Writing in the dust

I have written elsewhere about the encounter of Jesus with ‘the woman caught in adultery’ (Jn. 8:2-11) as how he handled the situation (set-up) is intriguing. Like many biblical stories we are challenged as to how we read it. There is the obvious patriarchal bias in the Pharisees – the woman is brought, but the man?… and that bias continues in so much of the Christian faith – the woman is to blame for the sin committed; the man has to be restored.

In what I wrote I suggested that Jesus does not reply immediately as he buys time by writing in the dust. He did not come to each and every situation with a ready made encyclopedia full of the right answers. As one of us he had to dig deep; as one different to us he did not quickly respond with the right (‘religious’ nor even ‘biblical’) answer. Jesus leaned on God and was always the Great Teacher because he was the Great Learner. Buying time and connecting. Connecting with our humanity for we came from the dust and are but dust of the earth. Connecting with the realities of life, our humanity and also the presence of ‘the serpent’ who crawls on its belly on the dust of the ground. Jesus bridged as always the gap between the divine and the human. If we are to come with a ‘God response’ we have to touch, and be touched by, humanity. And if we are to touch humanity we have to be connected to the divine. Then an answer can come that is deeper than the right answer, but is the redemptive solution so that an empowerment, that is both a release from condemnation and a breaking free of enslavement, results.

And yet there is more. I owe this further observation to a post I read yesterday by Conrad Gempf:
(https://gempf.com/wp/2026/05/29/a-non-supernatural-miracle-john-82-11/). (My take – read his post for a fuller observation.)

Conrad draws out that in Jesus’ response he provokes the accusers to find their own humanity. They come as a collective and the result would have been that they (‘the crowd’) would have stoned the woman. Jesus responded to the crowd / mob but addressed each one as an individual – ‘Let anyone (lit: the one) among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’

Don’t hide behind the crowd, don’t go with the crowd. He pushes them to their own (fallen but ever so human) humanity.

Personal responsibility; the mob no longer is a cover, no longer an excuse. They came as a crowd but left as individuals: ‘When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.’

The story began with the woman ‘standing before them’ and ends with the ‘them’ having gone (one by one) and she is standing before Jesus. Two different places to stand. Standing before a patriarchal crowd strengthened by religious ‘rightness’. And finally standing before true humanity. The ‘one by one’ crowd that was ever so right have gone when they face their fallenness. She remains.