Upon Further Review

As I posted on my Facebook page and as I told the congregation on Sunday night, I found out Saturday that I had been the target of a fraud scheme. I had posted some equipment on Craig'slist and had someone accept the price of $900. When I got the check for $1890, I made contact with the buyer to ask why. He told me he wanted me to cash the check and wire the difference to a mover who would come and get the equipment. It didn't sound right to me and when I went to the bank, I found out that indeed it was a scam.

My first reactions were aggravation that someone had selected me as a possible target and played me a long till he thought he had me on the line. And I was disappointed that what seemed to be an opportunity to make a good profit had vanished. I thought about all the effort and ingenuity the scammer had put into this enterprise and lamented the fact that he could have used his cleverness and energy to be a positive element of society rather than a detriment to it. I was saddened by the fact that the scheme had apparently worked on four other people, according to the bank. And I thought how I hate evil.

But as the referee says when he is checking a replay to make sure that a call was correct on the field, "upon further review," I realized that the truth is that I hate evil in somebody else, but I'm not nearly as quick to see it in myself. I reflected on what was in me that caused me to want this transaction so much that I would fall for a scheme. I suppose there was an element of greed, wanting to make a handsome profit – – I had only paid $100 for the equipment. But perhaps of more importance was my old nemesis, Pride. I wanted to enjoy the fact that I had pulled off a successful flip of some equipment with hardly any work or time invested in the endeavor. This time I caught myself before I did any harm to the bank or to myself, but I could easily have fallen prey to the scheme. It called to mind the phrase that Jesus used to admonish his disciples in the garden of Gethsemane, "watch and pray so that you may not enter into temptation." (Matthew 26:41).