One of my favorite posts ever about all the feels in going back to school. Now–now my baby is a teacher. This time thing really is a roller coaster.
For the first time in approximately 3700 years, I realized last fall that I did not have to care about when school started. Or ended. Or did basically anything at any time, except as it pertained to driving through school zones. I was done. Three kids more-or-less-successfully shepherded through school with a complicated combo of public, home, and private schooling. But we did it.
It’s done. And now I’m writing a post on five back-to-school tips when no child in my home is going back to school.
But I’m not here at the take-out end of sending kids back to school to give you great tips for kale salads that look like ostriches playing kickball. I’m not going to tell you how to color-code your school supplies with brads and die cuts and washi tape.
I’m here with five tips for life in all its beautiful feelings when you say goodbye to those kids, whether it be to kindergarten or college. A larger perspective spreads out before you at the end. Whether those kids are going on a bus, driving themselves to high school, or headed right back into your living room to go to school—remember these things.
Last week, we looked at the story of the woman caught in adultery. Jesus refuses to condemn her, escaping the trap the teachers of the law have set for him, and her, once again.
The fact that she is freed, not only from death but from her life of shame, is the first amazing part of this story. But it’s not the only amazing part.
As modern people far removed from first century Palestine, we can’t really recognize the revolutionary things Jesus did. We don’t know that culture, and we often don’t see his actions as they would have. We usually are left to take the obvious moral and assume Jesus meek and mild except for that tossing temple tables aberration.
But Jesus was not about the status quo then, and he isn’t now either. Jesus doesn’t play, and he was never meek and mild in the face of evil. One of biggest areas he refuses to play is in the justtreatment of women. Make no mistake–that’s what’s going on in this story. We have to get into the minds of the audience to see it.
Jesus doesn’t play
He isn’t solely about setting her free here, although he certainly is about that. He’s about much, much more. He’s about the way we treat women, still, oh so horribly, sadly, still treat women, two thousand years later.
He wasn’t having it then, and he’s not having it now.
Look at some details.
She is surrounded by a circle of men willing to sacrifice her for what they want. Isn’t that relevant?
It doesn’t matter who she is or what she’s done for their purposes — but yet it does. They’ve waited for this womanand this sin.
Think about it—there are sinners all over the place. All they had to do was find some disobedient teenager and haul him in front of Jesus. It could not be too difficult to find. Being disrespectful to your dad would warrant the same sentence, according to the law, and they could have probably found that on any block. Why not do that, rather than create a convoluted, contrived, completely confusing drama with this woman and adultery?
Why?
Because women and sexual sins were easy targets, just like they are now. It was easy to blame them then, and it still is. It was, and is, simpler to stand aside, pretend that since we don’t sin like that we can feel like the better person.
She’s got a big red “X” on her chest, and not much has changed for the pharisees of the world.
Last week I said that sometimes, we’re the woman in this story. Sadly,
Sometimes, we’re the pharisees.
“It is terribly important that the ‘accused’ in the story is a woman. In the first century, Judaism had stereotyped women as instigators whenever sexual sins were committed and labeled them as lacking the spiritual and moral fiber needed to uphold the law. The sexual passions of adolescence, for instance, were viewed as coming from the seductive attractions of females. The absence of the woman’s lover in the story is crucial. (Gary Burge, The NIV Application Commentary)
In other words, what was she wearing? What did she have to drink? Where was she walking? When? How did she lead him on?
You know the drill.
Jesus saw no man present at the kangaroo court. He did see a whole mess of men throwing blame at a woman. He saw a story that had been and has been since played out a thousand times. He saw a woman, a co-image of God, used as an object of someone’s passion and then blamed for the outcome. The man got a pass.
Don’t tell me Jesus isn’t relevant.
For every #MeToo story out there, Jesus knows. He saw it. He refused to let it go by.
This isn’t the only time he made it clear that blaming the woman was not OK.
I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.So if your eye—even your good eye—causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away. (Matthew 5.28-29)
He contradicts every evangelical modesty lesson ever right here. Nope, guys. It’s not her. It’s you. Take responsibility for your own stuff. Stop blaming the women. It’s. On. You.
Eye gouging is serious language.
