There’s an old Peanuts cartoon that opens with Lucy glaring at her mother: "You promised me a birthday party, and now you say I can't have it.  It's not fair!"

Her brother Linus tries to intervene: "You're not using the right strategy.  Why don’t you just say, ‘I'm sorry, mother.  You were right.  And from now on I’ll try to be good!’"

Lucy ponders that for a moment and then cries out, "I'd rather die!"

 

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How readily we let our egos back us into places we’d never want to be.  And how foolishly we shut our hearts and plug our ears, when those who know and love us try to speak the truth that will set us free.

Jesus knew this about us, as he faced that adulteress and her accusers in Sunday's gospel.  She was engaged, but somehow she’d got herself entangled with a married man, hurting his family and betraying her own  future husband.  Jesus hated what she'd done, but he looked past it and into her heart, and saw there one of God's children, foolish and confused, but one of God’s own.  And he knew she had to be saved - from herself as well as from her accusers.

And what of those accusers?  Why were they so angry?  They were afraid that their own wives might do the same thing - if given the chance, for they remembered how often they themselves had committed adultery.  So the woman had to die, to warn their wives.  But, of course, the adulterous husband would go free, because “boys will be boys!"

Jesus hated the hypocrisy of their double standard, but again he looked past it, into their hearts, and there too he saw more of God's confused, foolish children, who desperately needed to be saved from themselves.  It was a difficult challenge in view of their lack of any visible desire to be saved.

The temptation was to denounce and condemn both sides; but instead Jesus spoke to both in the tones of a wise brother, who wanted a real life for them all.  Very quietly he said, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”  And with that he fell absolutely silent, bent over and drew in the sand, looking at no one.

His silence, which had no hate or ugliness in it, just stillness and peace, unlocked their hearts, and let them see themselves for what they were: flawed, but brothers and sisters, who must be cherished and helped.  And one by one, they dropped their stones and walked away from the hateful sin they were about to commit.

"Has no one condemned you?" Jesus asked the bride-to-be.

"No one, sir," she answered in a quivering voice.

"Neither do I condemn you," he said.  "Go home now, and sin no more."            

 

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Jesus' words are for us as well.  Take them deep inside, trust them, live them, and speak them from the heart to your brothers and sisters - always and in every place.

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