If Any Of You Is Without Sin

 

Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”


This is a very frightening story, because this could so easily happen. And we could  be any of the people in it. We could be the woman being stoned to death. We, too, have broken God’s law and, perhaps, some of the laws of the land. She is deserted because ONLY those who really love us will stick by us when the going gets tough. Everyone else will either flee like rats deserting a sinking ship, or join the mob that’s out to lynch you.  


We know nothing at all about her background, her upbringing, or the circumstances of her life. If we take time out to think, however, we might be able to look out through her eyes, and see life from her perspective, see what took her to the place she found herself. “There, but for the grace of God I go,” is a very wise saying indeed. 


We may also be among those who are ready to stone her to death. She doesn’t fit into my expectation of what a person should be. She is different from me, and it is not very likely that she could ever be persuaded to see things my way. One of us has to be wrong, and it certainly cannot be me. Pride is a very frightening and destructive thing. It allows for no opinion but our own; and of no way of being, belonging, and behaving than what we define as normal. 


Most of us are not involved in the legal profession. We all, however, can easily put ourselves on the seat of judgment, and become judge, jury, and executioner for someone whom we don’t really know, and about whom we certainly don’t have all the facts. Judge not and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned. This is a basic instruction of Jesus to his followers. If I am compassionate, I will receive compassion, and the measure which I mete out to others is the measure I myself will receive in return. 


What we really should be in this story is Jesus. The moment I begin to BE Jesus to others, I will begin to SEE Jesus in others. As a Christian I am faced with the same question in each and every situation: What would Jesus do in a situation like this? Again, it is important to stress that, by myself, I just don’t have what it takes to treat others as Jesus would treat them. This is where the Holy Spirit comes in. Only with him in my heart can I do God things. And that is to live without sinning. And to live by forgiving those that do. 


So let us start doing God things.


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