John’s Notes: Parish Magazine editorials
March 2019
Justine Sacco made a quip to her small circle of Twitter followers and it ruined her life forever. It was a feeble little joke, in poor taste, sent absent-mindedly at the start of a flight from New York to South Africa. As the plane took off and she slept, the joke ‘went viral’. It seemed the whole world saw it (or at least that sizeable portion of the global population which spends its days tweeting), and the whole world condemned her for it so strongly and insistently that before her plane landed Sacco had been sacked from her PR job: via Twitter, of course. Worse was ahead of her - castigated by her family, barred from hotels and restaurants, publicly reviled, Sacco has never recovered from that episode. This story of disproportionate damnation features in Jon Ronson’s book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed.
Some see such humiliation as a useful way to allow people to right injustices on the internet. Others say it encourages online mobs to destroy the reputation and careers of people or organisations who make perceived slights. Jon Ronson says, “I think social media is robbing us of our empathy, and it's also robbing us of our ability to distinguish between serious and non-serious transgressions. I think we're forgetting that there are human beings on the other end.”
A crowd once brought to Jesus ‘a woman caught in the act of adultery,’ saying, “The Law commands us to stone to death any such woman. What do you say we should do?” Jesus just stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. When the crowd persisted with their question he stood up and said, “Anyone here who has never sinned should throw the first stone at her.” Then he stooped down again to write in the dust. When they heard this, the people began to leave one by one, the older men first, and then the others. Jesus was left alone with the woman standing there in front of him. He sent her on her way with a gentle encouragement to clean up her act. (John 8.1-10)
At a moment of crisis Jesus broke the tension and created space for reflection by writing in the dust. The consequence was an unexpected change in direction, a twist in the tale from which all learned and benefitted and no-one became a killer or victim. I’m certain that long-ago event in the grounds of the Jerusalem Temple has something to say to our situation today.
In our Lent meetings we will take time to reflect together on some of the challenging situations of our times. Things that affect us, in our everyday lives. We’ll be guided by the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery and other scriptures. It’s an opportunity for us to do our own ‘writing in the dust’ and see what comes out of it. Everybody is welcome: do come along to share in the conversation and the contemplation.
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