#RevThread #152
Stone-Catchers and Stone-Casters
1/ In the final chapter of “Just Mercy", Bryan Stevenson’s great account of his life’s struggle against the systemic racism of our justice system,...
Stone-Catchers and Stone-Casters
1/ In the final chapter of “Just Mercy", Bryan Stevenson’s great account of his life’s struggle against the systemic racism of our justice system,...
2/... Bryan recounts meeting an elderly woman who for years attended a courthouse in Alabama, offering comfort and solace in the court’s lobby to those in pain, as judges and courts grind down African Americans. She explained that she is a stone-catcher.
3/ Stevenson asked about that and this woman then spoke of the stone casters. You know, as in “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”
4/ So let’s go to the story in John 7 for a minute. You may remember that a woman who had been caught in adultery was about to be stoned to death by the clergy worthies of the day. Jesus then said, “Let him who is without sin, cast the first stone.”
5/ Then as each guy stood ready to throw their rock, Jesus would write in the sand – we think he wrote the sins of each of the accusers. One by one the stone casters walked away.
6/ Back to the lady in the courthouse. She knew that lots of us are stone-casters. Someone errs and then we demand their punishment. “Lock ‘em up and throw away the key!”...
7/...You know, “When you arrest these criminals don’t be nice. Don’t put your hand on their head to protect them as you get them in the squad car.” Stone casting is a grim kind of fun. “I’m righteous, they’re guilty, gimme that rock.”
8/ “What’s a stone catcher?” Bryan asked. She answered that anyone who, hearing people heave their verbal stones at someone, goes to that victim knowing that those stones hurt. The stone catcher was her phrase for catching the one hit by the stone.
9/ Her ministry as a stone catcher was simply to be near and then offer comfort to the ones being hit by the insults and the glares those who are righteous heave on those who are guilty.
10/ Her calling was to love them and listen to them and hug them. She told Bryan that he was a stone catcher too. He saw them all as broken human beings, like himself. She said he needed to take more care of himself because “Stone catching always hurts. But you go on.”
11/ I don’t know her name, but she’s a fine theologian. We’ve all hurt, we’ve all messed up some way. One could do worse than be a catcher of stones.
12/ Remember that the real minister isn’t the one casting the stones at the sinner over there. The real minister, Jesus himself, is the one saying, “Look up! Where are your accusers?” “They’re gone, sir.” “Neither do I condemn you.”
13/ In the midst of our chaos, let’s try to refrain from casting stones back at the Trumpsters, and try to become one of their victim’s stone catchers.
