A Prayer: for the ones who were turned into an object lesson
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
-
Scapegoating
11 min read
The article repeatedly invokes the concept of scapegoating as a mechanism of institutional power and mob behavior. Understanding the psychological and sociological origins of scapegoating—from the ancient Hebrew ritual to René Girard's mimetic theory—would deepen comprehension of why this pattern recurs across religious and secular contexts.
-
Jesus and the woman taken in adultery
12 min read
This is the scholarly name for the John 8:1-11 passage central to the article. The Wikipedia entry covers the fascinating textual history—why this story appears in brackets in many Bibles, debates about its authenticity, and how it entered the canon—which most readers likely don't know despite familiarity with the story itself.
-
Stoning
19 min read
The article references the threat of stoning as the punishment the woman faced. Understanding the historical practice across cultures, its use in ancient Jewish law, and its continued occurrence in some regions today provides important context for why this story carries such weight and why Jesus's intervention was so radical.
Hi friends,
Last week we explored the Gospel story of a woman who was not collateral damage AKA the woman who was not stoned. It’s a story about an encounter with Jesus from John 8:1-11 (most of us know it as the “woman who was caught in adultery” but as we covered in that essay, I do not like that title) as part of our Unexpected Jesus series. You can find that essay here, if you haven’t had a chance to give it a read yet - you might need some of the context for what follows.
This week, I’ve written the companion prayer/meditation for that story. It’s a tender one, I think, and I hope it meets all of us who know the experience of being someone else’s cautionary tale or scapegoat well.
In particular, I was thinking of this part of that essay:
In this moment, Jesus makes a point of treating her as an equal. There is dignity for her, respect even. The accusers were treating her as a prop at best, an expendable scapegoat at worst, but this man sees her as a person, makes eye contact with her, saved her from the fate they imagined for her, and is raising her up to standing on her own two feet again.
She isn’t collateral damage. Not in God’s eyes. There is never a worthwhile trade of suffering for “the greater good” in the Kingdom of God. Every life has value, including hers. In the midst of all their games and entrapment plots and dangerous plans, Jesus never forgot that she was a real person, deserving care.
God, the amount of women who know all too well how it feels to be collateral damage to the greater good of some institution or program or leader is unfathomable, isn’t it? How many of us here know that feeling? And so I love that we have a story in our Bibles about Jesus interrupting that devastating experience on behalf of the victim, resetting not only the moment but her dignity, too.
For now, holding that story in our hearts, let’s pray:
Beloved friends, this is a prayer for all of us who know this kind of story all too well. Change the year, change the place, change the players, but the feeling of fear and shame, of exposure and falsehood, of betrayal and injustice, we know well.
...This excerpt is provided for preview purposes. Full article content is available on the original publication.