Caught
This woman, sitting in the dirt, men shouting all around her. “Do you know what she’s been doing? Do you know what we caught her doing?” She griped the sheets around her, trying to cover more of herself up. The had caught her. These men. Watching her, wanting her, they broke down the door, shouting and screaming and all speaking over one another, and they grabbed her arms and dragged her out. Why was she being dragged alone? Where was the man she had been with? In a crowd of men, she was all alone again. Anger and threats all around her. Some men carried rocks and stones. What were they going to do with her? Where were they going? The blood inside her body had frozen. Terror seeped into her veins. Oh My God. They are taking me to the chief priests. This is it. What will happen to my children? What will happen to my family? They already won’t have anything to do with me? But this will wreck them, ruin them completely. Oh my children! They will starve! No one will care for them. Oh God! Oh God! You can’t let this happen! Oh please! What can I do! What should I do?
And then she realized the voices were familiar. I know these men. In the initial chaos, it was just loud shouts, all muffled together, but now, as she listened and look around at this mob, she knew them. Each one she knew. She had heard each one, in another context, with softer voices, coming to her, wanting something from her, wanting her. How is this happening? All have fallen short of the glory of god. All have sinned. How is this happening? And the image of a sweet young goat flashed through her mind. Oh my God. I am the goat. They want their sins on me, sacrifice me to pay for their sins. And their sins they left with me, in me. They want to sacrifice me.
She looked up amongst the shouting to the new rabbi. She had heard a new teacher was in town. She had heard whispers and rumors about him being different. But they all end up the same, in her bed, wanting her, and then after paying her, blaming her. He was like every other man. She knew he would be.
The shouting continued. “The law says…” “Stone her…” “Stone her…” “Stone her…” Oh God, oh God, oh God. Save me….
And then the rabbi shifted. He moved apart from the crowd and bent down. He bent down. What has happening. What was he doing? He bent down, kneeled down, and looked directly into her eyes. Right into her eyes. And everything inside her got very quiet. How could this be? He actually saw her. All the men, and the nights full of men, but this was…. He saw her. He looked at her and he was with her, and she was in his presence. This moment felt like the first time. Like she had been a spiritual virgin, this part of her soul never touched, and he saw it.
And then he stretched out his hand and touched the dirt. His fingertips moved back and forth, and somehow it wasn’t on the dirt, but on her heart, like he was writing on her soul not on the dirt at all. Like fingertips deep in her chest, he wrote, Rikhmith-eykh. I love you with an everlasting love….
What was he doing? The shouts continued. “Tell us what we should do with her!” “Stone her like Moses says…”
He stopped, looked at her again, and then slowly stood up….
“The first of you who have not wanted a woman like this, you, get your stone ready…. You who have not wanted her, prepare yourself…
The sounds of the market and the dust from the ground swirled around them all. But the shouting began to recede. The rabbi knelt back down and reached for the dirt again. But now began to write something new… names. She knew these names. In her limited ability to read… she knew these names. She loved these names. They were the names of her children. They were the children with unknown fathers, the entire town was their father, somewhere in this crowd was their fathers… no one knew who which was which, and everything knew their collective father… it was all of them. And as he wrote in the dirt, the oldest man there seemed to grip his own chest, as if the names were written on his soul.. the name of the oldest child, his child… Would he feel it? Would he welcome this in? Not a condemnation, but invitation to step into something he had been part of… his head hung down. The weight of his own responsibility on him. What could he do… How could he claim this? It would ruin him too. Too many lives were already ruined, what good would it do to ruin his too? He slowly backed away, trying to be invisible, and turned… and walked away.
One after another, they all felt the names on their own hearts, hung their heads and turned and walked away.
The area became very quiet. The woman starring at the ground, the names of her children written in the dust. She looked up and there he stood. All alone, he held out his hand. He touched her. How could he be willing to touch her. Wouldn’t he be unclean? She stood up, clutching the sheet around her, and then he slipped off his own outer garment, and placed in over her shoulders. What was he doing? Someone would see. This would ruin him. He had saved her but this would ruin him. What should she do? What could she do? She hung her own head in shame. How could he know? Did he hear the rumors too? Did he know her reputation too? How did he know all of her children? He has used their sweet nick names she had for them. How did he know?
“Is there no one left to condemn you?” The voice was like silk, smooth and gentle… but seemed to shatter the air. It saturated her heart… “Is there no one left? Where did they go?” with a smile across his face, looking around in jest…
“No, no one sir.” She somehow slipped out the words, answering him. “No one.” And she began to hang her head again and he then reached out and touched her face… lifted her chin to look straight at her again. That gaze, that look, the presence of it was more than she had ever known. He entire body felt it, like nothing she had ever experienced.
“Then neither do I condemn you. You are free now my sweet girl. You can leave your life of sin.”
And in that instant, the bonds that had held her, that had suffocated her, loosed somewhere deep inside. They seemed to come apart and fall away. And she could breath. A deep breath rushed into her lungs, like coming up for air after drowning, the air rushed in and filled her up. And in her exhale came a small laugh… joy. How could this man, this traveling rabbi, do this? Who was he?
“Who are you?”
“I am Jesus.”
