I was very interested to read in the Aussie media a few days ago (Friday 27 Feb 2015) a very interesting story of a French couple who did a 'Dine and Dash' - without paying, from a restaurant in Bunbury, Western Australia. As Channel 9 TV titled their story "Dine-and-dash couple shamed by WA restaurant on social media". The PerthNow paper also used the term 'shamed' in their heading.
Basically the story of the French couple is that after they 'dashed' (by appearing to pop out for a cigarette), the restaurant posted the incident along with a photo from their security camera, on the restaurant Facebook page. It was shared by thousands and one of those seeing the photo was the farmer who was employing the couple. He fired them and sent them back to the restaurant to pay up. As the WAToday on-line paper said, the couple 'settled the account "with some embarrassment" '. The restaurant decided not to make it a police matter since they felt the couple had 'paid the price' and Aussies via social media had 'dished out justice', (or as PerthNow also said: 'revenge') resulting in the restaurant actually winning from the event through all the community support!
.............on the other hand, the French Couple, found themselves at the end of another version of 'mob law' - in that where their internal conscience didn't seem to be functioning in a way that prompted or pressured them to pay the bill they should have paid, the external community was the pressure to do what the community felt was 'right'.
In the 'old days' in Africa, the village was a person's world. They depended on their village for security, protection, identity, success etc etc. Outside their village they were a nobody and in danger. So there was a lot of pressure from village members for a person to live according to the village expectations. And if for a moment you thought you might be able to hide anything, the village gossip chain would be busy and before you knew it, there was nowhere to hide. The fear of being shamed curtailed a lot of bad behaviour.
Well we now live in a 'global village' and Social Media, and in this case Facebook, is the new global 'gossip chain'. Before you know it, there is no-where to hide!
Interestingly the news clip states that they settled the account 'with some embarrassment'. They learnt a vital lesson (hopefully) that if you do something wrong, along with guilt there is a price to pay - the price of shame. And the only way out of that huge shame is to actually subject yourself to (a smaller dose) of further shame. We could say that 'humility' was the way out of 'humiliation'. And although in this instance they will probably never feel totally free of any shame over the incident, essentially their willingness to go with humility in the face of subjecting themselves to further shame, and confess/admit their wrongdoing and be willing to pay for what they 'stole', was the road to forgiveness (the restaurant owner decided not to go to the police) and to a 'form' of restored honour - (well at least the onslaught of public shaming ceased!)
Recognising our shame before God for sin is painful and one day Scripture says that all that is done in secret will be revealed - and it will be even worse than Facebook! The only 'way out' of that ultimate and eternal shame is to be willing to 'confess' our sin - own it, admit it, be willing to be engulfed by it instead of running from it or ignoring it. Confession is a form of self-shaming, but it is the only route to release from the greater shame on our heads! The good news of the gospel is that if we are willing to face the shame of confession and with humility repent, God doesn't demand that we pay the bill!
..... Jesus did this and much more for us - he paid the bill with his life and in doing so cancelled our guilt and ended our shame eternally!
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