‘SKAN-DEHL
Truth be told… I almost didn’t write this. It’s been a long time coming… this topic… this blog... this idea of scandal.
Such a testy little thing. A word that evokes so many different reactions.
Over a week ago I asked people what came to mind when they thought of the word: scandal.
Many said “Olivia Pope”. And who can blame them? That’s one of the first things that came to my mind when I tossed the whole idea around. Olivia Pope from the hit show Scandal. With her Fish Bowl wine glasses, a steady diet of popcorn, and Washington D.C. as a setting. A fitting description of the word.
Other people wrote to me of shame and secrets. While others answered, talking about infidelity and embezzlement. While some responded with a single word: you.
I don’t blame them. They aren’t wrong.
Scandal makes me think of darkness. Secrets. Shame. The things we don’t talk about. Unless it’s in the corners of polite society, or dressed up in the guise of a prayer request.
Because that is what it is. Scandals are the kinds of stories that don’t hold a place in polite society. They don’t really belong in church, unless they are on their knees seeking forgiveness. At least that’s how I remember the stories I was told. That’s how I remember the way I felt. Like everyone was waiting on me and my scandal to bend the knee and repent.
But Jesus never treated scandals that way. He never made them hide in the shadows, and he never demanded them bend the knee (that kind of language oddly enough finds itself on the opposite ends of the Bible that occupy his story). Jesus, in contrast, put scandals front and center. Like the one time he met a woman at a well in the middle of the day.
It is a famous story (google it if you don’t believe me). A story that a lot of ink has been spilled about and a lot of hot air has been spewed over. But the short of it is this: Jesus went to a well to get water at a time of day when it wasn’t wise to be out doing such physical tasks. And who did he meet? A woman. A woman who was somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be, but the scandal of her life had driven her there anyway.
Jesus and this woman have a robust conversation, and through it all one thing becomes painfully clear: this woman has been hurt. This woman is a scandal. She had been with five men. FIVE! This kind of thing isn’t okay in their hyper-religious culture, and it can only mean one of two things:
She was a slut. She had used what her mamma gave her to her own advantage, and in the process had accrued such a reputation that now she had to go get water from the local well when the other ladies weren’t around.
She was forsaken. She had been left by men. Some men divorced her. Some died. They all left her. And these things marked her life, and rather than look after her, society has left her to fend for herself.
The people of her village had failed her. Or she had failed her people. However you tell the story, she was a scandal.
And faith tends to push these stories to the fringes. We don’t want scandal. We don’t want the truth. We want clean. We want simple. We want wholesome. And we want it all without the struggle. And when someone can’t deliver that to us on a silver platter, we sideline them.
But such wasn’t the way of Jesus. Read his stories. Time and time again Jesus makes the scandals center stage. He doesn’t demand that we hide ourselves. Quite the opposite. The only way to begin down the path of Jesus is to actually be ourselves. Scandal and all.
So, to those who are walking through a scandal (regardless of whether it is your fault — or someone else’s) congratulations! You can actually begin the real stuff of life. Living.
To those who live in a world, or a faith system, that demands you hide… “Olly Olly oxen free.”
I don’t know if you ever played hide and go seek… but that’s the call that went out at the end of the game when it was time to show yourself so the next bit of fun could begin.
Your maker is calling “Olly Olly Oxen Free.”
It’s time to stop hiding. Time to be you, in all your scandalous mess.