I have to confess that I’ve found the media coverage of the deaths of Michael Jackson and Steve McNair a bit difficult to swallow at times. Basically I’m being told to overlook any of the glaring flaws either of them had, and simply focus on their contributions to society. Implicit in this: negative statements about these men are frowned upon.
At Steve McNair’s memorial service, Bishop Joseph W. Walker, III exhorted: “Drop your stone the next time you write about Steve McNair. Drop your stone the next time you text somebody. Drop your stone the next time you twitter. Drop your stone, those of you in the barbershops, the beauty shops. Those of you walking the streets on the corner, drop your stone.”
I assume the bishop’s comments stem from Jesus’ instruction in John 8:7: Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone…. If this assumption is correct, then I understand the bishop to be instructing his hearers that no one should judge Steve McNair in a negative light because all of us are sinners.
Well, there’s a modicum of truth in that, even as a sinner writes this post. However, does the fact that we are all sinners therefore mean that we are not to call sin “sin”? No, not at all, and Jesus wouldn’t have us to be so undiscerning. We are called to judge, but not to be hypocritical judges, keeping a healthy perspective on our own sin (see Matthew 7:1-5). We are to rightly view the sins of others, and be duly warned as a result (1 Corinthians 10:6-13).
Instead of telling everyone to drop their stones, why not take up Jesus’ words from Proverbs:
[The forbidden woman’s] feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol… Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths. The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray (5:5, 20-23).
He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself (6:32).
Sadly, Steve McNair fulfilled these words, and I can’t help but wonder that Bishop Walker would have been better served to instruct his listeners to learn from McNair’s folly. This isn’t to say that Steve McNair didn’t have many other fine qualities or that he didn’t significantly contribute to his community, for clearly he did. However, neither does this mean that we should pretend that his adultery was insignificant. It was significant, and it is significant to McNair. If he could return from the grave today, I have no doubt that he would tell us so. Is his adultery insignificant to his wife and children? Hardly. Then why are we to ignore it? And why should a minister of God’s word speak in such a way that encourages everyone to do so?
I suppose some would contend that it would be bad form, uncaring or unloving to speak plainly about Steve McNair’s adultery at his memorial service. Maybe so. Or maybe it is uncaring and unloving not to speak the truth to a society that needs to know that God will not be mocked, and that what a man sows he also reaps (Galatians 6:7).