The Shadow of False Accusations
No, it's not a commentary on my internship, but the title of the sermon for the midweek service yesterday.
When I was in ninth grade, I had a conversation with some tenth graders about the book they were reading for class. All of them gave it a rave review, and said it was the best thing they’d been assigned to read. I couldn’t wait until I got to tenth grade so I’d read the book, too.
But the summer before tenth grade, I changed schools. And when I started classes in the fall, I found out that at this school, they read the book in the ninth grade. So I went through all of high school having never read the book.
I figured that was okay; I’d most likely be assigned to read it in college. But I wasn’t. So one day, after graduating from college, I went to the bookstore, bought the book, came home, and read it in one sitting. And that was the day I fell in love with To Kill a Mockingbird.
It is the story of Scout and Jem Finch, whose father, Atticus is a lawyer assigned a particularly difficult case, one that leads to name-calling and violence. The case is defending Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. Atticus agrees to defend Tom because he knows it is the right thing to do. He knows Tom is innocent, and he knows that the coming trial will be a mockery of a trial - the men on the jury have already convicted Tom because of the color of his skin.
Before this passage from John, Jesus has been arrested, betrayed by a disciple whom Jesus knew would betray him, and been denied by another disciple whom Jesus knew would deny him. Now he is enduring the false accusations of the ones who turn him over to Pilate - they have called him a criminal. Perhaps not outright, but they imply it, saying to Pilate, “If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.”
So Pilate puts Jesus through a “trial”, but, like Tom Robinson’s, it’s really more of a mockery of a trial. Pilate is going to do what the people want him to do anyway, so he doesn’t have a riot on his hands. But Pilate goes through the motions of a trial, asking Jesus about the charges that have been leveled against him.
Imagine for a moment that you are in Jesus’ position. You stand in the headquarters of the governor, accused of being a criminal. The governor stands before you and asks you questions in a trial that you know you have no way of winning. Waiting outside the building are the people who brought you there, and they want to hear your guilty verdict. Which one of us would stand there, and resist the urge to defend ourselves? Which one of us would resist the urge to accuse others in an effort to save ourselves?
In 64 CE, a great fire broke out in Rome, destroying much of the city. It is most likely that the emperor, Nero, was behind the setting of the fire. But Nero, in an attempt to shift the blame, said the Christians - a community that Nero detested - set the fire. These false accusations led to the persecution of the early Christian church, causing many people to lose their lives in cruel and violent ways - all because of the false accusations of Nero, who was trying to protect himself.
In 1692, the young girls of Salem, Massachusetts began to act strangely. To explain their behavior, the girls accuse three women of being witches. From that event, witchcraft hysteria breaks out, with people accusing one another of witchcraft in the effort to save themselves. In the end, nineteen people were sent to the gallows, one man was pressed to death, and as many as seventeen others died in prison - all because of the false accusations of those young girls, who were trying to protect themselves.
On February 9, 1950, Joseph McCarthy produced a list of names of people who were supposedly Communists working in the State Department. This led to a persecution of Americans who were accused of having Communist ties, some of whom were actually persecuted for other reasons. In all, hundreds of people were imprisoned, ten to twelve thousand people lost their jobs, and over three hundred actors, writers and directors were denied work in the United States through the unofficial Hollywood blacklist - all because of the false accusations of other people trying to save themselves.
False accusations are not just a thing of the past. I did an online search for false accusations, and found pages of sites talking about false accusations in today’s world. I even found a site that offers steps on how to respond if you are falsely accused of something. False accusations still abound in our world. Not one of us is immune from being falsely accused - or being the false accuser. And not one of us is immune from the pain and suffering that goes with false accusations.
Protecting the life that we know is a natural instinct. And sometimes, we do it even if it means we have to falsely accuse other people in the process. We are just as likely to be the false accuser as we are of being the one falsely accused. And when that happens, we find ourselves in exactly the situation Jesus found himself: deny the charges, accusing someone else in the process, or submit to the consequences of being found guilty ourselves.
Jesus does not rise to Pilate’s accusations; he doesn’t become angry and shoot back hurtful words. He doesn’t plead his innocence, or beg Pilate to let him go because he is the wrong man. He doesn’t try to accuse someone else in an effort to save himself. Jesus resists the temptation to try to plead his case because he knows what must happen.
Jesus’ false accusers don’t care. To them, Jesus is a troublemaker, and they have already made up their mind that they need to get rid of him. So they set him up with false accusations and pressure Pilate into finding him guilty. And now there is no escape - Jesus’ path to the cross is fixed.
But we know the story doesn’t end there. We know that Jesus rose again, destroying the power that death and sin held over humanity. And we know that, through our baptism, we are freed from the power of sin and death, and we are claimed as children of God, who loves and supports us despite our sins, despite our hurt and anger when we are falsely accused, despite our gossiping about and slander of others. Through all the hardships and pains of life today, there remains the truth: Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came into this world to set us free from the evil of this life, so that we might enjoy the freedom of the life to come.
As we take the final steps in the journey toward the cross, let us examine our own lives, and how we treat others. Let us pray for the strength to forgive those who have falsely accused us; let us pray for the strength to ask for forgiveness from the people about whom we have gossiped and slandered. Because the cross of Christ does not call us to spread falsehoods; it calls us to spread the truth of the love of Christ to the whole world.
