Justification and Forgiveness

I realize it was also the big gospel on Sunday, but I'm going to talk about the alternate gospel for today (Monday the 14th).

It just pairs so well with Daniel's rescue of Susanna through clever use of cross examination and the bravery to stand against the crowd.  The crowd willing to stone the beautiful woman whom they all found tempting and -- in the way of the patriarchy -- they therefore did everything in their power to make it HER who was at fault rather than themselves.

I hate how many different ways we do that -- make women the sinners when men desire them and act poorly in response.

Daniel was brave to stand against the crowd that was no doubt leaning toward taking the beautiful wife of a powerful (if wise and generous) man down a peg.  After all, as I wrote about today (on behalf of Friday), people are embarrassed by the way that successful and truly good people make the rest of us feel.  To find out that the great Susanna wasn't really good, and therefore we don't need to do the work of aspiring to her example, must have been a secret, vicious relief.

That was Daniel's courage -- to trust his own judgement (inspired by God no doubt but only in the level of a gut feeling) and be bold enough to speak out against the tyranny of the majority.  To find the truth cleverly, to find that he could, in fact, avert the terrible thing.  To be willing to stand up and find that, in fact, he could save the woman who was innocent.  The joy of finding that he could save her by stepping out from the crowd.

But then Jesus does something entirely more radical.  For a guilty woman (still bearing the sin of the man who desires her, incidentally), Jesus does not just stand up to the crowd.  Does not just turn the crowd to guilty victims instead of the innocent.  He does not simply reveal the true facts.

He changes the crowd.

Which is how much higher Jesus was aiming than the old testament prophets and heroes, in one simple side-by-side comparison.  It's no little cleverness, no trick to beat the system, no advocacy or obvious worldly path.

Jesus changes their hearts.

He doesn't stand up to the crowd and sway them.  He tells the crowd that the woman is them.  He tells them that the woman is not worse than them.  That they will not lift themselves up to tear her down.  He tells them that the hate in their hearts is not MISDIRECTED but UNNECESSARY.

You don't need to carry around that hate in your heart, Jesus tells them.  Not just, as Daniel said, that you need to be careful who you vent it on.  Jesus says that the hate is harmful to yourself as well as to those you punish with it.

If you can say that you are doling out punishment without the slightest hate, the slightest anger, then still, look to your own life and the times you fell.  If you are miraculously free of those nasty things that make us want to lash out in acceptable ways, then reach instead for empathy.  For understanding.  We can all find that.

No one has to die today.