Intimate Moment with a Woman Caught in Adultery
This has always been one of my favorite stories, for many reasons... knowing that I condemn others, if not out loud, certainly in my heart. "That woman is the laziest person I've ever known!" or "What a hypocrite he is!" and yet, also knowing the sting of being condemned... I understand in my head that I have no right to judge anyone, not even myself, yet it's what we do. It's how we process information... this is good, that is bad, that is a gray area and I'm not going there.
"Karma" is a law central to both Hinduism and Buddhism (as well as some other Eastern religions). It's a cause and effect cycle: the good or the bad you do today will come back to you, an eye for an eye sort of thing. Jesus was more interested in mercy than karma, and this is one of the times he demonstrates it. But there's more to it than that.
I've always thought it totally unfair that the woman gets stuck with the adultery charge... it takes two to tango, and if she were caught in the act, then so was he. But even in our own time we blame the woman for all kinds of evils. She was raped because of the suggestive clothes she wore... because of the crowd she ran with. This thinking continues to demonizes the woman and makes the man look like a mindless raging hormone. What, his mother never taught him to treat women with respect? Why not? He never learned how to control his impulses? Why not?
"Judge not, lest you be judged" was just one way of paraphrasing Jesus' words in this situation. How many times have I been guilty? Too many to count. I like the way Gire says "so my hands may be first to drop their stones" knowing that I have a hoard of stones I've already gathered, kept safe in my pocket for just the moment I might need them. Let me drop them Lord!
"Karma" is a law central to both Hinduism and Buddhism (as well as some other Eastern religions). It's a cause and effect cycle: the good or the bad you do today will come back to you, an eye for an eye sort of thing. Jesus was more interested in mercy than karma, and this is one of the times he demonstrates it. But there's more to it than that.
I've always thought it totally unfair that the woman gets stuck with the adultery charge... it takes two to tango, and if she were caught in the act, then so was he. But even in our own time we blame the woman for all kinds of evils. She was raped because of the suggestive clothes she wore... because of the crowd she ran with. This thinking continues to demonizes the woman and makes the man look like a mindless raging hormone. What, his mother never taught him to treat women with respect? Why not? He never learned how to control his impulses? Why not?
"Judge not, lest you be judged" was just one way of paraphrasing Jesus' words in this situation. How many times have I been guilty? Too many to count. I like the way Gire says "so my hands may be first to drop their stones" knowing that I have a hoard of stones I've already gathered, kept safe in my pocket for just the moment I might need them. Let me drop them Lord!
posted by Claire Joy at
9:58 AM
3 Comments:
Great inisight, CJ. I had almost all the same thoughts. I do believe there is a little something to karma because I do believe you often reap what you sew - but I'm not sure I believe karma is the best way to describe it. (Believe me, that's hard for me to say after spending a year really delving into Buddhism!)
By
HeyJules, at 9:17 AM
It may or may not be karma, but I have experienced something like it on soooo many occasions... I'll say some judgmental thing about somebody and within thirty seconds I've been guilty of the same thing myself! Uncanny.
By
Claire Joy, at 9:21 AM
CJ, I like that part about hoarding stones - I do that so often, how hard it is throwing those stones away when youve taken so long to collect them...
By
dangermama, at 9:43 AM
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