Remember the occasion in sacred scripture where we read that the scribes and Pharisees were plotting to test Jesus so that they could have some “charge to bring against him”? We recently read the story of a woman caught in adultery and is made to stand before Jesus while she is scorned by her accusers. These men claim that she was “caught in the very act of committing adultery” and according to the law of Moses should be stoned. What did Jesus have to say about this? We know that Jesus did not speak but “bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.” (Jn. 8: 1-11)What if, the scribes and pharisees who claimed that the woman was “caught in the very act of committing adultery” had plotted together ahead of time so that there could be no question of the woman’s innocence. What if, in plotting together their careful plan, they had stooped down and drawn their plan on the ground. Then, when Jesus bent down and began drawing on the ground, what if, they recognized their own guilty involvement in the crime as they had plotted it.
I’ve always wondered why the scribes and Pharisees “went away, one by one, beginning with the elders”. My imagination says, “No wonder they left speechless unwilling to throw the first stone.”
Elaine Cole, CSJ