Have you ever felt judged? Even to the point that, if you tried to say anything in your defense, it would be useless? Perhaps the judgment had some semblance of validity, but the harshness of someone’s negative assumptions about you, skewing the truth, gave no room to affirm what’s positive. Perhaps you were simply an easy target to be judged in a bigger power game that had more at stake than your well-being.
Take the story in John 8.1-20. It starts off like this: Early in the morning Jesus came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him.
What are the religious leaders judging here? Adultery? Then where’s the second party, the guy? Doesn’t it take two? So where’s the justice here?
The woman apparently is a pawn while they try to trap the bigger bait, Jesus. What exactly is the trap they have in mind? There seem to be several targets here. What would you consider justice in this situation?
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