Normally it’s a problem when we get into trouble for something we didn’t do.  Some of us still have painful childhood memories of a sibling managing to shift the blame so that we copped the punishment from Mum or Dad.  Protests of our innocence fell on deaf ears.  The punishment was painful but it was made worse by the fact that we were unfairly treated.  Mum preferred to listen to your brother’s story rather than to your own.  All of that becomes ten times worse when it happens to us in adulthood when the stakes are so much higher.  I’m thinking of a friend who ended up in prison for alleged sexual abuse.  Some years later the so-called victim admitted to concocting the story to get this guy out of the road.  It’s not pleasant when you get busted for something you didn’t do.  In fact, it can be excruciatingly painful.  I still recall my friend’s protests of innocence.  It wasn’t only the judge and jury who disbelieved him, so did some of his acquaintances.

However, having said that, let me add that there are times when we get busted for something we didn’t do and it’s perfectly just and fair.  A simple example?  The farmer who didn’t close the paddock gate and his bull got out.  The driver who collided with the bull sued the farmer.  In this case the farmer got busted for something he didn’t do.  Some years ago a council worker didn’t put a barrier around some pavers he was fixing in a footpath.  While he was getting something from his work van a lady I knew tripped badly in the hole in the ground and ended up in hospital with an ankle injury.  She successfully sued the council and the council got busted for something it didn’t do.  Okay, I understand these are not cases of injustice but rather cases of neglect – but the point I’m making is that we can also legitimately get busted for something we didn’t do.

Such cases also appear in the Bible.  There’s the story Jesus told of the Good Samaritan.  A man got beaten up, robbed and left by the roadside to die.  A priest came along but passed by on the other side of the road without offering help.  A Levite, a temple worker, likewise passed by without showing compassion.  Those guys got busted by Jesus… not for any crime.  They didn’t beat up the victim or rob him.  The problem is not what they did.  It’s what they didn’t do that earned Jesus’ censure.  In His parable of the sheep and the goats Jesus commends some people for what they did.  He says, “I was sick and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me, naked and you clothed me.”  But there were others of whom he said, “I was sick and you didn’t care for me, in prison and you never visited me, naked and you didn’t cloth me.”  These people in His second list earned Jesus’ condemnation, not for anything evil they had done but simply for what they didn’t do.

Getting busted for what we didn’t do is a reminder to us of the nature of sin.  Sin is not only breaking God’s law and doing what we are not supposed to do.  It is also not doing what we should be doing.  The Christian church has always recognised that there are sins of commission but also sins of omission.  Jesus made that quite clear in His story of the apple tree that didn’t produce fruit.  The tree was not dug out because it bore bad fruit.  It was dug out simply because it didn’t produce any fruit.  If you think that you can face Judgment Day without getting busted for something bad that you did, please remember that in such an unlikely event you could still get busted for what you did not do.  When we don’t give God the praise and thanks that is due to Him that is just as much a sin as cursing His holy name.