John 8:6-8
Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in the dirt. They kept at him, badgering him. He straightened up and said, “The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone.” Bending down again, he wrote some more in the dirt.
Scripture quotations from The Message. © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved.
The first year I taught, I had 31 first-grade students…and a year-long supply budget of $50. This was supposed to furnish me with everything from chalk to “magic markers” to paper for arts and crafts. So I made a list of things that I thought I might need to supplement this tiny budget…and I asked each child to bring one item on the list. One child brought potting soil…another brought tissues…another brought some construction paper, and so on. One little girl was asked to bring plastic cups. I planned to use these for things like planting beans as a science experiment (hence the potting soil I had requested!).
One morning, this child arrived with a big brown paper sack and a smile that covered her face. “Here are the cups,” she said proudly. “My mom got married, and they were left over from her wedding.” Inside were more than two dozen plastic wine glasses with snap-on “stems”. You can’t make this stuff up! I thanked her for the contribution and put them on the shelf with the other supplies. Some almost-40 years later, I cannot recall what we did with the cups, but I know we used them for something. We had to…it meant too much to this little girl.
Never mind that a lot of the other parents would be less than thrilled for their child to bring home a bean growing out of a stemmed wine “goblet”…forget that this was not really a suitable “planter” for the science project. To have tossed these aside as less than acceptable would have been the same as telling this darling little brown-eyed girl that she was not worthy – that her contribution was no good. And yet, we do this to people every single day in some form or another.
We make snap judgments and criticize…we blame others for things that there is no way they could have controlled…we lift ourselves by trying to make other people look small…we “cast stones” and pretend that we are sinless. We know better…but somehow, we cannot seem to do better!
I wonder just how long Jesus will continue to draw and dig in the sand and be patient with us. He’s already shown us more mercy and tolerance than any of us could ever deserve. Isn’t it time we started checking ourselves a little more closely? Shouldn’t we be asking that proverbial question, “What would Jesus do?” a little more often…and then making our thoughts, words and actions line up with His? Aren’t you ready to drop the stones…and have others drop the ones they have lined up for you? Wouldn’t this be a good day to begin?
©2015 Debbie Robus
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