Sermon

After Susan Boyle made her famous audition on ‘Britain’s Got Talent, one newspaper commentator, Patricia Williams, wrote that the reason Boyle was a heroine had little to do with her transforming any aspect of herself. Rather, it was she who transformed the audience, it was she who challenged their beliefs. She said: “Boyle’s lesson is not that she is a book whose ‘cover’ deceived people. Rather, the problem was the audience’s self-deception. Dismissing her based on careless expectations about what age or lack of employment supposedly signify is the habit of mind common to all forms of prejudice.”

It’s all too easy in life to label people. And most of us have done it. We judge people by appearances alone. Lack of tolerance of one another can lead to more serious problems such as racism and bigotry and this brings out the worst in humans. Prejudice is engrained within our society. Religion has sometimes fostered it, when we think for example of past conflicts between Catholics and Protestants. But religion can also offer a solution.

Jesus asks us to look at ourselves first before passing judgment on our fellow humanity. Imagine if more of us actually did this! Rev John Ferguson