DIVINE GRACE, AND WAGGING TONGUES

News of Jesse Jackson's extramarital affair is what folks in newsrooms around the country call a water-cooler story, one that will be the main topic of conversation the next day.

The Jackson story has all the necessary ingredients: A powerful and sometimes controversial public figure, political trappings, religion and, of course, sex. And don't forget he's called "the Rev."

Lordy, how we love to see powerful people brought down by the same vices that lure and snag the rest of us.

Friends who commit adultery are good for a day or two of gossip. Politicians who fool around are juicy news for a week or so.

But, praise God when ordained ministers of the Gospel wind up in bed with someone who isn't their spouse. We can carry on for weeks.

It makes no difference whether you are a true believer or a skeptic. Men of the cloth who fool around are ripe for the slicing and dicing of sharp tongues.

Never mind that a good many harpies and wink-wink-nod-nod rib-jabbers would have a coronary if they found out their intimate lives were about to be splashed on the front page of the National Enquirer..

The smugness of Americans who recoil in disgust over reports of philandering clergy is legitimate. Most Americans live their lives without ever committing a single act that would be of interest to "Inside Edition." So when they react to the Jesse Jacksons and the Jim Bakkers and the Jimmy Swaggerts, they are doing it honestly.

I have a gut feeling that what makes fooling around by ministers an extra-special water-cooler story is the fact that most of us sense there is a proportionate ratio between a man of the cloth's public piety and his list of sins.

When we see men who are getting rich off their public displays of personal sainthood, a warning pops up in our minds. Watch out, the warning says. Pompous sanctimony is an indication of a spiritual life whose altar is a king-sized water bed.

Whenever I am privileged to cross paths with truly sanctified men and women, I am always struck by how common they are in every respect except for their single-minded devotion to giving the world a glimpse of divine thoughts, words and deeds.

I could list for you any number of holy people who daily reach out to touch others in godly ways.

I've witnessed the hand of God touching ordinary people as they comfort the dying, feed the hungry, make a sad person laugh, give away money when they have precious little for themselves, clean up the vomit and excrement of those too sick to sit up, give rides to strangers, find jobs for youths whose only skill is the knowledge that being a productive human is a deep well of dignity -- and on and on.

As ordinary and brief as any encounter with a God-filled human is, you feel a tingle in your spine when it happens. And there are those inspired occasions when you can take the easy road or do the right thing, and you find the strength and courage to act divinely -- and nobody knows!

Truly anointed people avoid the limelight, but they wish all that effort and money used to thrust attention-grabbing do-gooders in our faces could be diverted to those who suffer, thirst and mourn.

So maybe Jesse Jackson has, in his own way, fulfilled a spiritual mission he didn't even know he was tapped to do. He has made us think about the proud and the mighty who are really weak and hurting where it counts the most.

For that, the Jacksons, Bakkers and Swaggerts are entitled to our compassion.

Which doesn't make for a very good water-cooler story.

~Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.