John 8:9-11 “When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, …Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
Most people behave in a way that is consistent with how they want to be perceived. Jesus had a gift of being able to see what was really going on with them. The woman in this story must have felt worthless and hopeless. Jesus started with the main issue, which was the hypocrisy of the accusers. He then told her that he did not condemn her, but that she must cease what she was doing wrong. Through love and truth he exposed the darkness of the situation and set her free.
I count some precious prostitutes among my friends. None of them as little girls had dreams and aspirations of growing up to sell their bodies. It was a dangerous, painful, degrading decision of last resort for each of them. Do we condemn or seek to understand such people? In the West, it’s difficult to understand how people can kill each other just for being from the wrong tribe – but without Christ’s work of grace in your life, wouldn’t you want to kill those who’d raped your mother or killed your siblings?
Is that person on welfare because they’re inherently lazy parasites, or because the years of serial abuse they suffered at home left them deeply damaged? Are those children so feral because their absentee single-Mum is lazy or because she’s out trying to hold down three jobs to pay the bills? And is she single because she was promiscuous or because she kept the baby despite calls to abort having been raped? There are myriad issues attracting our armchair condemnation…
Indeed, we’re often quick to condemn, haughty in our own self-righteousness, entrenched in our own prejudices. How about seeking out someone obviously messed up and ‘different’ today, and trying to understand and engage with them?
Lord, forgive my condemning judgmental attitude. I choose to seek to understand today. Amen!
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