Former Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson has a ‘tell-all’ biography coming out. Johnson won the 1988 Olympic 100 metres but was stripped of his gold medal and world-record time of 9.79 seconds after he tested positive for the banned steroid stanozolol. His book, to be called “Seoul to Soul”, will be released in September.

The former sprinter has always maintained that he should never have been caught at the 1988 Seoul Olympics since he went off steroids 26 days prior to the competition. He believes his drink was spiked. Of the eight runners in Johnson's final, six have been linked to performance-enhancing drugs, including American Carl Lewis, the man awarded the gold medal and world record after Johnson was disqualified.

Ben Johnson is now 48. In a rare press conference yesterday, while attending a sports symposium in New York, he was asked, “Why a book and why now?” He responded by saying it is time to clear his name and to tell the truth of what happened those 22 years ago.

It is time to clear his name. His response underlines how important our name and our reputation can be to us. This morning at Women’s Morning Out, where we have been looking at some of the parables of Jesus, we spent some time talking about those “sinners and tax-collectors” that Jesus was always hanging around with. The gospels report that he was often chastised for doing so.  Jesus consistently challenged people to not be judgmental and to meet people where they were. It can be hard to not judge when we have a sense of what is right and wrong. This morning we reminded one another of the story of the woman who was ‘caught in adultery’. (I always wonder where the man was – can’t be ‘caught in adultery’ all by yourself – but she was the one who was about to get killed because of it.) Jesus looked at the crowd and said, “Well, whoever is without sin can throw the first stone.”  With that the people dropped their stones and drifted off home. It is a good leveler – sure, you can be the administrator of punishment if you have never sinned yourself.

I am sorry that 22 years later Ben Johnson is still asking Canadians to forgive him. But I would be willing to bet that there are many of us who haven’t.

How does this whole judging &forgiveness conundrum go for you?