One of my favorite weekly Spiritual Reflections to read is The 77% Weekly* written by Rabbi Brian. This week his topic was on loving your neighbor and showing compassion. He wrote:

20th century Trappist monk, Thomas Merton wrote in his book Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander:

“The basic falsehood is the lie…that we have the monopoly of all truth, just as our adversary for the moment has the monopoly of all error.”

Two hundred years earlier, Baal Shem Tov said,

“We are commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves and from this the Talmud commands us to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. You always find excuses for your own misdeeds, so make excuses also for your neighbor.”

It is spiritual-religious immaturity to say that we are good and they are not. In fact, we are no different from them except for the fact that we are we and they are they.

It made me think of the story of the adulterous woman in the Gospel of John.  We read in John 8 that one morning Jesus went to temple, sat down and taught those who came in to listen to him. Suddenly a group of scribes and Pharisees appears and they make a woman who has been accused of adultery stand before all present at the temple. Vulnerable and exposed she stands there for all to see and cast judgment. Quite sure of their case and that they are doing the right thing, they say to Jesus: “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?” These are not a group of righteous men concerned about the mores of their city. Their motive for humiliating this woman in public is more sinister. The gospel writer writes that this group of men did it to trick Jesus into incriminating himself: They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Instead of answering them, Jesus does the most bizarre thing: he bends down and writes with his finger on the ground. At first it seems that he may be ignoring them, but that does not seem to deter them, because they keep on questioning Jesus. So he straightens up and says to them: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Then without waiting for any response, he once again bends down and continues writing on the ground. This behavior must have infuriated the scribes and Pharisees. Surprisingly they did not get angry; rather we read in verse 9: 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.

Wish I knew what Jesus wrote on the ground, but with one simple question he was able to make an appeal to the accusers’ own lives and experiences. He invited them to connect to this woman as a human being, as a person – not an object. They were so sure they were right. Yet their own motives were questionable – they were using God’s word, the Law of Moses, as a way to discredit Jesus. If Jesus was a righteous man of God, he would follow the Law of Moses, but if he showed compassion and grace, he was not only breaking the law but also was not one of them. They believed that they had the monopoly over truth and the Law of Moses to back it up.  To reason or argue with them would have been pointless, so instead Jesus bends down and writes on the ground – strange. Yet, Jesus’ action provided them with time for self-examination and reflection: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Eric Law, (a well-known Episcopal priest) points out that with this question Jesus invited them to consider what would happen if the law were applied equally to everyone, if everyone who had sinned were to be stoned as well. The scribes and Pharisees used the strict application of the law as means to and end – to find proof to bring charges against Jesus. Using Scripture for political gain is apparently not something new. And where was the man who committed the adultery with her? After all adultery is not something you can commit on your own. Or was it because she was a woman that only she stood there exposed and powerless in the temple?

Maybe we should learn to bend down and write on the ground instead of making quick judgments when we think we are right; when we think we are the exclusive owners of truth. Loving our neighbors asks of us that we show compassion. A good start would be to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. We are quick to find excuses for our own misdeeds, yet reluctant to make any excuses for our neighbors.  Maybe we should take time to reflect on Jesus’ question the next time we are so convinced we are right and that they are so wrong. Maybe cultivating compassion and understanding would be a worthy New Years resolution to consider.

“Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Kobie

* The 77% Weekly (a 40/52-weeks-a-year, quick-reading, thought-lingering, spiritual-religious email newsletter)

This entry was posted on Monday, January 11th, 2010 at 10:47 pm and is filed under Bread for the Journey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.