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Monday, June 15, 2009

Writing in the Dirt


There is a story in the gospel that describes what happened when Jesus came upon a crowd of people about to stone a woman caught in the act of adultery. This was a punishment not only prescribed by the law, but also yet another opportunity for the religious leaders to use the law as a trap for Jesus, for if he could be shown to be in defiance of the law, he might thereby be discredited.

Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?"

Now here's the interesting part, the part wherein Jesus applies his customary gift for the uncommon response, leaving the accusers, the manipulators, even the hapless woman in silence, perplexed.

Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear.

Well, the outcome of the meeting is well enough known. He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.

The accusers did not continue to argue their case then, nor do we (hopefully) argue it now. The woman went free, for there were suddenly no accusers remaining.

Yet the fascination that persists, for me anyway, is contained in the Lord's strange act of kneeling to write with his finger in the dirt.

What did he write?

It is of course an age old question, with just about as many theories attached as a porcupine has quills--and for all this, curiously, stubbornly impenetrable. What is clear, though, is that whatever was written, it was the accusers who ended up convicted and not their target the woman, nor their prey the Lord.

Some say that he wrote down the sins of the stone throwers, one by one. Some say that he was merely doodling while he thought up his answer. Some say that he wrote verses from the Torah. Some say that he was simply bored with such pig-headed questions and lost interest for a minute.

But whatever he wrote, what seems ultimately clear is that it was the simple truth.

Now I do a certain amount of doodling of my own. I do not have, as the Lord had, access to the truth--receiving, as he said, every word from above--and so what I write is my own sorts of truths instead, my own questions. I write of my own struggles to understand, applying experience and theory, book knowledge and human compassion as poor substitutes for the Word from above.

Jesus knew his answers before he posed his questions (to the woman, Where are those accusers of yours?). For my own part, I am unclear about the propriety of my questions, let alone what answers might be had. I endeavor, in any case, to be honest, firstly with myself, and so also with others. I endeavor to strike at the core and to avoid the impedance of politics or diplomacy, of the undue carefulness that can mollycoddle a monster and the timidity that bows so readily to the fear of recrimination.

I will say to he who reads this and does not like it that perhaps I have touched on the truth after all. Each person will need to examine himself.

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