Keeping Clean

John 8: 1-11
1 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, 4 they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. 5 “Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?” 6 They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. 7 But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court. 10 Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.”

The Midian t.v. channels are filled with starlets behaving badly. You would have to be under a rock to have missed the many exposes on Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton, etc... The news report came in today that Kirsten Dunst, the bouncy blond screen presence of a dozen hit films, has checked herself into rehab in the midst of an emotional meltdown.

Technology gives us an incredible sense of proximity to entertainers. Their presence fills our homes in such a fashion that the news, trivial as it might be, about their lives becomes a part of our lives. The intrusion of news about these starlets into our lives seems to force us into an opinion about them. Like many in the past spoke of the black sheep cousin that every family has, we consider the exploits of these virtual family members as an affront to our sensibilities.

Jewish society, during the time of Christ, had a palpable caste system composed of orders of cleanliness. Followers of the Law were clean, Gentiles were not. The lowest levels of cleanliness, however, were left for the sick and the sinful women. Jesus has encounters with a number of these women (the woman at the well, Mary Magdalene, and the adulterous woman spoken about in the passage above). The cleanliness of Jesus was impacted by His proximity to these unclean persons. Throughout the Gospel, when the Pharisees really wanted to convince the crowd of Christ's unworthiness, they would pull out the fact that He mingled with the unclean (tax collectors, drunks, women of ill repute).

The Pharisees cart the adulterous woman into an audience with Jesus like a dog. Daining even to speak of her in anything but the third person, the Pharisees point her out to Christ as the lowest example of uncleanliness that they could find.

"What would you do with this?" you can hear them say...their hearts balanced between contempt for the unclean and a cheeky glee for the conundrum they have placed before this teacher they all loathe.

Christ ignores them; He ignores their passioned pleas and goes off to write on the ground. Finally tiring of their banter, Christ focuses His attention on the Pharisees' hypocrisy. Strangely, given the choice to show their cleanliness and stone the adulterous woman, no one takes Christ up on His challenge. Apparently each held a sin in his heart that he was scared to let show.

When Christ is left alone with the woman, the show is over. He has no more reason to hold back his scorn of this woman whom the world finds wretched. Given the opportunity to tell the woman what He really thinks, He tells her that He does not condemn her...and to make better choices next time.

Virtually every day and every night we have this woman thrust upon us. Intruding into our privacy, we can try to ignore the voices that want to make Britney's mistakes our business; but, ultimately, we have to come to a decision in our own hearts. Will we feign a self-righteous pity for these unclean women? Will we condemn them and, therefore, announce our devotion to right behavior?

Or will we not condemn them.....will we pray for them as an equal instead of a big brother? Will we empathize with them from our own weakness, or use them to prop up our own feeble strengths?

How clean are we...really?