Matthew 12:1-14
It’s not fun being accused of doing something you didn’t do. But it sometimes happens. A group of friends got together and started sharing stories of when they were accused of something they didn’t do. One shared about his grandmother who once accused him of stealing her very old socks and then selling them for profit. Grandma was struggling in memory but somehow her grandson’s apparent shame to sell her old socks always came to mind.
Another told of a time he was 12 and at a neighbor’s party. The host mom asked “has anyone here seen the movie Aladdin?” He responded, “Oh yah. I liked that movie.” The mom replied – “well where is it?” her copy of Aladdin was missing. She was asking if anyone had seen her copy of the movie. So she followed him around at the party accusing him of stealing her VHS tape. He even explained the misunderstanding to her. But she wouldn’t listen and even called his parents after the party to tell them he stole her Aladdin’s movie.
Another friend shared how a neighbor kid once accused him of feeding their pet bird chewing gum. The bird had eaten the gum, choked on it and died. This friend concluded the kid had given the gum to his pet bird and then panicked when the bird died. So he accused a neighbor kid and of course his Mom believed the story that the neighbor kid did it. It’s not fun being accused of something you didn’t do.
Some false accusations are much more serious. There are many stories of people wrongfully convicted. Later evidence reveals their innocence yet they have had to endure years in prison or a stain on their reputation that wasn’t theirs to carry.
As Christians, we can be the target of false accusations or at least misdirected ones. In his book “Exposing Myths about Christianity,” Jeffrey Russell groups the myths or the charges into several categories. Christianity is dying out; Christianity is Destructive; Christianity is Stupid; Jesus and the Bible have been shown to be false; Christian beliefs have been shown to be wrong; Miracles are impossible and What’s new is true. You might have been on the receiving end of one these accusations or maybe even wondered about this yourself.
