Monday, March 9, 2015

You Be The Judge

Have you ever read the story of Mary Magdalene? Not the conspiracy theory about how she and Jesus married and had two children. The basic story from the bible. It's very simple, provided here as written in John 8 -

The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" "No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

I've been rolling these ideas about fairness and profiling and justice in my head for weeks - for a lifetime, honestly. I can't understand why we keep killing one another, but neither can I understand how we expect any of us not to be afraid of people who are scary. The uniform of a thug is not quite so formal as that of a police officer, but no less threatening depending on what side of his thuggery you stand. So, too, a police officer can appear as thug, no matter how shiny his shoes or how dignified his arrangement. Our problem is not in the uniform or the thuggery. It is in the judgement.

So we see Mary, she appears as a sinner, we know her to be a sinner, she herself cowers for her sin. And those among us willing to cast stones need to ask ourselves what would happen if we were called for our sins. Have we always been honest? Have we always been fair? Truthful? Law-abiding in every sense?If the whiteness of your skin were as shameful as the black of his would you cry for each child killed bearing your appearance? Would you be meek when your name was called?

In truth, we are all like Mary and we must all strive to be more like Jesus.

No comments:

Post a Comment