Judgment

Imagine coming to work and the first thing you are confronted with is a life of death challenge.

Then each of them went home, while 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." - John 7:53-8:11

For Jesus, this is no ordinary work day.  He came to teach in the Temple, not to stand in judgment over a woman caught committing adultery.

This reminds me of Solomon's dilemma when the two women came before him each claiming the child was theirs.

After giving it some thought, Solomon suggested they cut the child in half and so each would get half, and the true mother offered to give up her claim so the child would live.

Here we have men claiming to be blameless and pure, seeking judgment against a woman who clearly sinned.

The only thing that would satisfy them is stoning the woman to death, as prescribed by law.

So, why bring this before Jesus, if not to trap him into breaking the law.  They believed he would seek to release her.

But they were wrong.

There is speculation that he wrote something on the ground that showed the men he knew of their own indiscretions, but we have no way of knowing that is what he wrote.

All we know is he tossed the decision back to them.

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

No one dared.

In our daily lives, managing people, doing our jobs, how often do we witness unequal effort, failure to do the job, mistakes, sloppiness?

How do we deal with it?

Do we drag the person before the judge and seek justice, or do we look around and ask ourselves how often we too fail to meet the demands of the job?

The key here is acknowledging the sin and at least offering the opportunity to walk away from it and vow not to do it again.

Maybe if we could figure out how to implement those kinds of corrective measures, recognizing that we too are capable of failing, we could make our lives so much better.

BTW, this is still happening today.  Our judgments toward one another are often harsh.

More to come...