Today's Scripture Reading (January 6, 2021): John 19
We live in a world that is dominated by fake
news. Fake news is not just news that has a conservative or liberal bent, or information
that serves the agenda of one aspect of the political agenda, but blatantly
false news. It consists of theories based on what someone thinks without evidence
or a story that someone invents to make money or prove a dubious political
point. And too often, we pass on the theories for which there is simply no, or
precious little, evidence, making the situation even worse. Add in the existence
of deep fakes and eloquently photoshopped images that we receive through our
social media accounts, and fake news becomes a significant part of our daily
lives and often what it is that we believe.
As I write this, there is no evidence that the United
States or Canadian governments plan to make the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory. Not
only does it not make sense that governments, some of whom can't figure out how
to enforce a mask mandate and business closures because of constitutional concerns,
are suddenly going to get their act together and force a needle in our arms,
but politicians from all stripes and levels keep denying that forced
vaccinations are on anyone's agenda. And yet, it is a message that I am hearing
from intelligent and discerning people, maybe even you. And the message is
beginning to cause a panic. A more likely scenario is that there may be
limitations on what you can do if you are not vaccinated. Boarding a plane or
crossing borders might, at some point in the future, be restricted to people
who have been vaccinated, but even that is still a future decision. Our problem
is that in a world where fake news is so prevalent all around us, it is
sometimes hard for us to identify what is truth. This is especially true when
people who want to lie to us are so good at making their lies sound like the
truth; and when they are giving us a message that deep down we want to believe.
One of the questions for all of us who live in
a fake news world is simply this: what is our responsibility for sharing fake
news? It is a good question and one that deserves an answer.
Pilate has become one of the main villains of
the Good Friday/Easter saga. He is the one who made the final decision to
deliver Jesus over to the Roman guards to be crucified. It is quite possible
that the Jews wanted a level of deniability between them and the decision to
kill Jesus. After all, it wasn't them; it was Rome who made the final decision.
But it was the Jews who set the conditions for the execution. They were both
the Rabbi's accusers and the ones who were in control of inventing the story.
Jesus neither absolves Pilate of his guilt concerning
what was taking place nor accuses him of being the leading player. There is no
doubt that Pilate, in deciding to hand Jesus over to be crucified, bore some of
the guilt. He could have stood up to the Jewish leadership and stopped the process.
But Jesus is clear; it is the ones who invented the fake news of his guilt that
bore the most blame in the telling of the story.
We shouldn't miss the application in our lives.
Woe to the one who strives to find some way to invent lies for us to believe, regardless
of the subject matter. Most of the guilt lies with those people. We should not
ever be involved in the process of inventing evidence to support our private
positions, trying to shape the landscape with our fake news.
But when we share what is false or act on fake
news, like Pilate, we are not absolved of our guilt. Part of the blame lies squarely
on our shoulders because we could have been the ones to stop the process and
decided not to do it.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Matthew 28
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