Convocation last semester caused many mixed reactions when speakers were announced. At only the first week in the second semester, it hasn’t changed. When the convo speakers are announced, if you don’t know who they are, you probably look them up so you have some basic knowledge of who will be speaking. Sometimes it can be exciting to find that you relate to the speaker, or maybe you did know who they are after all.

On the flip side, though, when we find out the speaker has made some sort of mistake or have done something that we don’t approve of, there becomes a negative stigma attached to that convo. The speaker immediately becomes known for what they have done wrong. Before they even get to Lynchburg, we are verbally stoning them.

Questions arise regarding why on earth someone who has done something so bad would speak in convocation. Here’s the thing, when those speakers come, they are coming from a place of vulnerability, pain, and restoration. The speakers aren’t coming to encourage us to do what they did, but to encourage us to do the opposite. They are setting examples for us of what a repentant and forgiven heart looks like. Before we judge them, we need to hear them out.

Before throwing our stones at them for their public failures, we need to look at ourselves first. No one is perfect and each of us has things in our life that we wouldn’t want to be made public. The only difference between us and them is their mistakes have been made public for the whole world to see.

Despite their public humiliation, though, they are taking their time to speak to us, encourage us, and be real. Yes, they make mistakes, everyone does, but they are willing to get in front of thousands of people and talk about it, and how they have relied on Jesus through it.

If you made it into convo when Hugh Freeze spoke, you were there when President Falwell made an excellent point. He brought up the story of the lady that was about to be stoned in the Bible, but Jesus rebuked the ones about to stone her.

“When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7) When the list of convocation speakers comes out it can be easy to judge and think, “why would that person, with that past, mistake, or problem, be asked to speak in the convo?”

But what if we were asked to speak? If people find out our misgivings and mistakes they would say the same thing. The speakers are the lady that is about to be stoned, but we are the ones holding the stones, quick to judge, and throw our stone, relieved that we aren’t in that position. It can be easy to judge and doubt the speakers because they are on such a pedestal, but we need to remember that they are people just like us that deserve respect, grace, and compassion.

Think how hard it would be to get in front of everyone at convocation and talk about a humiliation, pain, and mistake that was made public? It can’t be easy for them, so before we pick up our stones, and scoff at the list of speakers, let’s look at ourselves first.