It’s radical. Revolutionary. Jesus was so insanely pro-woman, but his followers are still having the same issues the pharisees did. Times do not change. There should never have had to be a #MeToo if the church was really following Jesus.
Sometimes we’re the woman. Sometimes we’re the pharisees. And,
Sometimes we’re the audience.
It’s a gambit that has not changed. Vulnerable women are used by the powerful for their purposes. We see the news stories every day, and we don’t even register a reaction anymore to the Harvey Weinsteins, Larry Nassars, or Andy Savages.
The crowd watched the woman dragged half-naked before them, and they knew this was wrong. Yet no one stepped forward to say so. No one. They were too afraid of the powerful religious establishment.
It’s too tempting, and too dangerous, to watch #MeToo and #ChurchToo move across our vision, be outraged for a moment, and then move on.
Jesus confronts the whole mess. He sees a woman de-imaged before him by the religious leaders. When he forgives her and gives her back her dignity, he sends a powerful message to his audience.
See these women. Hear them. Don’t turn away.
If we’re the audience, we have some things to ask ourselves before we move on from Jesus’ question—Does no one condemn you?
Do we listen to women’s stories?
Do we disallow the tired stereotype of women as emotional creatures, or temptresses who make up stories to trap men?
Do we let judges know that slaps on the wrist for assault on women are not acceptable?
Do we refuse to shame them or burden them with the sins of men and boys?
Do we teach our boys that we are all responsible for our own sin?
Sometimes we’ re the crowd, too afraid to speak up. Afraid to contradict the religious leaders of our day as well.
I love Jesus even more after this story. He’s not having it. Not then, not now. He won’t stand for people using women or for meting out unequal justice between the genders.
It’s radical. It’s beautiful. And we need to see it for exactly what it was and is.
I grew up on cop and courtroom shows. I loved the drama of catching the bad guy or seeing a lawyer convince the jury, in commanding tones of injured justice, that the defendant was innocent. I planned to become a lawyer up until my last two years of college.
Having worked in a law office and served on a jury, I’m now aware that television doesn’t portray a courtroom exactly . . . accurately. There’s a lot less drama and a lot more drudgery. We don’t show justice quite as it happens. (But if you want to see a humorous video of all our favorite dramatizations, click here.)
This is nothing new. Courtroom scenes have always been played in different ways, sometimes in ways far from just.
Today’s story — and the question God asks—isn’t just a story about one person, or one trial. And it is so relevant to today’s world.
Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives,but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them.As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.
“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery.The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. (John 8.1-6)
So here’s the setting. A crowd. Jesus teaching. And what happens? This group of men interrupt the teaching (rude) to deposit a woman, most likely with little clothing, in the middle of the crowd. It’s wrong on so many levels.
Most Embarrassing Moment
Have you ever been embarrassed in front of a group? I remember one particular 10th grade spelling bee. At some point, I looked across the room at my crush. And he was looking at me. I looked back. I flirted a little. I smiled, made eyes, and was generally overjoyed that he was looking right at me.
Until I realized that everyone was looking right at me. Because it was my turn. And the entire classroom had seen my awkward tenth-grade attempts at flirting.
I have no idea if I spelled the word correctly.
This woman is completely vulnerable, at risk, and humiliated. They’ve made sure of it.
The wording says they “put” her in front of the crowds. Like she is a stray fork or a plate of bad cafeteria food they can toss wherever they like. She is, in fact, their tool for entrapping Jesus. Little more.
She has no agency at all in this matter.
In a trial that should have been private and should, by law, have involved the guilty man as well, the men decide to make her shame public instead, because she fits their agenda.
Does this all sound vaguely familiar?
It’s the way women have always been treated. And Jesus isn’t having it.
Keeping the Law?
For men so intent on keeping the law, they break several.
1 —They could and should have brought her privately if they wanted a court judgement. They brought her in public, to shame her and challenge Jesus.They wanted a dramatic lynching, and they wanted him holding the noose. It’s not about justice, and it’s not about her. She’s collateral damage.
2—They could and should have brought both guilty parties. Except a man would have demanded his rights. He would not have been as vulnerable. She had no rights. She was an easy target. People who want power choose easy, vulnerable, targets with no ability to make their own case.
