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Jesus told many powerful stories: The Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the Sheep and the Goats, and many others.  They are all worth our attention even if we don’t spend much time thinking about Jesus. One of the stories is about a woman caught committing adultery. Now adultery is defined in more than one way, but the most common definition is intercourse between two adults, one of whom is married to a third party, and in the Mosaic tradition, adultery was both a sin and a crime. In this particular story the Jewish leaders brought a woman to Jesus claiming she was caught “in the act” and wanted Jesus to say whether or not she should be stoned to death because of her sin.* It was a trap. Jesus lost either way. If he said yes, he would be arrested and probably killed himself because under Roman law, only Romans could execute anyone, and they were good at it. (Crucifixions, for example.) If he said no, he was not obeying Mosaic law, and the people would reject him. It was a good trap.

In the story, Jesus did not answer for a while and wrote something in the sand, then he countered with his own trap. He told the Jewish leaders, “Let him without sin throw the first stone”.  Now they were caught. If they did not stone the woman, they were not obeying Mosaic law and the people, who knew very well what they were like, would turn on them. If they did, the Roman police would get them and they’d be dead. It was a better trap. 

The story has them all slinking away but with a curious twist. The oldest left first, perhaps because they had more in their longer lives to disqualify them as stone throwers. Whatever, after they had all left the scene, Jesus told the woman to go and not sin anymore.

You do not have to be a Jew of two thousand years ago to get the point or feel the power of this story.

* Interestingly, the man is not mentioned in the story!