When you read the Church magazine what do you think about? I hope you have better thoughts than when you read your newspaper or hear or watch the news on radio or television.

I think we’ve had awful news these past few weeks. It has been so bad it has damaged our view of democracy. We may feel we can no longer trust those whom we have elected and that view may be justified as we hear about MPs resigning or even stepping down from Parliament. What about the Speaker of the House of Commons. What do you think? Was he a scapegoat used by the various parties to hide behind and to carry their mistakes out of the House of Commons? It does appear that some rules have been broken and some mistakes made. But it also appears that others have been harshly judged by the press and then eventually by you and me. The Bible has much to say about all these issues.

It is in the Old Testament we first come across a Scapegoat and it is in Leviticus chapter 16 and verse 10. Here we discover the people have made many mistakes, they have sinned, and so God tells Aaron and Moses to lay their hands on the goat, pray over it and confess all the sins made by the people; the goat is then sent out alive into the surrounding wilderness. In other words, the goat is carrying all the sins of the people away from the people and they are forgiven by God.

The next time we come across a Scapegoat is in the Gospel where Jesus is regarded as taking the sins of the world on himself, away from humankind and God forgives humankind. But what if someone doesn’t believe in God or simply doesn’t want to accept God’s forgiveness?

Why do you think many people have felt so cross with the MPs? Do you think the person who leaked the confidential information set out to make money for himself or herself and with the aim of ridiculing Parliament? What about the Telegraph who reported the leaked information? And finally what about the MPs who made a lot of extra money?

Although I will defend democracy I will not defend theft. Most of the MPs appeared to claim within the rules. We may not like the rules but we can’t condemn the MPs for working within them. Perhaps no theft took place but it was our sense of justice that took a battering. I wonder what our sense of justice would be like without love. God loves you and me but because of or sin, justice should be met. However, God also exercised love for humanity and allowed Jesus to take our place. Here we have an important guide in exercising love with justice. If we didn’t exercise love with justice our society wouldn’t be as good as it is. We would be looking for and demanding retribution – any eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Jesus had much to say about this and if you read Matthew chapter 5 you’ll discover what he said. In this chapter Jesus turns on its head what the people of his day thought about justice and he brought love into the equation.

So when we hear or watch the news, read our newspapers let’s try to remember that God asks us not to judge as we all make mistakes. He also asks us to try to show love to our fellow human beings – even to our hardworking elected members who perhaps deserve more support, understanding and credit for all the hard work they do than some of our newspapers and broadcasters give them.

Rev’d Bill