3—They could and should have brought the required two witnesses forward immediately. Except, well, for two people to actually witness adultery? They had to see it at the same time and place and have the same story. In other words, they had to have set her up. No one accidentally witnesses adultery, certainly not two people. Yet these witnesses don’t materialize.
4—They could and should have tried to stop the sinner out of compassion. That was the law. Obviously, no one did. They watched and waited.
That’s just a start at the injustice of it all.
Grace or Law?
It was a test of grace or law. Would Jesus lean too far toward grace—let her go— and break the law? Or would he lean too far toward law —agree to stone her—and invalidate all he’d taught?
Either way, the leaders are back in power. That’s the point.
They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!”Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. (John 8.7-9)
They kept demanding an answer. They are impatient, wanting condemnation on their terms, their timeline.
Jesus Replies
Jesus gives his answer. Fine. Toss a stone. Throw it. Hard.
But only according to the law that you so carefully keep—the two witnesses have to go first. The crowd would know that was the law. The accusers would, too.
He demands that her accusers be the first to begin taking a life. If your testimony is absolutely truthful, he hints, this should not be hard. If you haven’t misrepresented anything, exaggerated, told one white lie—you’re good. Go ahead. Throw a rock.
And no one does.
Jesus is keeping law for them, but enacting mercy for her all at once.
Never cross Jesus when death is on the line.
Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”“No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” (John 8.10-11)
Didn’t even one of them condemn you?
The truth here, in Jesus’ beautiful question?
No one has power to call you guilty except the Lord of grace and truth.
So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed youfrom the power of sin that leads to death. (Romans 8.1-2)
Sometimes we are this woman.
In this life, People will shame you, hurt you when you’re vulnerable, treat you like an object to use, humiliate you, judge and condemn you. I know they have.
But they don’t have the power to make that call. Don’t let them have that power.
Has no one condemned you? No, Lord.
In calling Jesus Lord, she is transferring power. She is admitting him as her master. And she is transformed. Her accusers no longer have power over her. They can’t bring her shame, judgment, or hurt. Only he can. But he doesn’t.
Look into face of your Lord. Hear his words. “Neither do I condemn you.” Let them cover you with grace and truth.
Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us. (Romans 8.33-34)
No one has power to call you guilty except the Lord of grace and truth.
There is more to this story. We’ll get into it next week. For today, though, remember, shame has no place in God’s kingdom. The answer to Jesus question is—no one. No one can condemn us. Only Him. And he doesn’t. Let it transform you in all those deep places of fear, humiliation, and shame.
She is free at the end of the story, in more ways than one. He offers the same thing to all of us.
When did I first meet you, Lizzie Bennet? My guess is senior english; I wish it had been sooner.
Dear Lizzie, I thought I was a wit, too. And a piano player. At least you knew your limits on the latter.
I could have used you senior recital day, some months after I must have met you. So I can’t even beg the excuse that your cautionary tale hadn’t been told to me.
Exhibit A:
My best friend emceed the concert evening, made up of all of us going to meet our ignominy at music contest festival. Playing before a judge would be sufficient terror for me, but playing before an auditorium full of kids, many of whom had never particularly liked me, and their parents? Would that be something akin to how you felt having to play and sing for Miss Bingley? Lady Catherine?
Probably not. You appear to be an extrovert, at least, and that could have saved you. At least, your bravado would have. We introverts do not comprehend that level of nonchalance.
But my friend and I were at odds just then. We were not comrades on that stage, he with the microphone and I with the sheet music. He introduced me as playing Beethoven’s Sonata Pathetique, joking into the mic a hope that my playing would be far from pathetic. I muttered on my way across the stage, which seemed enormous, “You’re pathetic.”
As witty comebacks go, well, it shouldn’t have gone.
Photo by Nahir Giorgio on Unsplash
The playing was, in fact, fairly pathetic, as I always bit off more than I could chew, musically and otherwise. My 17-year-old Red-Bullesque emotions, hurt and anger from our rift, didn’t enhance the non-virtuoso performance.
We Know Now
Lizzie, you didn’t hate Mr. Darcy for his pride so much as for yours. Oh, I get that now.
