God condemned me not. Nor do I ACIM WB 228
… Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared …where all the
people gathered around him… The teachers of the law and the Pharisees
brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and
said, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law, Moses
commanded us to stone such women (to death). Now what do you say?” John 8:1-11
The people stood close, holding rocks. The Pharisees challenged Jesus to judge the woman. If He did not agree to the stoning, it would be seen as disobedience to God’s Law and the Jewish tradition. Their intent was to shame and condemn not only the woman but also the Master.
Perhaps you too are being incited to judge someone, some situation, racial group, gender, authority, relative, neighbor or yourself. Perhaps you too, are witness to adulterous behavior. Mary Magdalene defines adultery as giving your heart to lower level passions.You love what deceives you, giving your devotion to a material/physical and false salvation; giving your heart to hate, anger, attack and bodies. Essentially sin is a shack up with the ego. Your friends, culture, families, and religious elders show you who is guilty and provide a pile of rocks.
Faced with the wrath of the crowd, Jesus thought for a moment, (a holy instant). He bent down and began writing something on the ground. No one knows what he wrote. Some say, He was writing the laws given to Moses to rule the people. Some say he was writing the names of those assembled who were seeking the woman’s death. Whatever the people saw had a powerful effect. Boldly the Teacher rose and spoke. He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone. One by one, the people dropped their weapons and walked away. They realized they were not blameless, seeing their righteous and mean-spirited judgments. None among them had moral purity. Everyone had made adulterous mistakes.
When Jesus found himself alone with the woman, he asked her, who are your accusers? She replied, No one, lord.
In these days of evil appearances, a moral righteousness presses as answer to our emotions. We are feeling hatred, vengeance, shame, fear and want to blame. We are so weary of our pain. How easy to become confused, thinking my feelings provide a true moral compass and the right to stone certain groups, leaders, and human beings. Perhaps we might pause before spewing our mental and physical projectiles to reflect upon what anger and fear wants us to do. Feelings themselves are not truth. They spawn from our thoughts and beliefs. We have countless mistaken beliefs. Anger and fear seek justice, but do not know what it is.
A Course in Miracles says, When you are weary, remember you have hurt yourself. Your Comforter will rest you, but you cannot. You do not know how… unless you hurt yourself you could never suffer in any way, for that is not God’s Will… Pain is not of Him… for there is no conflict in Him. Conflict is the root of all evil… being blind it does not see whom it attacks. Yet it always attacks the Son of God and the Son of God is you…T-11.III.1
We are all adulterers. We have attacked, blatantly and blindly, hurling judgments at each other and ourselves. We have all lusted after ego, believing separation was self-love. I am not blameless. I am part of the crises. I cannot begin to illustrate how. Who to fear, doubt, control, deem valuable, beautiful, good, who deserves power, allegiance to hierarchy and a belief that everyone should be like me, are some of the byproducts of my desire for privilege. I walk with the Pharisees and do not know it. Somehow the color of my skin has become a fistful of rocks and rightness. Shall I blame my parents for my ignorance? Shall I blame my culture? Perhaps I should swallow all the blame myself?
Jesus says ….If your brothers are part of you and you blame them for your deprivation, you are blaming yourself. And you cannot blame yourself without blaming them. That is why blame must be undone, not seen elsewhere (not even in you)… You cannot enter God’s Presence if you attack His Son. T-11.IV. 5 His Son, brothers, sisters and self are One.
Who shall I condemn? Would I condemn myself? Misguided learning is so deeply embedded within us, it has become the social, moral, and corporate systems of inequality projected from a collective insane psyche and believed to be normal
Throwing stones, verbal or physical cannot bring peace, and will not heal our wounds. God’s Son is …in need of comfort for he knows not what he does believing his will is not his own. Please do not think violence should be overlooked or attackers held unaccountable. I am not saying, turn a blind eye. I am suggesting we look inside our self to see the if meanings we have given to events, the emotions triggered and the guidance we accept as truth, show us to be persons lusting after ego.
I would suggest opening the heart’s ear. Listening, empathizing, and holding each other without judgment or defensiveness. Having real conversations, and allowing our feelings be brought into the light of awareness can expose and dispel the myths we have lived with for lifetimes. Our gossip, our media, our thirst for sensationalism has exacerbated our personal painful narratives and left us feeling isolated. One on one, these stories lose their bloody glory. Face to face with our feelings we begin to unravel the lies.
When all of her accusers had left Jesus said to the woman…Go and sin no more. He gave a directive. She would need to change her behavior. She would need to give her heart to something other than a married man. She would need to stop lusting after ego.
I know I have to accept change. I know we are not bodies, not colors, not cultures, or our learning. But I must pursue more honestly the question, what am I? Who are you? What is this Life we are given? Am I willing to share it? How, dear God, do I hold love now and drop the rocks that have shattered our unity?
We are the light of the world shining on each other. And it is time we turn that light around to shine awareness upon the dark beliefs that are the source of our misery. Let’s gaze deeply upon each other and find sameness. Let’s listen intently and learn of our innocence. The peace of God waits in my brothers and sisters for me to quiet my mind and open my heart.