When I was in ninth grade, I had a conversation with some tenth graders about the book they were reading for class. All of them gave it a rave review, and said it was the best thing they’d been assigned to read. I couldn’t wait until I got to tenth grade so I’d read the book, too.
But the summer before tenth grade, I changed schools. And when I started classes in the fall, I found out that at this school, they read the book in the ninth grade. So I went through all of high school having never read the book.
I figured that was okay; I’d most likely be assigned to read it in college. But I wasn’t. So one day, after graduating from college, I went to the bookstore, bought the book, came home, and read it in one sitting. And that was the day I fell in love with To Kill a Mockingbird.
It is the story of Scout and Jem Finch, whose father, Atticus is a lawyer assigned a particularly difficult case, one that leads to name-calling and violence. The case is defending Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. Atticus agrees to defend Tom because he knows it is the right thing to do. He knows Tom is innocent, and he knows that the coming trial will be a mockery of a trial - the men on the jury have already convicted Tom because of the color of his skin.
Before this passage from John, Jesus has been arrested, betrayed by a disciple whom Jesus knew would betray him, and been denied by another disciple whom Jesus knew would deny him. Now he is enduring the false accusations of the ones who turn him over to Pilate - they have called him a criminal. Perhaps not outright, but they imply it, saying to Pilate, “If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.”
So Pilate puts Jesus through a “trial”, but, like Tom Robinson’s, it’s really more of a mockery of a trial. Pilate is going to do what the people want him to do anyway, so he doesn’t have a riot on his hands. But Pilate goes through the motions of a trial, asking Jesus about the charges that have been leveled against him.
Imagine for a moment that you are in Jesus’ position. You stand in the headquarters of the governor, accused of being a criminal. The governor stands before you and asks you questions in a trial that you know you have no way of winning. Waiting outside the building are the people who brought you there, and they want to hear your guilty verdict. Which one of us would stand there, and resist the urge to defend ourselves? Which one of us would resist the urge to accuse others in an effort to save ourselves?
In 64 CE, a great fire broke out in Rome, destroying much of the city. It is most likely that the emperor, Nero, was behind the setting of the fire. But Nero, in an attempt to shift the blame, said the Christians - a community that Nero detested - set the fire. These false accusations led to the persecution of the early Christian church, causing many people to lose their lives in cruel and violent ways - all because of the false accusations of Nero, who was trying to protect himself.
In 1692, the young girls of Salem, Massachusetts began to act strangely. To explain their behavior, the girls accuse three women of being witches. From that event, witchcraft hysteria breaks out, with people accusing one another of witchcraft in the effort to save themselves. In the end, nineteen people were sent to the gallows, one man was pressed to death, and as many as seventeen others died in prison - all because of the false accusations of those young girls, who were trying to protect themselves.
On February 9, 1950, Joseph McCarthy produced a list of names of people who were supposedly Communists working in the State Department. This led to a persecution of Americans who were accused of having Communist ties, some of whom were actually persecuted for other reasons. In all, hundreds of people were imprisoned, ten to twelve thousand people lost their jobs, and over three hundred actors, writers and directors were denied work in the United States through the unofficial Hollywood blacklist - all because of the false accusations of other people trying to save themselves.
False accusations are not just a thing of the past. I did an online search for false accusations, and found pages of sites talking about false accusations in today’s world. I even found a site that offers steps on how to respond if you are falsely accused of something. False accusations still abound in our world. Not one of us is immune from being falsely accused - or being the false accuser. And not one of us is immune from the pain and suffering that goes with false accusations.
Protecting the life that we know is a natural instinct. And sometimes, we do it even if it means we have to falsely accuse other people in the process. We are just as likely to be the false accuser as we are of being the one falsely accused. And when that happens, we find ourselves in exactly the situation Jesus found himself: deny the charges, accusing someone else in the process, or submit to the consequences of being found guilty ourselves.
Jesus does not rise to Pilate’s accusations; he doesn’t become angry and shoot back hurtful words. He doesn’t plead his innocence, or beg Pilate to let him go because he is the wrong man. He doesn’t try to accuse someone else in an effort to save himself. Jesus resists the temptation to try to plead his case because he knows what must happen.
Jesus’ false accusers don’t care. To them, Jesus is a troublemaker, and they have already made up their mind that they need to get rid of him. So they set him up with false accusations and pressure Pilate into finding him guilty. And now there is no escape - Jesus’ path to the cross is fixed.
But we know the story doesn’t end there. We know that Jesus rose again, destroying the power that death and sin held over humanity. And we know that, through our baptism, we are freed from the power of sin and death, and we are claimed as children of God, who loves and supports us despite our sins, despite our hurt and anger when we are falsely accused, despite our gossiping about and slander of others. Through all the hardships and pains of life today, there remains the truth: Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came into this world to set us free from the evil of this life, so that we might enjoy the freedom of the life to come.
As we take the final steps in the journey toward the cross, let us examine our own lives, and how we treat others. Let us pray for the strength to forgive those who have falsely accused us; let us pray for the strength to ask for forgiveness from the people about whom we have gossiped and slandered. Because the cross of Christ does not call us to spread falsehoods; it calls us to spread the truth of the love of Christ to the whole world.