed judges standing over the cowering woman who has made a mistake. She has violated the law. She has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. She has been caught in adultery and she had been dragged before the town to be made a public spectacle. The last time I checked it takes two to commit adultery – so we’re not sure where the man is. Someone has to be the scapegoat and women were the easy target back then … and even now a lot of the time. But there she is and there her judges are – and they have the scanner out and this one is pretty easy to point out. She’s been caught – and it doesn’t matter what the rest of the resume says – this is who she is, nothing else necessary to know – pick up your stones and get ready to hurl – because she booted the ground ball. She is nothing else than the woman caught in adultery. My goodness she doesn’t even have a name in the story. And so as to get the rabbinical blessing on their cruel justice the angry men ask Jesus if they aren’t free and clear to make this woman’s life all about the mistake. “The law says this is what we get to do.” And Jesus says to them one of his most memorable lines, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Which I guess is another way of saying – any of you that wishes to have your life defined

by and your death attributed to any one mess up you’ve made – then go right ahead, have at it. Which I guess is another way of saying that the new teaching by the new rabbi is to get into somebody else’s shoes enough to see how badly we all need a little mercy. That Jesus, the judge of all creation, the only one who has any right to pass sentence, Jesus is somehow able to look at this woman and see something that the scanner can’t see. He sees the other side of the ledger. He sees what God saw at the beginning of creation – that God made the man and the woman, God made this woman … this woman .. and God called her good. She’s messed up to be sure. She’s hurt some people. But there is more to the story. There is a human being, the very creation of God, in need of a little bit of mercy – just like the rest of us.

Just like the rest of us. Can I get an “AMEN” to that? Because you see the pivot point of the gospel is this – that to put ourselves in other people’s shoes starts with understanding your own shoes – and in your own shoes, Jesus says, you’re not the cat’s meow. You’re not entirely God’s gift to the universe. You’re not the complete package. You’ve got liabilities on the balance sheet. You stand in need of mercy. And somewhere along the way you discovered that when Jesus ran the scanner on you it didn’t just turn up the scars and the wounds – it turned up something quite glorious. Something he’s willing to focus on beyond the mistakes. Something that was there from before the dawn of time.

“ MERCY COMES FROM THOSE WHO WALK IN OTHER PEOPLES’ SHOES.”

I suppose it’s what Paul had in mind when he writes to his friend Philemon. Philemon has had a slave named Onesimus run away from his estate and the law was pretty clear what happens to runaway slaves – the same thing that happens to women caught in adultery. But Paul has come to know Onesimus and there’s something more to the story about Onesimus than the headline “runaway slave”. He has become for Paul a brother in Christ. So Paul writes to Philemon the embittered owner and says, “I appeal to you, Philemon, on behalf of Onesimus. I appeal to you to see more in Onesimus than just a runaway slave. I appeal to you to see in this runaway slave a brother in Christ, a beloved brother in Christ. I appeal to you to see in this man what God saw when God created him – something good. I appeal to you to not make his mistake his headline.”

You see here’s the thing – in our judgments, in our convictions – we enslave people. We enslave them to the servitude of our misinformed opinions. We enslave them to a perspective unshared by Jesus. And to enslave them is to enslave ourselves.

Those of you who have seen the movie Dead Man Walking know a little about the Catholic nun, Helen Prejean, who has spent most of her life ministering to, and on behalf of, death row inmates. Not necessarily a “feel good” ministry. You’re ministering to people who had done very bad things and hurt and killed good people. It all began when Sister Prejean was asked by a friend decades ago if she would be willing to correspond by letter with a death row inmate in Louisiana. She agreed. With each incoming letter and with each subsequent visit she made to the inmate – Elmo Patrick Sonnier – she began to see and feel a soul inside the man. A soul God had created. And she realized that that’s what everybody forgot about when it came to people on death row – that these people had souls. That they were created by God. That they had some deep goodness in them from before the dawn of time. So she made it her life to grant them the mercy of her

letters and her visits. Walking with them all the way to the electric chair. She also began a ministry to those who were friends and family of those who had been killed by such death row inmates because they too have souls, they too need mercy. Creations of God in need of a little bit of mercy – just like the rest of us. Says Sister Helen, “People are more than the worst thing they have done in their lives.”

I talked to a pastor friend of mine a while ago who had been faithfully serving the same parish for over twenty years. It’s a record when you get past twenty years. Over twenty years of baptizing babies, confirming children, burying their dead, visiting the sick, marrying the blissful, preaching the gospel. But toward the end of his tenure a small group of people took exception to a sermon he preached and a buzz started through the congregation, followed by an unfounded rumor. It wasn’t long before emails landed in his inbox insisting upon his resignation. Phone messages to elders demanding his firing. Over twenty years baptizing, visiting, burying, preaching. “Did any of that count,” he asked me, “that side of the ledger?” Of course it counts – but the world is cruel with its scanner. Mercy comes from those who walk in other peoples’ shoes.

For people are more than the worst thing they have done in their lives.

In the story The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe a little boy named Edmund, while in the land of Narnia, takes up alliances with the wicked witch. It’s an awful mistake and one he comes to regret before too long. But it’s too late. She has enslaved him by virtue of his big mistake. And because the law in Narnia is that once one becomes a traitor they are subject to death, Edmund is sentenced to death. This law of retribution is what the Narnians call the Deep Magic – an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But Aslan the holy lion steps forth and offers to die in the boy’s place, because what Aslan knows, and what the witch doesn’t know, is that there is a deeper magic than the deep magic. A deeper

magic than an eye for an eye. A deeper magic from “before the dawn of time” – and the deeper magic from before the dawn of time says that if someone is willing to sacrifice oneself for the treachery of another – then both are brought to life. If one is able to forgive the sin of another both are brought to life. If someone is willing to put himself or herself into someone else’s shoes then both can walk again. Aslan then sacrifices himself and, as a result, both Aslan and Edmund are brought back to life. The deeper magic from before the dawn of time.

I suppose in the Biblical story we call this the Holy Spirit. The spirit who before the dawn of time hovered over the deep. The spirit who said “Let there be light.” The Spirit who created the man and the woman and called them good. The spirit who spoke through the mouth of the rabbi and said to the woman, “Has no one condemned you? Well, neither do I. I bring you back to life.” The Spirit who stirred in the apostle and said, “I appeal to you, Philemon, on behalf of Onesimus.” I appeal to you on behalf of the deeper magic from before the dawn of time. I appeal to you for the good soul in your good brother. I appeal to you for the same mercy God has given you. Be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving as God in Christ has forgiven you.

For people are more than the worst thing they have done in their lives. This truth you shall know, and this truth shall set you free.

© Church of the Palms3224 Bee Ridge Rd, Sarasota FL 34239 • (941) 924-1323

Just Like the Rest of Us

Dr. Stephen D. McConnellJanuary 26, 2020

Philemon 8-16John 8:1-11