01/13/2025
Public and Private Sin
All Was Fair Game for John the Baptist and for Christians Today
Sunday, we looked at the way John the Baptist was uncompromising about sin wherever he saw it at work. We in the church have tended to focus mostly on private or personal holiness and have ignored prophetic judgment against public behaviors. John was critical of King Herod; he had little patience for the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, and demanded that everyday women and men of faith, take God more seriously in how they lived their lives.
We didn’t have time Sunday, but I’d originally included examples of what would have been public sins back in the time of John and Jesus. It is not surprising that they are sins we still see in our public figures inside the church as well as in the government and courts today.
This is what got cut out:
“Taking more than you have a right to, bearing false witness, perjury, and fraud are on the list [of deadly sins]. Physical or sexual coercion are on there. The prophets John was following couldn’t be clearer: not paying the workman a fair wage for fair work, allowing the rich and powerful to manipulate justice at the city gates, not making room for the sojourner in our midst, withholding from God the first and best of your flock, fields, and heart—and so on and so on. If we were really serious about fire and brimstone then we’d would tally these up just as often. They are--as simply as it gets--sin, sin, and sin.”
I heard a comment made at the funeral for former President Jimmy Carter in which someone close to him said that the person you saw behind the presidential podium, or in the Whitehouse, or in some official capacity was exactly the same person you interacted with around the family table, or at a party, or at church. He was the same person with the same behaviors and beliefs wherever he was. This person went on to say that President Carter epitomized what it means to be a person of integrity. A comment like that would make the heart of John the Baptist delighted. (I think Jesus would be rather pleased as well.) May it be said in equal measure about all of us—we are who we are no matter where we are, no matter who we are among. May we all be eulogized one day as women and men of integrity.
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