Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman
who had been caught in adultery
and made her stand in the middle.
It was not zeal for the law nor concern for the sanctity of marriage that made them bring this woman to Jesus. Neither did it have anything to do with justice. Her entire case was subverted to serve as a trap for Jesus. The Law of Moses on its own could do nothing to prevent abuses like this for abuses stemmed from motives and the law could only proscribe actions. But the new law of the Spirit calls us to a higher standard. We too tend to become fixated on sin, especially on sexual sin, and to speak about it and discuss it without any real plan or purpose to do anything about it. In a certain sense we enjoy being scandalized and use our moral outrage as fuel for our curiosity. After all, what business do we have catching anyone "in the very act" of sin? What business do we have publicly shaming those so caught? What merit do our conversations about them have? How do this in any way contribute to God's justice?
for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God (see James 1:20).
How would Jesus respond to this woman brought before him for condemnation? Would he say that she should be stoned, thus contradicting Roman law? Or would he say she should be set free, thus contradicting the law of Moses? It seemed that there was no way out, and this was as the Pharisees intended it. But Jesus turned the tables on his interlocutors. From their pointing the finger at the sin of the woman Jesus shifted the focus instead to each one of them.
Let the one among you who is without sin
be the first to throw a stone at her.
He said this because in his view there was indeed only one among them who was without sin, one alone who was good (see Mark 10:18). The Pharisees probably considered themselves as Paul once did, blameless according to the law (see Philippians 3:6). But they knew that Jesus did not consider them to be such. They could either insist on stoning the woman and fall under Roman condemnation or they could do nothing and appear weak and sinful in the eyes of the crowd.
And in response, they went away one by one,
beginning with the elders.
We may hope that as Jesus inverted the trap it was not merely out of frustration and failure that the Pharisees departed. Perhaps they really were able to take a deeper look at themselves with Jesus scribbling in the dirt as a contrast to the angry and vengeful personas and to realize what they had become. It was the elders who departed first. Maybe they did indeed have some of the wisdom of age, or at least were by then less able to hide from that fact that their lives had not been perfect by any measure.
“Woman, where are they?
Has no one condemned you?”
She replied, “No one, sir.”
Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.
Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”
The only one who was sufficiently free to render true justice chose instead to show mercy. The only one with no board or splinter in his own eye demonstrated perfectly how to he was able to help rather than destroy those with a splinter in their own.
Whether the accused is innocent as Susanna was or guilty as was the woman caught in adultery our own sin makes bringing about justice difficult. Our own prejudices and preconceptions tend to prevent our seeing clearly. And so we need to pray to God as Susanna did for clear minded people like Daniel to speak against injustice. Whenever possible we ought to choose mercy over strict justice. Then, we too may one day hope to be shown mercy.
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