Is any among you without sin?

“Several years ago there was a well-known pastor who openly, publicly had a number of issues that he was against, both morally and spiritually and politically. He was loud and outspoken about these particular issues. It turns out that one of the issues he was most vocally opposed to was something that he himself had struggled with and been engaged in for a number of years. Upon this being revealed publicly, his church released him from his leadership position. Shortly after this a friend of mine happened to meet him while visiting the same city and when they began conversing this pastor-in-exile expressed a great deal of stored up venom for his former church that he had started, venting about how they had shot their wounded and they hadn't extended him grace and love and all that. He was shocked that they had treated him like they had.

Here's what I find so startling: he was complaining about how they dealt with him but he's the one who shaped and taught and molded them. He merely found himself on the receiving end of how he had trained them to be. He created and crafted the system to behave a particular way and then it behaved in that exact way.

It's easy to form a circle and pick up stones, taking turns quoting bible verses the whole time, ready to unleash those stones on the one who's guilty. It's another thing to be the person standing in the middle of that circle, desperate for one person, just one, to say ‘is any of you without sin?’

Those who have ears to hear, let them hear.”

Rob Bell
Farewell Epistle to Mars Hill