When he hurled those accusations of poor family connections, vulgar behavior on the part of your relations, and less-than-stellar paternal judgment, you didn’t hate him.
You hated that it was true.
See, Lizzie, I know how that goes. I spent my teen years hating other people first so that they would not get closeenough to see that it was all true.
We were misfits, my family and I. I was a loser, behind the straight-A facade. I didn’t grasp all the social cues that made it all so effortless for the Misses Darcy and Bingley of McHenry High.
I could dance a superb jitterbug or disco, in fact, but the Dancing Through Life concept was beyond me. I didn’t ever glide where turf was smooth.
Photo by David Charles Schuett on Unsplash
My favorite activity was debate team, where I could make someone else look small and me brilliant, and I got points for doing it. I excelled at debate team.
Drama worked too, because I could be someone else on stage, and I liked being someone else. Anyone else.
Years later, I’d hear phrases like “imposter syndrome” and I would come to realize that pretty much everyone in high school feels like a loser, but that was many years later.
Jane Austen, I Salute You
I am still in awe of your creator that she managed to write a book where everyone, including you, assumed it was his pride and your prejudice that caused all the issues, when really—Ms. Austen was laughing politely into her palm all the time—it was quite the other way around.
Pride is an expert at camouflage. I assumed it couldn’t endanger me so long as I thought so little of myself. I didn’t grasp the deep drive underneath my words, like “you’re pathetic,” that propelled me to be better, smarter, more talented, whatever.
I needed my pride because I was so afraid it was all true.
Exhibit B:
I stopped my Old Testament prof near the registration desk. “I don’t understand why I got this score. What was wrong with the short answers?”
He looked at me quizzically. “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“I think I deserved an A.”
“You got an A-.”
Me. Still standing there. Looking at him.
“You are actually arguing over an A- on an OT mid-term?”
I should have gotten a clue by his face, really.
It wasn’t the superior, “I don’t even give A’s, so why are you wasting my holy time?” sort of look. I had one prof like that.
It was more a look of, “This should not bother a person who wants to be a pastor, and I’m trying to find a nice way of saying that, AND BTW, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”
Something clicked into place. I didn’t want to be the pastor who spent her life checking her stats on “Rate My Pastor.” (Please tell me no such site exists. Please.)
I wanted to stop fighting for a spot on a pedestal. Heights make me dizzy, anyway.
Photo by Jake Ingle on Unsplash
It was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice . . . In fact, if you want to find out how proud you are the easiest way is to ask yourself, ‘How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronise me, or show off?’ The point is that each person’s pride is in competition with every one else’s pride. CS Lewis
I do hate being patronized. So much. I know you did, Lizzie. I fidget in my seat, too, whenever I read the dialog (monologue) between you and Lady Catherine. I bite my tongue, too. She’s so interfering. So controlling. So . . . prideful. So much like I probably could be, and so could you, if we didn’t have a good sense of humor.
Are you, too, an Enneagram 5, Lizzie? Pride is the dark side of those of us who fall into the 5 range. I never understood it better than when I learned this was my core personality—my core need.
“Pride leads to every other vice . . .” And yet it is such a vise itself. It grips us so tightly we have to work to keep the handle supple, yielding in its turn. We must consciously turn it back, dial it in, remind ourselves that backward is sometimes the best way to turn when we’re hurtling forward into our own self-interest.
Backward reminds us to let out the throttle of pride, before it sends us careening toward destruction.
Thank You, Lizzie Bennet
Lizzie, I need you right now more than ever. Right now, when I’m teetering on the 5 edge because injury and circumstances tell me the lies that I am useless, helpless, incapable. The lies become the stories we tell ourselves, as Brene Brown would say.
Laugh with me, Lizzie. Remind me how small I really am, and how helpless we all are in the eye of the One who gives us our daily breath. When we 5’s recognize that smallness, Lizzie, it’s freeing. You’d think it would be the opposite, but we both know better.
Remind me that we spend too much time heeding the lies about who we are and too little enjoying others for who they are.
Lizzie Bennet, you are a masterpiece, and I’m grateful for having to read characters who change us, often by being like us.
jill.m.richardson 