Writing in the Dust

This August at Sanctuary First we are Writing in the Dust and revisiting January’s theme of Journalling the Journey. Did you take up our challenge to journal at the start of the year? How’s it going? Taking the time to stop, clear your mind, and write can be an incredibly important tool.

Once, the scribes and the Pharisees tried to catch Jesus out. They wanted to force him to condemn a woman caught in adultery to be stoned to death for her sin. They knew that this maverick’s mission, with its countercultural message of siding with the vulnerable and marginalised, would be compromised if he stood next to the powerful and condoned their harsh punishment. They were right, if Jesus told them to go ahead or even picked up a rock himself it would kill his whole project - stone dead. They also knew that if he took the other route and began equivocating and making excuses, being too flexible about ethics, it would compromise his authority and expose him as another well-meaning idealist. Reactionary conservative or bleeding heart liberal? What would Jesus do?

But as they were speaking, Jesus bent down and began writing in the ground. He did not join the other men that were towering over the woman or turn away as you can imagine many others were doing. He knelt down, so the woman was above him, and he began to write. He did not shoot first and ask questions later. His first reaction was to write and we have no idea what those words were that were swirling in the dust. The men kept questioning him and eventually he stood up and said something that surprised everyone. He sidestepped their trap and challenged them saying, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’

He did not rigidly and unthinkingly enforce the status quo but nor did he make wishy washy excuses and allowances, he did not condone or disregard the adultery. Instead of lowering what they understood to be the ethical standard he raised it impossibly high. None of them were able to see themselves as blameless, not somehow compromised, and so in a position to condemn another. Jesus was saying that in order to condemn, one has to be above reproach, not acting out of jealousy, or anger, or envy, or bitterness, or hurt.

Once they were alone, Jesus, himself above reproach, said that he would not condemn her either. A new understanding of God is glimpsed where we begin to see that in order to make these judgments calls you have to be impossibly good and that God - as well as being impossibly good - is impossibly generous. See John 8: 3-11 to read this encounter in the Bible.

What was he writing in the dust? If only we could read it…

Writing in the dust is a fantastic image and a vivid metaphor. Using your finger to try and bring meaning out of a mound of tiny fragments. Wanting to leave a mark while all the time being aware it could just blow away. This month as we return to the topic of journalling we read the lectionary passages in the light of both personal journalling and famous historical diarists who wrestled with what it meant to be alive, to suffer, to love, to live and then knelt down and wrote in the dust…

Each week contains 7 Bible references. Usually 6 from Lectionary + 1 additional reading relating to the sub theme.